I believe that one day the nations in the Community will be part of one federal State. I do not expect it to happen in my lifetime. It is a much bigger development than that. As none of us can foresee the future to that extent, there is not a great deal of point in arguing about it.

One thing is quite certain, however. A country cannot slip into a federal State unnoticing. That is exactly what cannot happen. It is extremely likely that the nine countries of the Community will practise an ever-closer union and that they will get a greater harmonisation of foreign policy and of economic and monetary matters. I think that that is likely to happen. However, it is not possible for a group of countries to turn themselves from being a group of nine sovereign States into a single federated State without being aware of the fact and without its being the conscious and willing decision of all the members of the federation.

That is why I say that for our purposes the point about federalism is not relevant to this Parliament. The idea that by making the European Parliament directly elected we shall somehow be lured into a federation without noticing it is complete nonsense. The decision to make a federation must be a conscious and deliberate one. Whether it will ever be made, I do not know. Looking back over the ghastly history of divided Western Europe for so many years, I feel that our descendants may be glad if it happens. However, that is not what we are arguing about now.

It is true, however, that the direct election of the Members of the European Parliament will help the process of closer co-operation among the nine countries. It is intended to do that. It will do that. If we are in the Community at all, we are committed to work for that. It is perfectly clear from the Treaty of Rome and from everything that has been said since that the Community was not intended to be a completely static body and that its members would work for closer union and harmonisation in many matters.

Anyone who objects to that is really objecting to British membership of the Community at all. That, one would have thought, was settled in the referendum. Some of us who do not particularly like the area of referendums agreed to it on the understanding that we would abide by the result. The extraordinary fact is that it is those who demanded the referendum most eagerly who are most unwilling to accept its result.