[Sir Alan Haselhurst in the Chair] — Clause 1 — Incorporation of provisions of the Treaty of Nice

Part of Orders of the Day — European Communities (Amendment) Bill — [2nd Allotted Day] – in the House of Commons at 8:45 pm on 17 July 2001.

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Photo of Bill Cash Bill Cash Conservative, Stone 8:45, 17 July 2001

Not so. The fact is that we are all affected by what goes on in the other countries. The difficulty is that there is a referendum only in a limited number of countries. That is the point that I am making.

One cannot say that the people of any particular country have consented to the invasion of their right to decide who governs them—which is what the process is all about—if they have not been given a referendum. That is why I argued for a referendum from the very earliest days after Maastricht. I ran the Maastricht referendum campaign, for which I obtained 500,000 signatures, and have consistently campaigned for a referendum ever since.