EU Constitution

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 4:12 pm on 8 June 2005.

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Photo of David Heathcoat-Amory David Heathcoat-Amory Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions & Welfare Reform 4:12, 8 June 2005

My hon. Friend makes an unanswerable point. The subsidiarity requirement has been in the treaties since 1992 and has been widely ignored. His other point is also extremely valid. Subsidiarity is exempted from those areas in which the European Union has exclusive competence—areas that the constitution expands, thus making the position worse. As long as it is in the hands of the very institutions that do so well out of defying it, there is not the remote possibility of subsidiarity being made a reality.

The ultimate arbiter of subsidiarity, as of everything else, is itself a European institution: the European Court of Justice. Just as the Supreme Court in the United States was the engine of federation after the republic was founded, so the European Court of Justice performs the same role in the European Union. My small group of genuine reformers in the Convention tabled more than 400 amendments to tackle some of those issues, all of which were ignored. However, I think that we had something to say—not on behalf of the Ministers and Governments of Europe, but on behalf of the people of Europe.

I believe that there is another Europe trying to be born. To my hon. Friends I say that, if we are to modernise the Conservative party, we must take it upon ourselves to try to modernise Europe and our relationship with Europe as well. We can start to rise to that challenge by listening to the electors of France and Holland. In the short term, the task must fall to the Government. Rather than fiddling around with a few cosmetic reforms or trying to implement bits of this wretched and discredited constitution by the back door, the Government should grasp the opportunity for Britain to take a genuine lead in Europe. Deep surgery and fundamental reform are needed. The opportunity exists to take a lead in Europe and to create a people's Europe rather than a Europe for politicians.