Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con): May I first join Members on both sides in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) on a magnificent speech introducing his Bill?
My first act of political campaigning was to take part in the 1979 referendum campaign. I was not old enough to vote, I hasten to add. However, I did go around putting leaflets through doors. I did so, first, because as a Conservative I strongly believed in the free trade opportunities that the European Economic Community represented. I thought it would be good for our economy and for business. I was also in favour because of the statements in the leaflets I was putting through the doors, such as “The case for staying in the EEC”, which said that we would gain, not lose, effective sovereignty over our destiny, and that in the last resort we would be able to veto any proposal put forward in Brussels if we considered it to be against our vital national interests.
There was also the leaflet paid for by the taxpayer that went through every single door in the country which stated:
“No important new policy can be decided in Brussels or anywhere else without the consent of a British Minister answerable to a British government and British Parliament.”
Since that time, we have seen those assurances undermined time and again.
I supported the single European Act because I thought, again, that it would represent an extension of the opportunities available for British business, and I remember that from the time when I worked with Margaret Thatcher, who has been quoted several times. She was the person who signed the single European Act, and she told us she did so because of the advice given to her by the lawyers, that it was designed to achieve the single market, and once that was done it was no longer necessary and it would, essentially, come off the statute book. Unfortunately the legal advice was wrong. It was not just confined to single market measures. That phrase was interpreted to push through measures that had nothing to do with the single market. It was for that reason that she started to become opposed to the direction of the European Union, and I did, too.
Since joining this House I have voted against the Maastricht treaty, the Nice treaty, the Amsterdam treaty and the Lisbon treaty, and I have seen successive Prime Ministers from both sides come back to this House and claim triumph either because they made what was on the table slightly less damaging than it would have been or because they had managed to negotiate an opt-out for this country. It is clear that the people in the other countries of the EU have a different vision—or at least their Governments do—as to the direction we should be moving in. It is time the British people are able to express a view on the truth, not as set out in 1975, and about the direction we know the EU wants to go in.
I hope the Prime Minister is successful in negotiating a new relationship. If he succeeds in doing so, I will be cheering him and I will campaign for a yes vote, but unless we have a different type of relationship, my next campaign in a referendum will be for a no vote.
