An outstanding Labour MP

The following is the end of the speech by Labour MP Gisela Stuart yesterday in Parliament. It is Labour MPs such as Ms Stuart who now hold the fate of British Democracy in their hands.

The EU Reform Treaty is so appalling that to adopt the Conservative Party approach of demanding a referendum having seen the earlier rejection by the French and Dutch completely disregarded is to completely ignore reality. This Treaty should be voted down in Parliament, not just in Westminster but across the entire EU. It will take many brave Labour MPs to ignore their whip, but any MP doing their duty to their constituents will be honour bound so to do.

3.6pm Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab):

(Conclusion only here, read the entire speech from this link to Hansard) "The new treaty also claims to give more power to national Parliaments, but that is extremely misleading. What it does is extraordinary. For the first time, the Union tries to put a duty on national Parliaments to behave in a particular way. We do not bind our successor Parliaments, yet we are being asked to accept a document that says:

“National Parliaments shall contribute actively to the good functioning of the Union”.

There is a whole list of ways in which we are supposed to fulfil that role—we will be informed, we will be seeing to things, we will taking part, and we will be notified, but will have no teeth other than in facilitating the functioning of the Union. I am sorry, but I have never perceived having a duty to serve the Union to be my role as a national parliamentarian—I thought that it was supposed to be the other way round.

The document still contains the citizens initiative whereby more than 1 million people across a number of member states are being given the right to initiate legislation—something that national Parliaments have not done.

I suggest to the Deputy Leader of the House that the Government should stop going on about what percentage of the treaty is what it was before and look at it properly. The Government say that the red lines that we have secured mean that we do not need a referendum, but those matters were already protected in the constitutional treaty on which we were prepared to have a referendum—nothing has changed. Opt-outs are continually politically vulnerable to pressure every time a crisis occurs. This is now a question of trust. It is a question of having given a commitment to a referendum on a document that we say is good for Britain. We should ask the people to endorse that. If we are so confident that it is good, we should have the confidence to ask the people.

The Foreign Secretary and the Minister for Europe deny that the treaty is substantial enough for us to be bound by that promise. Are they being deliberately disingenuous or are they ill-informed? I suggest to them some light summer reading—read the treaty, in English or in French. They can then come back and we can decide which one of the two interpretations is correct."

British voters encountering their MPs during the summer recess - especially at the party conferences must make clear to their MPs the consequences of throwing away the powers of the British Parliament.