Politics

Carswell's defection to Ukip is a 'self-defeating betrayal'

"Unless there is a Conservative majority in the House of Commons there will not be a referendum on Europe"

September 01, 2014
The Conservative party must draw important lessons from its byelection loss. ©Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire/Press Association Images
The Conservative party must draw important lessons from its byelection loss. ©Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire/Press Association Images

The real question for Douglas Carswell, for Ukip and for the country is—do you want a referendum on the European question of “In or Out?”

To hold a referendum at all, there has to be an Act of Parliament for a referendum. There also has to be an Act of Parliament to make any change to a single line of EU legislation and the Treaties, unless it is agreed by all the member states. To do any of this requires an overall majority of votes in the House of Commons itself.

It is obvious that Ukip cannot win such a majority now or in the near future. Unless there is a Conservative majority in the House of Commons, there will not be either a referendum or any change in European legislation or the Treaties, given the position of Labour and the Liberal Democrats on Europe and, as with Ukip, their determination to destroy marginal, and any other, Conservative seats.

The Conservative Party cannot win the next General Election if Ukip make gains in its marginal seats. Voting for Ukip is a guarantee of ensuring a Labour/Liberal Democrat majority and ruling out a referendum. We need both to save our democracy and to give back to the British people the right to govern themselves, which is what Ukip claim they want but which their actions threaten to undermine.

I have voted with Douglas Carswell on many occasions over this Parliament but he has made a monumental misjudgement in defecting to Ukip. This is certainly the verdict of most of the newspapers of the Eurosceptic press. Carswell is undermining the only party which is engaged in obtaining an “In or Out” referendum and the necessary changes in policy and legislation. Even he himself has said recently that the only way to get a referendum on the EU is to return a majority Conservative Government.

This is a self-defeating exercise in political vanity by Carswell. Ukip, as I said in my attack on Nigel Farage in the fringe meeting at the Conservative Party Conference last October, is the single greatest danger to the Eurosceptic cause and to our national interest.

Ukip cannot deliver, but the Conservatives can. Worse still, it is clear that Ukip do not care that they cannot deliver. There is still much to do within the Conservative Party but Douglas Carswell’s assertion that it is going nowhere is inconsistent with what he has said in public over recent months and also with the facts. We already have a Referendum Bill before Parliament which is an exclusively Conservative proposal and strongly supported by the Prime Minister, which I helped to draft and thanks to James Wharton’s efforts last year, is now in the steady hands of Bob Neill, with the unanimous support of the whole of the Conservative Party in Parliament and over which the House of Lords has no control because of the Parliament Act.

Furthermore, David Cameron vetoed the Treaty for the fiscal compact—which has never happened before, since we joined the European Communities Act 1972. He has also successfully agreed to a reduction in the EU Budget in line with my amendment in the House of Commons, when even the Labour Party capitulated. He has also stated categorically in the fourth principle of his Bloomberg speech that national parliaments lie at the root of our democracy. He stood out against the appointment of Juncker as President of the European Commission, which was manipulated by the European Parliament.

The overall position of the Conservative Party in the Associations and in Parliament and in the marginal seats has, since I led the Maastricht rebellion, become consistently Euro-realist. We are the only Party that now represents the national interest and has the capacity to deliver it on the European issue.

Douglas Carswell’s assertion that the Prime Minister does not mean what he says is belied by Carswell's own previous statements. Although there is more to be done in respect of changing our relationship with the European Union, the assumption that this would never happen under David Cameron or within the Conservative Party is blind to the massive shift that has taken pace in the terms of trade on the European issue since the 1990s.

To cop out now is a self-defeating betrayal, which completely ignores the determination of the millions of Conservatives throughout the country to regain control, through the ballot box of the government of this country and to defeat the Euro-integrationists.