Speech by Timothy Kirkhope MEP at Open Europe Debate
Posted, March 18, 2010 @ 00:00
The Priorities the next UK government should have in Europe
Ladies & Gentlemen,
The General Election is going to be about trust.
Who can be trusted to drive forward Britain's economic recovery - the party responsible for the crisis, or the party which, when last in office, left Britain with its strongest economy for over two generations?
Who can be trusted to reform our public services - the party which has simply thrown money, so-called "targets", and ever increasing bureaucracy at our hospitals, our schools, and our police forces, or the party which believes in reforming the public sector by encouraging public choice and empowering local professionals?
Who can be trusted to defend our national security - the party which has let our armed forces down in not providing the means they needed to defend our interests in action overseas, or the party which will always respect their needs and value their commitment to the safety of our nation.
And so it is with Europe. The public needs a government which can be trusted to promote Britain's national interests in the European Union by advancing its ideas clearly and firmly, and engaging constructively with our fellow members to develop the kind of Europe the public wants: a European Union which can earn their respect and merit their confidence.
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The fact is that during the 13 years of this government, public support for our membership of the European Union has fallen, it is lower now then when they took office. That is a sad indictment of their record in Europe. For all the sound-bites and soft words, the Government hasn't delivered in Europe and the public knows it.
The Government simply hasn't offered clear or consistent leadership:
To the British public they pledged to defend the British rebate and to get reform in Europe, whilst in Brussels they sacrificed part of the rebate in return for the offer of a 'review' of the CAP - a very expensive review.
In Brussels time and again they have bent over backwards to accommodate the demands of other members to prove they are 'good Europeans', whilst indulging in macho posturing in the British media, puffing up the strength of their negotiating positions and the importance of their so-called 'red lines'.
They agreed enthusiastically to sign up to the Lisbon Treaty but, rather than have the courage of his supposed convictions, the British Prime Minister invented excuses so he could arrive late in order to miss the official signing ceremony, and then he told us it didn't really matter as the Treaty was just a tidying up exercise and that most of the substantial changes didn't really apply to us anyway.
And, in the ultimate betrayal, the Government told the British people they would have a chance to vote in a referendum on the Constitution and then, when such referendums proved difficult to win, they agreed with the other member states to re-package the Constitution as the Lisbon Treaty to avoid the need for a vote. They had the power and opportunity to call a referendum and by failing to honour their promise on the pretext of a shabby re-branding exercise, a precious opportunity was lost forever when the treaty was finally ratified.
No wonder the public no longer trusts Labour on Europe. And nor do our European allies. They can see through a government which tries to be euro-sceptic in the Sun newspaper but is predominantly euro-federalist in Brussels.
What Britain now needs is to earn the respect of our European partners by engaging constructively in the debate with a consistent approach. Under a Conservative Government, our partners may not always like what we have to say but at least they will always be able to trust what we say.
We do not propose to re-launch yet another tedious institutional debate. Europe has wasted enough time on institutional wrangling over recent years. Instead we want Europe to focus on the real issues that matter to people. We will nonetheless put in place certain safeguards for the future and pursue measures to mitigate the worst aspects of the Lisbon Treaty.
At home,
we will make all future treaty changes which include any transfer of powers to the European Union subject to a referendum.
We will ensure that none of the so-called 'ratchet' clauses in the Treaty which could result in the abolition of vetoes and the transfer of powers could be invoked without parliamentary approval.
And we share the view of the German Federal Constitutional Court that any delegation of powers to the European Union must be in accordance with constitutions of the sovereign member states from which it derives its authority to act and that, as a consequence, the rights of domestic democratic institutions must be respected. So we will enact a Sovereignty Bill so that this principle can be upheld in the context of our own constitutional arrangements.
In Europe,
we will seek a full opt-out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights - which strayed far beyond a simple statement of core rights and became a wish-list for many different special interests.
We will defend the integrity and independence of our Criminal Justice System through an additional protocol.
And we will assert the principle of subsidiarity in key areas of social and employment legislation we believe are damaging to the British economy.