Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2016-02-03-Speech-3-040-000"
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"en.20160203.6.3-040-000"2
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"Mr President, thank you. They are slightly over enthusiastic. It was not supposed to be like this, was it? Mr Cameron’s renegotiation began with really big intentions: Treaty change – blue cards going up already, this is going to be fun! – he was going to control the free movement of people, he was going to achieve a fundamental change, not just in Britain’s relationship with the European Union, but he was going to reform the EU itself. What we got was a letter from Mr Tusk in which there is no Treaty change, no powers returned to the United Kingdom and no control over our borders at all. In fact, it was hardly worth the wait. It is really rather pathetic.
But there is one more chance for the Prime Minister, because he goes to the European summit in a couple of weeks’ time. Like Oliver Twist, he will parade in front of the other leaders and say, ‘please can we have some more concessions?’ I find it rather humiliating that a British prime minister has to do this, but I am certain of one thing: he will not get another thing. Just look at the substance of this: we have an emergency brake on migrant benefits. Wow! It was supposed to be a total ban on migrant benefits for up to four years, so it is hardly an emergency brake. It is more of a handbrake turn. Also, the Prime Minister is saying we have got a red card. Isn’t that wonderful! Well, what that means is that a majority of parliaments in the European Union can say to Mr Juncker that they do not want one of his directives. Is that a cause for celebration? If 15 parliaments could not stop a piece of law, we would be living in a communist dictatorship.
What I have gone through here are the good bits, but the most bizarre thing is that Mr Cameron said that with this deal, he would now vote for Britain to join the European Union. So let us have a little think about that. If the question in June is: ‘should we join the European Union?’ we would have to tell the British people: ‘you must surrender the control and sovereignty of your parliament and have 75% of your laws made somewhere else. Your Supreme Court will not be supreme. You will be overruled by a Court in Luxembourg made up of people who are not even judges. You will have to give up your fishing grounds, including in some places 200 miles of the North Sea, and you must cut your links with the Commonwealth and the wider world because you are no longer fit to negotiate your own global trade deals. Oh, and by the way, for all of this you will be paying GBP 55 million a day as a membership fee.’ Would the British people vote for that? Not a snowball’s chance in Hades.
All we have to do is recognise that, whilst the politicians and the big banks and the big businesses will in this referendum defend their own vested self-interests, it is people power that will win this referendum. After we have won this referendum, I hope that it will win in many other countries in Europe too."@en1
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