Orders of the Day — European Community Membership)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 8 April 1975.

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Mr. Alan Lee Williams:

The hon. Member for Merioneth (Mr. Thomas) made an interesting speech. I always enjoy listening to him. He is my favourite nationalist in the House, because he does not lecture or hector the House. But the hon. Gentleman makes a mistake in thinking that the European Community is as static as he imagines.

My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has shown in his renegotiations that quite a lot can be achieved within the Community, particularly in respect of the common agricultural policy. Of course it is not perfect—we know that—and it still has not been fundamentally changed. It still very much benefits the French farmers. The House knows that, and I do not think that the Government have made any attempt to conceal it from the House. But we still find our- selves in the position currently of renegotiating this aspect. It is an on-going process. Therefore, there is a prospect within the European Community of meeting some of the difficulties which the hon. Member for Merioneth has mentioned.

I would say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough), who spoke with great passion—I only wish that I could match his eloquence—that the only chance of meeting his major point about helping the needy and the poor is by concerted action with our European partners. It is beyond the capability of the United Kingdom to do it alone. I therefore think that we should try as my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has done in the period of renegotiation, to get major concessions. I think we have obtained some concessions. Again, however, they are only part of the story. But it is an on-going business, and in this direction we must do more.

During the course of the past two days we have had a series of what I consider to be misleading descriptions of the European Community. The hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) said that it was "pale blue". He implied that the European Community was for the benefit of what he called capitalists. I would say to him that if he likes to make a detailed examination—and I have asked my right hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow to do this, too—of the areas of public ownership that are to be found within the European Community, he will find that Britain is not at the top of the league but that it is behind France and Germany. He will find that there is no restriction within the workings of the Treaty of Rome which will prevent the Secretary of State for Trade or the Secretary of State for Industry from coming to the House with proposals for radically reorganising the British economy. There are no restrictions that one can see in the practice of the European Community.

It is very important to say that because I think it will be one of the arguments used by the opponents of staying in the Community that somehow or other a British Chancellor of the Exchequer will have to clear his Budget statement with our partners before he presents it to the House. I do not believe that to be the truth of the matter at all.

The right hon. Member for Stafford and Stone (Mr. Fraser) made what was I thought a most interesting speech because he put the matter in historical perspective, and one must see this debate, which has, after all, been going on for 15 years, in historical perspective. But he also touched on the real nub of the problem as far as we on this side of the House are concerned when he mentioned the right hon Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath), because it was he who negotiated British entry into the European Community. I said outside at the time, because I had lost my seat and was no longer in the House, that I thought that it was a commendable achievement, but the main missing ingredient in the presentation of the case by the right hon. Member for Sidcup was the common touch. The general population, particularly the people who support the party on this side of the House particularly trade's unionists, thought that the European Community was quite alien from what we were trying to achieve.

I think the arguments were pitched in the wrong way. I am not trying to escape my own share of responsibility, because I had a hand in that campaign, since I have been a pro-Marketeer for a number of years, but I thought at the time and, looking back, feel retrospectively very strongly, that the emphasis always on the benefits purely in material terms—although I think they are there—were wrong and that some of the essential idealism had gone out of the debate.

I must say that I am less of a sceptic than my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mr. Walden) basically is about the European Community, although I fully understand his position. I was attracted to the European Community idea for its idealism, because I believed that it would be possible, with all the imperfections of the Treaty of Rome, to reorganise Europe in such a way that not only would we rid ourselves of the horrors of the two world wars but we would be able to play a major part in world politics; that we would be able to evolve into an interdependent relationship with the United States rather than a one-sided relationship in which the United States had all the power and most of all the influence. This was part of the basic idealism which motivated the European movement, and I do not think that need necessarily and wrongly be interpreted as anti-American, because I happen not to be anti-American.

At the same time, there must be an awareness by all of us, now that we go towards what I hope is the final hurdle in respect of British membership, that what we are trying to create here is an outward-looking Community. a Community which is concerned about the Third World. But we must also be aware that because of the difficulties which we have at the present moment, the industrial problems and some of the other problems which my hon. Friend the Member for Ladywood mentioned, there is a mood in this country—to be found not only in the United States, but in this country—of apprehension. People are uncertain. They hear many making speeches which give the impression that we are now facing—as indeed I think we are in many respects—the gravest crisis this country has faced since the inter-war period. People are therefore apprehensive.

In these circumstances, those of us who wish to see Britain firmly in Europe must argue the positive case that the only way we can overcome some of our problems is by working with like-sized and like-minded Powers in Europe; and we must admit at the same time that gradually there has to be a loss of sovereignty. I see no reason why we should run away from this because, if I have to generalise, I think that most British people would be confederalist rather than federalist. I think that most people who think the problem through in respect of the European Community realise that we are entering into a relationship with supranational implications, and it is only fair that those who argue the case should make that absolutely clear.

Although my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has indicated that in the period of renegotiation the move towards monetary union has been temporarily put aside, it would be misleading the House to give the impression that this has been totally abandoned, because in fact it is part of the European idea. The timing is vitally important, and I agree with my right hon. Friend that to talk about monetary union by 1980 against the backcloth of a declining economic situation was dangerous nonsense.

Nevertheless, I firmly believe that the European Community will give us a chance, not to resurrect the glories of the past—because that is impossible—but, with France, Germany and the Benelux countries, to build a Europe which is sufficiently powerful in the areas of technology and science to compete on equal terms with the Soviet Union and the United States. That is no bad thing.