Following the last week EU Council, Nigel Dodds, Deputy Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, moved an Opposition day debate in the House of Commons, yesterday, on the European Union. During the debate Bill Cash made the following speech and interventions.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP): I beg to move, That this House commends the Prime Minister on his refusal at the European Council to sign up to a Treaty without safeguards for the UK; regards the use of the veto in appropriate circumstances to be a vital means of defending the national interests of the UK; and recognises the desire of the British people for a rebalancing of the relationship with our European neighbours based on co-operation and mutually beneficial economic arrangements. (…)
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Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con): This is a good moment to place on record the fact that the Democratic Unionist party has played a stalwart role in this whole business from the beginning. That needs to be put on the record, as part of the historic tribute that needs to be paid to that party in this matter.
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Mr Dodds: I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. The Prime Minister is right to say that it would have been entirely wrong, without sufficient protections, to have a treaty that, as he put it, would have hard-wired the situation into the European Union treaties. The hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) alluded to protections, but QMV does not provide the UK with much of a protection. As has been said already in the debate, given some of the vindictive language being used in European capitals at the moment, we must be very careful indeed. It is clear, in my view, that the status quo cannot stand in the medium to long term.
Mr Cash: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that what he is saying is incredibly important in terms of the future path, because the real problems are contained in the existing treaties themselves, which need to be fundamentally changed, along with our relationship with the European Union? That is the real problem. We should not just nibble at the edges.
Mr Dodds: The hon. Gentleman is right in that regard. We cannot have a situation in which a bloc of eurozone countries acting collectively can use its voting power at EU level to force through measures to the detriment of the UK’s national interest. Even the Deputy Prime Minister has warned against the dangers of a club within a club. The new club will have a common interest and act collectively. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland pointed that out in a recent article in The Spectator. He said:“a fiscally united eurozone will spend as a bloc, tax as a bloc…and…vote as a bloc”, and he is absolutely right
For that reason and a host of others it is clear, as the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) said, that a fundamental reassessment of our relationship with the EU is required. The Prime Minister’s use of the veto is very welcome. Saying no to Europe has been and remains almost unthinkable for some in the political elite, no matter what the cost in terms of our national interests, but the question now is: where do we go from here?
As things stand we are left with all the old familiar problems with the EU that we had before the European Council. We are left with the huge issues of loss of sovereignty and EU control of vast swathes of UK laws and policies. We are still committed as a country, because of the EU treaties, to “ever closer political union”. We remain subject, for instance, to the common fisheries policy, to the plethora of regulations and directives that stifle competitiveness and growth, and to interference in criminal justice and home affairs. Not least, we are still required to contribute almost £10 billion per year net to the EU at a time when domestic budgets are being slashed, and QMV provisions under the Lisbon treaty have reduced the areas where we can say no to EU intrusion.
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Mr Redwood: Can the Minister assure me that the Government have no intention of agreeing to this fiscal pact or of letting them use EU institutions to enforce it?
Mr Lidington: The position on the use of the institutions was set out in some detail by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister yesterday. The truthful response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) is that we are at an early stage. The 26 countries agreed to a pact, but not to a legal instrument, and we do not yet know what action they plan to take. We want the new treaty—if it turns out to be a treaty—to work in stabilising the euro and putting it on a firm foundation, and we understand why those countries want to use the institutions, but it is new territory and raises important issues that we will need to explore with our colleagues in those other European countries.
In the months to come, our intention is to be engaged in the debate about how institutions that have been created and built to serve the interests of all 27 member states and not some subset should continue to operate fairly for all member states and, in particular, for the United Kingdom. We have been very supportive of the role that the institutions—in particular, the Commission—have played in safeguarding the single market, and we will look constructively at any proposals with an open mind, but we need to be clear that if this country had agreed treaty change without safeguards, there would be no discussions going on at all and no protection for important United Kingdom interests.
It is not the case that there was something extraordinary or wrong about the Prime Minister’s decision to veto agreement to a treaty at the level of 27 member states last weekend. The safeguards that he was seeking were safeguards not just for the United Kingdom, but for the whole of the European Union. They were modest, reasonable and relevant and, when they were not forthcoming, the Prime Minister made the right decision, which was to use our veto to protect our national interest.
As the right hon. Member for Belfast North said, we have heard before many of the dire warnings about isolation and retaliatory measures. We heard them when the euro was first created, and it turned out that far from joining the euro being a great opportunity for the UK and for UK business, we were well served by the decision to stay out of the single currency, and I have seen little evidence in the last couple of years to persuade me that—
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Mr Cash: I am profoundly and deeply grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way at last. Would he care to comment on the report in the newspapers today that the Government have already received legal advice that they can use the institutions in relation to the agreement of the 26? The European Scrutiny Committee will be looking into this matter extremely carefully and will no doubt ask him to come to give advice on that matter.
Mr Lidington: I look forward with my usual sense of delight to the opportunity to give evidence to my hon. Friend’s Committee. Seriously, I would be happy, as would my officials and those from other Departments, to give evidence to his Committee, but my hon. Friend has been in the House long enough to know that no Minister of any Government comments on legal advice that Ministers may or may not have received.
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Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con): The reality is that the markets are already demonstrating that there is almost no chance of the euro being saved. In addition, it is way beyond legal devices for people to claim that they will be able to stitch together an arrangement through some method of enhanced co-operation, article 136 and all the rest of it, against the background of the implosion going on outside in the eurozone, and indeed in the European Union as a whole. I am disturbed by some of the language that I have been reading in the papers. As I indicated in an intervention on my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe, legal advice has already been given, presumably by the Foreign Office, to the Government that they will be able to stitch together some kind of device that will enable the European Commission and the European Court of Justice to give a spurious authority—a spurious jurisdiction—to the deal between the 17 plus the others that wish to join in with them.
I would go further and say that, as has been said by a number of my hon. Friends, there are indications that some of the countries concerned are beginning to realise that when they go back to their Parliaments they will have to look also to their electors. The idea of unanimity in the confines of the euro establishment’s comfy offices is not quite the same as having to face the consequences of the austerity measures, and to face up to protests and riots in some of those countries. That is where the decisions will eventually be taken, because we are talking about people; we are not talking about machines. We are not just talking about jurisdiction. There is far too much talk of trying to stitch up arrangements for the sake of convenience. Mr Stewart Jackson: Is my hon. Friend not as incredulous as I am that those on the left in this country and across Europe are willing to be complicit in support for these fiscal policies? Working people in Europe will be subject to social discord, stagflation, unemployment and depression for the sake of the continuation of the European Union’s policies.
Mr Cash: Yes. This fantasy of a European Union and how it has developed through the existing treaties is the reason why we have the crisis in Europe as a whole. That is why we need fundamental change: the existing treaties are the cause of the crisis. It is not just a question of the single markets or, for that matter, the single market—
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Michael Connarty: I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman but I think he is perhaps getting carried away by his own conclusions before using logic. Clearly, the crisis that faces all the countries in Europe, and most other developed countries, comes from the profligate madness of the casino-based banking system that all the countries joined in with. The eurozone might be under greater pressure, but it is not in as bad a condition, in reality, as the US economy at this moment. It is just that, unlike the US, it is not united enough to deal with the crisis as one country.
Mr Cash: I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but with about 47% youth unemployment in Spain and in Greece, for example, and 30% in Italy, and so on, youth unemployment is a really serious problem, and there is not the same problem in some of the other countries to which the hon. Gentleman referred.
I am afraid that both the Opposition and the Liberal Democrats are completely out of their depth on this subject. For the Deputy Prime Minister to say that this historic vote, which will change the whole future of the European Union and our relationship with it, is bad for Britain is simply absurd. I do not want to go further than that, but I want to get on the record the fact that it is irresponsible of the Deputy Prime Minister to make such a statement. To claim that influence can be retained in a room when you know in advance not only that everyone will vote against you but that they all have the power to continue to do so involves living in a fantasy world not unlike that of Alice in Wonderland.
Let me turn briefly to the question of this attempt, this device, this spurious method that people are trying to stitch together to give the measure some degree of authority despite all the realities of the crisis in the eurozone and in the European Union as a whole. There is an attempt to give the European Court of Justice and the European Commission some jurisdiction over this so-called separate treaty. I am not at all sure that it will be a treaty—at best it will only be an agreement—but people are calling it a treaty. I am very worried about the looseness of the language; I want just to make that point on its own.
The main objection to reinforcing the eurozone by means of an intergovernmental agreement is that the rules agreed under the European Union treaties—by which I mean EU primary legislation—by the 27 member states for the operation of the eurozone are to be modified by a separate agreement that does not have primacy over EU treaty law, and so cannot modify or be in conflict with EU treaty law, and that has not been agreed to by all 27 member states. It is vital to stick to that principle, which is at the heart of how the European Union functions. I might be critical of how the European Union has developed under the existing treaties, but those who are against us cannot have it both ways.
As for the objective, the hope seems to be that the provisions of an international agreement can be incorporated “into the treaties of the Union as soon as possible.”
That is in the statement on the agreement. In other words, the objective of getting the arrangement stitched up into the new treaty has already been set. I must advise the Government that it will not be in their interests to give effect to the proposal through a stitch-up or a device. The European Scrutiny Committee, of course, will be considering all those questions. In addition, the EU treaties require unanimity, so in order to make such a change unanimity would be required—unanimity that would have to include the United Kingdom. That would lead to a great deal of trouble for the Government if they were to attempt to achieve a stitch-up.
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Mr Cash: As one of the immovable objects to which the hon. Gentleman refers, may I stress that we are talking about the rule of law? I am sure he would not want a device to be used which attempted to bypass the legal processes of the very treaties that he so strongly advocates. Martin Horwood: Of course not, and the law will be followed, but we may find that European Governments have to gather yet again for more crisis summits in the not-too-distant future. That offers Britain a bit of an opportunity. We now need a process of positive and active diplomacy to persuade some of our more traditional allies in Europe—Ireland, Sweden, even Germany, and many others—of the benefits of having Britain fully involved not in the eurozone, but in the overall process of European economic decision making. Why? Because one of the medium to long-term solutions to Europe’s problems is to have a real focus on jobs and sustainable prosperity—jobs and prosperity in the UK, as well as in the rest of Europe because, as has been pointed out, half our trade and foreign direct investment comes from other EU members.
The argument about repatriating powers, let alone leaving the EU, completely misses the point. It is in our interest not just to have a competitive and vibrant British economy, but for there to be a competitive and vibrant European economy as well, and Britain can help to bring that about. It is not just in Britain’s interest to be at the heart of the European economy and European economic decision making; it is in Europe’s interests too, and that in turn will help British jobs, British business and British prosperity.
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Mr Cash: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, in the light of everything he has so soundly said, it would be extremely unwise for our own Government to make any attempt to endorse the arrangement, given its uncertainty and apparent instability?
Sammy Wilson: Absolutely. As other nations start to look at the implications of the deal and see the essentially undemocratic nature of it, they will ask themselves whether they are prepared to put their destiny in the hands of the European Commission. (…)
