| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
3.25 pm
Mr. Denzil Davies (Llanelli): A mere glance at the list on the Order Paper of the documents that are before the House for this debate shows that, once again, the integrationist wagons of the European Union are on the move. Those documents deal with defence, legal reform, removal or possible removal of the veto over taxation matters, and developments on the euro.
I was interested to hear my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary's speech. He is clearly now one of the drivers of those integrationist wagons. He chided--probably correctly--the right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Portillo) for going to Damascus. My right hon. Friend has been to Damascus quite a few times in his political career. Saul became a greater man after going to Damascus. I do not know whether my right hon. Friend could be said to be a greater man: that is a matter for history to decide.
Step by step, the sovereignty and the democratic powers of the Governments and Parliaments of the old nation states of Europe are being dismantled, and they are being vested in a centralised European state that largely comprises bureaucratic institutions, perhaps tempered by a thin veneer of democratic legitimacy and accountability.
That erosion is taking place in all the nation states--not just in Britain. I suspect that the consequences for Britain will be more far-reaching than for most of the other member states. I understand that a Scottish sheriff has this week decided that Scotland is not a nation but a department of Britain. I shall leave that to one side, but my feeling is that Britain is more of a state than a nation. It comprises three nations, and to meld the three nations into the British state, which has been done quite successfully, it has been necessary to have central institutions of some power and authority with the Crown in Parliament at their apex. I have been in the House for 30 years--perhaps too long--and I believe that Parliament and the institutions of Britain are under a greater challenge than they have ever been in that period.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister recognises that because, in his speech to the national conference of the Women's Institute--[Laughter.] It is no good Conservatives Members laughing. The Prime Minister made an important point and sought to reassure his audience--whether he succeeded is another matter--of his commitment to Britain and to Britishness. The reality is that the Government's policies on devolution and the whole modernisation ethos that they have fostered, together with the drip, drip, drip of continuous erosion of power to Brussels, have led many people to question the Government's commitment to Britain, notwithstanding the Prime Minister's attempts at reassurance.
We have heard much about defence, so I shall not spend long over it. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and I participated in arguments on defence during the 1980s before the wall came down, when
defence was perhaps a more fraught subject than it is now. Attempts to create a European defence, security or strategic force--call it what you like--have in the main come from France, but, for obvious reasons, successive British Governments have resisted them, until my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister at the Cologne or Berlin summit, I cannot remember which, finally succumbed because the French were very persistent.Perphaps we have not yet been enlisted in a European army, but I expect the consequences of developments involving the European defence system to be important for Britain. We have heard all this before. We have been told, "Of course this will not happen. It is just to help the Americans." Well, we can help the Americans through NATO, if we want to. It is not about that; it is about the fact that France, in particular, wants to stand up to the Americans, and have something different.
If a state is to be centralised, it will need a currency. It will need its own defence forces, and a uniform legal system. Work has been done in that last regard. At Feira or Nice, not much may be heard of something grandly called corpus juris. That is an elitist title if there ever was one.
Mr. Menzies Campbell: It is a Roman title. That does not make it elitist.
Mr. Davies: I was being slightly ironic. In fact, it is a Latin title. Those of us who attended not just provincial universities but elitist universities know that Justinian's jurists--Byzantine jurists, in fact--thought it up.
These guys were clever. They did not choose the words "corpus juris" for some eccentric reason; they were sending a message. They were saying, "We need this again. We need a uniform legal system for this centralised European state." Justinian said the same, and, in the end, the Romans got it.
There is also the question of the charter of fundamental rights. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr. Davis) rightly expressed surprise and frustration about the fact that the European Union did not simply subscribe to the one that we have. Of course it will not. Nowadays, every state must have a charter of human rights, and they want the European Union charter rather than any other charter.
Both the Prime Minister and I went to elitist universities. We have the advantage over most Members who are present today, in that we read--rather than studying--a subject called jurisprudence. We read a lot about rights, so I know a lot about rights. What I cannot understand--being, at the end of the day, a simple common lawyer--is how it is possible to have rights that are not legally enforceable.
I know that some "jurisprude" went to an early grave when he talked about abstract rights. I understand that the Prime Minister has appointed Lord Goldsmith--a distinguished commercial lawyer--to negotiate on such rights. I am worried about that, because I believe that Lord Goldsmith comes from the same stable as Lord Irvine and Lord Falconer. I ask my right hon. Friend--rhetorically--how it is possible to have rights that are not legally enforceable. Perhaps brilliant commercial lawyers and Lord Chancellors can explain, but simple common lawyers do not quite understand.
I think that we are in the realm of metaphysics when we start talking about rights not being legally enforceable. Of course they will be. Sets of chambers are sprouting in the Temple every week. The aim is to milk this human rights business, probably even more intensely than Welsh farmers milk their Holsteins and their Friesians. The matter will go to the courts, and, as we know from the speech of the right hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. Maude), it will be part of the constitution that a single European state needs.
Then there is the euro. My right hon. Friends the euro-enthusiasts--the Foreign Secretary and the Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland and for Trade and Industry--are obviously panicking, as are their friends in business and the trade unions. I understand why they are panicking. They fear that, the longer the debate goes on, or does not go on, or the longer the time before a referendum comes along, the more difficult it will be to win.
One reason for that is the fact that the integrationist wagon is moving even on the euro. No doubt, by the time the referendum comes, we shall have seen more integration. The French are already calling for it, and what the French call for the French get, because they are cleverer than everyone else. The current Finance Minister, Mr. Fabius, is as clever as the last, and probably more of a euro-fanatic. The French have spotted what is happening, and they want an economic government.
When the strength of the euro descended from $1.17 to 85 cents in a fairly short time, the European elite was clearly rattled. I understand that, with a bit of help from its friends, the euro has now risen by a dime, but it can go down again. There are many reasons for the fall. I think one is the fundamental problem of the euro: it is a currency without a country, or a currency without a government.
Let us consider the days before Italy, for instance, joined the euro. If there were problems with Italy's budget, the financial markets--the teenage scribblers, as Lord Lawson once called them--would sell the lira. If there were problems in Greece, which I am told will join the euro, they would sell the drachma. Once the euro comes along, however, if there are economic problems in Italy, the Goldman Sachs of this world will sell the euro. It is necessary not only to co-ordinate, but to ensure that member states have very little discretion in their economic policies, because such discretion could affect the euro and other countries. Economic government is necessary.
The French will get their way. We have already seen the removal of discretion in monetary policy, which has gone to the Bank of England. The same applies, in part, to fiscal policy: we have the stability pact, which has removed much of the control that member states had over public expenditure. We need to go further, however. We need to deal with taxation. It is not possible to isolate taxation from monetary policy and, ultimately, from fiscal policy. Whether it is done by removing the veto, through co-ordination or by means of the guidelines that everyone likes to use nowadays, what needs to be done will be done in some way. I predict that, by the time the referendum comes, if it ever comes, the British public will be asked to buy not just the euro but a common system--or something close to it--of direct tax, income and corporation.
I understand why euro-fanatics like those in the Cabinet are worried. Time is running out, and they are not in control of events. Defence, the legal system, the currency, public expenditure and taxation are all going to Brussels, Frankfurt or the court in Luxembourg. There is not much left for the British Government and Parliament to do, and not much for a British electorate to vote for. Who knows? Perhaps there is not much left of Britain.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |