Meeting of the Parliament 09 June 2015
I will say a brief word about the tragic death of my fellow Highlander, Charles Kennedy. His presence will be particularly missed in the forthcoming debates on Europe, because I am sure that he would have relished the opportunity to speak up for the UK’s continued membership of the European Union in debates of this kind.
There is a certain mischievous approach that has been adopted by the Scottish Government in the debate. We all know that Westminster will ultimately decide the European Union Referendum Bill, but the SNP is going to take every possible opportunity to use the EU referendum debates to further its own agenda, and this debate is an early warning of that. I suppose that it is quite natural for the SNP to do that.
David Cameron made it quite clear in our 2015 manifesto that a future Conservative Government would introduce a bill to enable a referendum on Britain’s future membership of the EU. We now comfortably have that mandate from the British people. Our commitment to allowing citizens of the UK a say in an in/out referendum on the EU has never been stronger. Change is required and I remind the Liberal Democrats that, not that long ago, they pushed the case for a referendum on EU membership with more vigour than we did. Now we have the acting Labour leader, Harriet Harman, supporting the Conservative Government on having a referendum on EU membership by the end of 2017.
Let us not forget that it was the SNP that wanted Britain out of the then European Community in the 1970s, with many members campaigning against EU membership right through the 80s and 90s. That was at the same time that the Conservative Government helped to create the single market under Mrs Thatcher. Later on, the Major Government successfully achieved the principle of subsidiarity, opting out of the excesses of the Maastricht treaty. The cabinet secretary may remember that the EU concessions, such as not joining the disastrous single currency or the social chapter, were achieved by John Major’s Conservative Government.
I am a committed supporter of the European Union but I do not always see it through rose-tinted spectacles. There is much wastage and also an erosion of national culture and authority that is counterproductive and unnecessary. Britain has always been an outward-looking nation—