Europe! Should we stay or should we go?

Rochdale MP Paul Rowen has backed Lib Dem Leader – Nick Clegg’s call for a referendum on Britain’s continued membership of the European Union.  He was speaking after the party signalled its intention to table an amendment in Parliament making the call.

Mr Rowen said: “This has not been a specific issue that people have contacted me about.  I do however feel the need to make my views clear.  I fully back the Liberal Democrat attempts to end the smoke and mirrors mentality of this debate.  Let’s end the ambiguities and put the decision whether we stay in or go in the hands of the people.  If Labour are serious about Europe and the Conservatives as sceptical as they are about Europe then they will back our call - anything else is unacceptable.”

Speaking ahead of further debate on the European Union (Amendment) Bill, Nick Clegg said: “The debate over Britain’s future in Europe has been poisoned for too long by a Labour Party that refuses to make the case for it, and an opportunistic Tory Party that actively seeks to undermine it.  We need to draw the poison from that debate, to settle the matter one way or another.

“So today I am inviting the Labour and Conservative parties to join with me in calling for the referendum that will settle Britain’s European future, once and for all: an in-out referendum.”

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Speaking at the Liberal Democrats’ headquarters, Nick Clegg said:

Thank you for being here.

Tomorrow we will be putting to Parliament our proposal for an in-out referendum on Britain’s future in the EU.

The debate over Britain’s future in Europe has been poisoned for too long by a Labour Party that refuses to make the case for it, and an opportunistic Tory Party that actively seeks to undermine it.

We need to draw the poison from that debate - to settle the matter one way or another.

So today I am inviting the Labour and Conservative parties to  join with me in calling for the referendum that will settle Britain’s European future - once and for all.

When the government promised a referendum on the European Constitution, they promised a vote on all the changes to Europe since Britain joined the EEC, brought together in one constitutional text.

That was the right thing to do.

It was a bond of trust.

And we supported it.

Because we believe that the British people should have a real choice on all the developments in the EU over the past 30 years.

The Lisbon Treaty does not provide that opportunity because it is merely an amending treaty.

A vote on the Lisbon treaty would not allow the public to have their say on the Single European Act, or the Maastricht Treaty or Nice or Amsterdam or any of the other treaties that have been ratified since the last referendum on the EU over 30 years ago.

Gordon Brown cannot ignore the rightful demand of the British people to have their say on Europe.

They were promised a vote far, far wider than the Lisbon Treaty, when all three parties supported a referendum on the EU constitution at the last election.

And that promise must now be fulfilled.

It should be fulfilled by asking the British people the real question - the question that matters to them:

Should we stay in the EU, or should we leave?

Are we in - or are we out?

If the Conservatives were honest about this issue, they’d ask that question too.

Their opportunism is breathtaking.

The biggest steps towards European integration.

The greatest increases in Europe’s power.

Were the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty.

They were pushed through the House of Commons by Conservative governments that refused to consult the British public.

Yet now they want a referendum on a Treaty which is a sideshow compared to the huge constitutional changes they rammed through without referenda in the past.

Their opportunism masks their refusal to spell out what they really want. If Lisbon is rejected, the European Union simply carries on as before.

Are they happy with the EU as it is today? Of course not. Everyone knows their true intention is to dislodge the UK from it’s present membership of the EU. So why don’t they have the courage to make that case, rather than hide behind weasel worded objections to the specific legal provisions in the Lisbon Treaty? 

The real problem for the Conservatives is that they have never reconciled themselves to the role they played in creating the European Union which they now detest.

It’s a kind of strange self loathing.

Margaret Thatcher never accepted that she was one of the principal architects of the Single European Act, the biggest single pooling of sovereignty since the EC was created in the 1950s. Today’s Tories can’t accept that it was their party which actually created the European Union as a successor to the European Community in the Maastricht Treaty.

So when William Hague complains about the concept of a European Foreign Policy we will remind him that it was his vote and the Conservative party that ratified the Maastricht Treaty that first established the EU’s Foreign Policy fifteen years ago - with no referendum.

We know, they know - everyone knows - what this is really about.

The debate that anti-Europeans really want to have is about our membership. That is the debate that pro-Europeans should want too. But it can only be delivered by the In-Out referendum that we propose.

A referendum on the Treaty would be an irrelevance, and we will treat it as such. It would not answer the real question. It would not settle the European question that has distorted British politics for so long.

I am in favour of a referendum, just not on the question being posed by the Tories, that is why we will be abstaining on their amendment.

Leaving the EU would of course be madness.

The European Union has brought peace and prosperity to its members over the past 50 years.

It has underpinned democracy in countries from Spain and Portugal to the former Warsaw Pact countries. Countries which, within our own lifetimes, struggled under fascist and communist dictatorships.

Today it is at the forefront of the world community in tackling the catastrophe of climate change, in fighting international crime and in ensuring that we have a powerful voice in the global economic system.

We should never be afraid of arguing the case for the immense benefits that the European Union provides to the UK.

That’s why I want all pro-Europeans to join with me in making the positive case for Britain’s membership in a referendum campaign.

No-one under the age of fifty in this country has had a direct say on this issue. Not me, not David Milliband, not David Cameron.

So I say it’s time for a national debate and a national decision.

Gordon Brown cannot push the referendum genie back into the bottle.

And it’s critical that the British people are allowed to vote on the real issue at stake.

That’s what our proposal would deliver.