10-03-2020, 02:52 PM
Mr. Speaker,
It's interesting to make an appearance after a lot of Members have had a lot to say about me. I would usually thank the government for tabling such a bill today, but the truth is there is nothing to thank. We have been here before. We have had this debate. And the House spoke decisively. They now wish to reheat this debate and waste this House's time. It is tiresome, arrogant and out of touch.
The government have said they have heard the criticisms of those who voted noe and have adjusted accordingly. The truth is, Mr. Speaker, nothing within Maastricht has been adjusted. They have slapped it in with some of the weakest Parliamentary guarantees I have ever seen: a vague referendum lock which they have ensured does not even apply to their own treaty and a toothless Select Committee. It does nothing to address the concerns we made of the actual contents of the treaty, of which despite the misrepresentations of this shameless Prime Minister there were some - and trust me Mr. Speaker I will get onto those and make my warning to him later.
It begs the question Mr. Speaker, who did the government speak to that they didn't end up buying off with a Ministerial car instead of actual concessions on the Maastricht treaty? It certainly wasn't the Labour Party, Mr. Speaker. It definitely was not the principled Member for Havant. It wasn't the horde of angry Members of Parliament on the Conservative benches who had defected in disgust at the weak and unprincipled leadership they have seen.
I do not think it is controversial for me to say that those in this House who voted contrary to the will of this House have no right to speak for me and other Members of this House that voted in line with it and tell us what we wanted. This kind of shameless arrogance makes this House a laughing stock to the British public and to the wider world.
Because we know the only person the government saw fit to negotiate with was the Deputy Prime Minister. And they did not negotiate by extracting concessions that would benefit this nation and the communities and individuals within it, but by instead strengthening the career of the Deputy Prime Minister and offering him a Ministerial car and salary. We know the British people have been let down by this government's backroom details too many times. This, I'm afraid to say Mr. Speaker, is another of those times where the British people have been sold out to give more private school boys and Oxbridge graduates a career boost.
The very fact the Foreign Secretary sees fit to use old quotes against me in this debate shows he knows this is an argument where nothing has fundamentally changed, where we makes the same points to each other again. I will not entertain it and take the British people for such fools. They know that while I made clear I did not oppose more cooperation with Europe, this treaty was rotten to its core: it prioritised the City over the rest of the country and put this country on the road to an inevitable Federal Europe, only offering brakes when we should have been offered the opportunity to chart our own course. The Foreign Secretary could've done his job and negotiated stronger worker and consumer protections; could've negotiated more money going into our poorest communities through the Regional Development Fund; could've negotiated the recognition of this very Parliament within Europe's bureaucratic structures and given this whole House the recognised right to scrutinise European legislation.
Instead, in his arrogance, he saw it fit to negotiate absolutely nothing within the treaty that the opposition had asked for. It is a shame of the highest magnitude. More than a shame, it is a sham.
Now I turn my attention onto the Prime Minister, whose behaviour has been so slippery and untoward it has managed to make the Honourable Gentleman for Buckingham look like a man who sticks to his guns - surely his most defining achievement after a period in the Foreign Office marked by blunders so great that even his Home Secretary has criticised it extensively.
The Prime Minister is right when he says Labour is more critical of what is not in the Treaty than what is in it as if this is some moment that exposes us all. I am not afraid to say, Mr. Speaker, that this is half true and the Labour Party has never shied away from this fact: while we did not oppose the three pillars in principle, it could lay the foundation for a Federal Europe that would have needed stronger guarantees within the Treaty. We've also made it completely transparent we opposed the aspects of this treaty that have prioritised the City of London instead of this country's nations and regions, including the Prime Minister's constituency of Crosby in Merseyside and the Foreign Secretary's own constituency of Conwy in Wales. These guarantees could have been negotiated and would have won our support. Again, the government have been so arrogant as to presuppose they knew best for the British people and their elected representatives, not that we knew better for ourselves and our constituencies.
Conservative Members of this House had two choices in their leadership election: to pick between the candidate who wanted Con Home, and another who wanted to con the House. They appear to have picked the latter, and it is the British people who will miss out.
If you want the starkest example of the government's hypocrisy, lets talk about the Prime Minister on referendums.
He criticises Labour for a u-turn that never was. Despite my stating in January this year that "we also believe the British public should have a choice on the euro. But we believe they should have one on Maastricht too", before any Labour whips were removed and the Let's Lead Europe campaign was even formed," he wants to make out that Labour policy only supported a referendum on the euro once a rebellion had occurred.
Let us look at the real u-turn: the Prime Minister pretending referenda were constitutionally objectionable, before deciding to have a referendum lock. I'll be honest, Mr. Speaker, that the Prime Minister came to the right conclusion does not particularly bother me.
But there is, as always with this Prime Minister Mr. Speaker, a great caveat: his own treaty would be exempt from such principle.
The government have scrambled for excuses as to why this could not be. They have stated that this treaty does not change Britain's constitution or cede any sovereignty, and yet when asked which constitutional or legal experts agreed with this assessment I was not provided with an answer or name at all.
This House when presented with a treaty only months ago chose to reject it, Mr. Speaker. Now it has been reheated, with shabby concessions plastered onto it, the government wants us to wave it through once again not on the basis the treaty has changed or improved, but on the condition the right people have been bought off. I won't have it, Mr. Speaker. Neither will the British people. We cannot laugh in their faces in this way. So I ask the House to reject this bill, or to at least accept some of the more common sense amendments offered by principled Conservative backbenchers.
It's interesting to make an appearance after a lot of Members have had a lot to say about me. I would usually thank the government for tabling such a bill today, but the truth is there is nothing to thank. We have been here before. We have had this debate. And the House spoke decisively. They now wish to reheat this debate and waste this House's time. It is tiresome, arrogant and out of touch.
The government have said they have heard the criticisms of those who voted noe and have adjusted accordingly. The truth is, Mr. Speaker, nothing within Maastricht has been adjusted. They have slapped it in with some of the weakest Parliamentary guarantees I have ever seen: a vague referendum lock which they have ensured does not even apply to their own treaty and a toothless Select Committee. It does nothing to address the concerns we made of the actual contents of the treaty, of which despite the misrepresentations of this shameless Prime Minister there were some - and trust me Mr. Speaker I will get onto those and make my warning to him later.
It begs the question Mr. Speaker, who did the government speak to that they didn't end up buying off with a Ministerial car instead of actual concessions on the Maastricht treaty? It certainly wasn't the Labour Party, Mr. Speaker. It definitely was not the principled Member for Havant. It wasn't the horde of angry Members of Parliament on the Conservative benches who had defected in disgust at the weak and unprincipled leadership they have seen.
I do not think it is controversial for me to say that those in this House who voted contrary to the will of this House have no right to speak for me and other Members of this House that voted in line with it and tell us what we wanted. This kind of shameless arrogance makes this House a laughing stock to the British public and to the wider world.
Because we know the only person the government saw fit to negotiate with was the Deputy Prime Minister. And they did not negotiate by extracting concessions that would benefit this nation and the communities and individuals within it, but by instead strengthening the career of the Deputy Prime Minister and offering him a Ministerial car and salary. We know the British people have been let down by this government's backroom details too many times. This, I'm afraid to say Mr. Speaker, is another of those times where the British people have been sold out to give more private school boys and Oxbridge graduates a career boost.
The very fact the Foreign Secretary sees fit to use old quotes against me in this debate shows he knows this is an argument where nothing has fundamentally changed, where we makes the same points to each other again. I will not entertain it and take the British people for such fools. They know that while I made clear I did not oppose more cooperation with Europe, this treaty was rotten to its core: it prioritised the City over the rest of the country and put this country on the road to an inevitable Federal Europe, only offering brakes when we should have been offered the opportunity to chart our own course. The Foreign Secretary could've done his job and negotiated stronger worker and consumer protections; could've negotiated more money going into our poorest communities through the Regional Development Fund; could've negotiated the recognition of this very Parliament within Europe's bureaucratic structures and given this whole House the recognised right to scrutinise European legislation.
Instead, in his arrogance, he saw it fit to negotiate absolutely nothing within the treaty that the opposition had asked for. It is a shame of the highest magnitude. More than a shame, it is a sham.
Now I turn my attention onto the Prime Minister, whose behaviour has been so slippery and untoward it has managed to make the Honourable Gentleman for Buckingham look like a man who sticks to his guns - surely his most defining achievement after a period in the Foreign Office marked by blunders so great that even his Home Secretary has criticised it extensively.
The Prime Minister is right when he says Labour is more critical of what is not in the Treaty than what is in it as if this is some moment that exposes us all. I am not afraid to say, Mr. Speaker, that this is half true and the Labour Party has never shied away from this fact: while we did not oppose the three pillars in principle, it could lay the foundation for a Federal Europe that would have needed stronger guarantees within the Treaty. We've also made it completely transparent we opposed the aspects of this treaty that have prioritised the City of London instead of this country's nations and regions, including the Prime Minister's constituency of Crosby in Merseyside and the Foreign Secretary's own constituency of Conwy in Wales. These guarantees could have been negotiated and would have won our support. Again, the government have been so arrogant as to presuppose they knew best for the British people and their elected representatives, not that we knew better for ourselves and our constituencies.
Conservative Members of this House had two choices in their leadership election: to pick between the candidate who wanted Con Home, and another who wanted to con the House. They appear to have picked the latter, and it is the British people who will miss out.
If you want the starkest example of the government's hypocrisy, lets talk about the Prime Minister on referendums.
He criticises Labour for a u-turn that never was. Despite my stating in January this year that "we also believe the British public should have a choice on the euro. But we believe they should have one on Maastricht too", before any Labour whips were removed and the Let's Lead Europe campaign was even formed," he wants to make out that Labour policy only supported a referendum on the euro once a rebellion had occurred.
Let us look at the real u-turn: the Prime Minister pretending referenda were constitutionally objectionable, before deciding to have a referendum lock. I'll be honest, Mr. Speaker, that the Prime Minister came to the right conclusion does not particularly bother me.
But there is, as always with this Prime Minister Mr. Speaker, a great caveat: his own treaty would be exempt from such principle.
The government have scrambled for excuses as to why this could not be. They have stated that this treaty does not change Britain's constitution or cede any sovereignty, and yet when asked which constitutional or legal experts agreed with this assessment I was not provided with an answer or name at all.
This House when presented with a treaty only months ago chose to reject it, Mr. Speaker. Now it has been reheated, with shabby concessions plastered onto it, the government wants us to wave it through once again not on the basis the treaty has changed or improved, but on the condition the right people have been bought off. I won't have it, Mr. Speaker. Neither will the British people. We cannot laugh in their faces in this way. So I ask the House to reject this bill, or to at least accept some of the more common sense amendments offered by principled Conservative backbenchers.