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Chris Bryant: Before the right hon. and learned Gentleman moves on from the issue of Turkey joining the EU, will he also reject the opinion voiced in some European countries that there should be a principled objection to Turkey joining the EU because that would increase the Islamicisation of Europe?

Sir Menzies Campbell: I agree entirely. Some people—as the negotiations over the Convention gave some indication—wanted to assert that the European Union be based on Christian principles and, by inference, to exclude the possibility of Turkey's accession. I was certainly resistant to that and am glad that the issue was resolved so as to allow for the accession of Turkey.

Mr. Hendrick: I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way, but I feel that he was rather harsh on the Romanian Government. Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to speak to the Romanian President, who told me a great deal about the work that is going on in that country to stamp out corruption. Indeed, the report written by the right hon. and learned Gentleman's colleague in the European Parliament—a former Member of the House, Miss Emma Nicholson—was quite a harsh one and was seen in the context of Romanian national elections this year, in which his sister party will be looking to do well.

Sir Menzies Campbell: The hon. Gentleman should pay some regard to the conduct of those elections and the extent to which opposition parties are being allowed the sort of opportunities that he and I would think a necessary part of a fully democratic system.

The White Paper also refers to external issues and I certainly welcome the fact that the European Union is to assume responsibility for the military mission in Bosnia. That is an opportunity for the EU but it is also a test, and the EU must neither squander the opportunity nor fail the test. If the treaty provisions on common foreign and security policy are to mean anything, there must be far greater acceptance than there has so far been of the need to provide capability in the EU.

Finally, the White Paper talks about future financial arrangements. Here, I believe that the Government are perfectly correct to take the view that 1 per cent. of EU gross national income is a suitable budget ceiling. What is notable is that support for that position comes from France and, more particularly, from Germany. German support is of considerable significance because of Germany's history as a substantial net contributor to the European Union.

Let me turn to the question of the constitution. I have followed the debate about the primacy of law, and thought that for my own better understanding I would try to set out some propositions. The first is that Parliament is sovereign. A sovereign Parliament passes legislation to give effect to the obligations that are imposed on us by entering into a treaty. A sovereign
 
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Parliament can repeal that legislation and, as a consequence of doing so, can revoke the terms of the treaty, so arguments about where the constitution lies in relation to our domestic law seem capable of resolution on first principles. We enter into a treaty. We effect legislation, such as the legislation that followed the Maastricht treaty, but at any time this Parliament, which, by our constitutional doctrine, cannot bind its successors, can withdraw from those obligations and repeal the legislation.

Against that background, it seems that many of the anxieties and apprehensions are simply not justified in the way in which they are being expressed—as if they constituted some enormous break, hindrance or, indeed, derogation from the essential sovereignty of this place.

Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: The right hon. and learned Gentleman is aware, however, that that is not the view of the European Court of Justice, which has stated explicitly that EU law has primacy over national constitutions and national laws.

In the document to which we are being invited to sign up, we are putting into a European constitution that case law of the European Court of Justice. If this Parliament voluntarily assents to a primacy clearly stated in a different document—a European constitution—does that not create a quite unnecessary conflict between our understanding of our constitution and what we shall be agreeing to?

Sir Menzies Campbell: If I may say so, I think the right hon. Gentleman, who I freely acknowledge has spent a lot of time on this subject and is very knowledgeable, is over-complicating the issue. That is why I tried to set it out in a series of simple propositions. We accepted, by the Act of 1972, that European law had primacy. This House, subject to its own procedures, could repeal that provision tomorrow and that would be the end of the matter.

There are arguments about this. The right hon. and learned Member for Devizes and I had an argument earlier in the process about whether sovereignty rested with the people or with Parliament, but we need not retrace our steps in that regard. There is, and need be, no confusion. A sovereign Parliament can repeal legislation, can act to withdraw from treaties, and—if I may be forgiven a colloquialism—the European Court of Justice can go hang. That is the position. We have agreed by virtue of the 1972 Act that for so long as that Act is in force, European law should have primacy, but that is something that we have within our power to withdraw, and nothing contained in this treaty detracts or departs from that fundamental principle.

Mr. Quentin Davies: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

Sir Menzies Campbell: I will make some progress, if the hon. Gentleman will allow me.

It is unfortunate that the White Paper was not published a couple of days earlier, to allow us the opportunity for a more detailed look. I hope to spend some time examining it in detail. I also want to get my
 
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own personal copy—perhaps even autographed—of the Devizes document, which looks as though it will prove to have some political significance in the future.

My message to the Foreign Secretary is that documents will not win this referendum. What is necessary, if the referendum is to be won, is a campaign to inform and persuade the people of the United Kingdom. One thing is certain: the campaign against has begun. The campaign for has not, however, and those of us who think that an affirmative voice of the British people is essential must accept that we have given away rather a lot of ground so far, and that that ground will have to be made up.

I have what I suppose amounts to a compulsion to remind myself and the House on such occasions that the founding principles of the European Union, as set out in the preamble to this document, are a commitment to peace and prosperity, to building a common future and to burying the differences of the past, in particular the two world wars. We must never allow ourselves to forget that twice within 30 years, the continent of Europe was riven by wars, which caused enormous loss of life and enormous adverse economic effect, and part of the success of the European Union and of NATO has been the fact that is now inconceivable that the hostilities that characterised that period in the history of Europe would ever be reopened. That is of enormous value to us and we must not allow our natural anxiety about the common agricultural policy or things of that nature to deflect us from the understanding of the enormous importance that first the European Community and now the European Union have in preserving that peace, and also the extraordinary enthusiasm of those formerly part of the Warsaw pact for joining the European Union and for becoming part of all that it signifies.

Mrs. Browning: I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way, and I know that many people share his view that the EU was somehow responsible for peace in mainland Europe in the last century. Does he not concede that it was not the EU that stopped France and Germany tearing themselves apart as they had done in previous wars and centuries; it was the new threat, the cold war, of Russia and the Warsaw pact, and the combination of the US, through NATO, with western Europe that kept the peace in the last century? It was nothing to do with the EU.

Sir Menzies Campbell: Well, it is a pretty strong proposition to say that it was nothing to do with the EU. I think that the ghosts of Monnet, Schuman, Spaak and many others will be circling a little if they hear the hon. Lady's confident assertion.

I mentioned NATO. I am in no doubt that the contributions to the peace I described came from more than one source, but I am firmly of the view that the fact that the French and the Germans managed, in the immediate aftermath of the second world war, to form the European Coal and Steel Community was at the time regarded as the most extraordinary political development of that century.

Mr. Davidson: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

Sir Menzies Campbell: I shall move on, if I may.
 
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On subsidiarity, I am one of those who is supportive of the so-called yellow card—the early warning mechanism. Here the Foreign Secretary and I may part company. I am not convinced that five countries is necessarily the basis upon which to have a red card, but I do think that that principle would have been worth exploring a little further. Indeed, on a previous occasion I may have put forward the suggestion that two thirds of the Parliaments, if they took the view that what was being proposed was unacceptable, ought to have the ability not just to hold up their hand and issue a warning but to say, "This is legislation emanating from the European Union, which should be stopped in its tracks".

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