More on the Referendum - 23rd October 2011

Undoubtedly the overwhelming lobby of the last week was on the vote for an EU referendum. I received about 20 letters and 200 emails. Unfortunately 80% were standard letters and emails. It is never easy to tell quite how important an issue is to somebody if, instead of writing their own email, they simply put their name to one that has been written for them. It is a bit like the results of an opinion poll telling you what a percentage of the public think, but doesn’t tell you how strongly they held the opinion, or how often it had occupied their minds in the days before the pollster asked them the question.

One of the emails, which clearly was the constituent’s own, wanted to know why the vote had been brought forward from Thursday to Monday, and suggested that it was part of a conspiracy to put pressure on MPs and to stop momentum building up behind the demand for a referendum. Well, I was at the meeting at which we took the decision to bring forward the debate and that reason was quite simple: when Thursday was granted to the back bench business committee we had no idea what subject they would choose for debate; when they chose the EU referendum issue, we knew we must change the date because The PM and the Foreign Secretary were due to leave on Monday night for the Commonwealth heads of government summit in Australia. Our only choice was to hold the debate on Monday afternoon before they left. The alternative would have been to insult the Commons by having the two key players absent. As for the move putting pressure on MPs, the reverse is true: had it remained on Thursday it would have given the whips three more days to work on the potential rebels.

Another original letter expressed disgust that the vote was being whipped at all and demanded that it should be a free vote.  I take a radically different view: in my book every vote is a free vote; it is up to every MP to decide how he or she chooses to vote, nobody can compel an MP to follow the party line. I do believe however, that a party is at liberty to state what its line is and to seek to persuade its members to follow it. My election manifesto excluded any commitment to a referendum. Instead, it stated that it was our intention to pass a law requiring that any further transfer of power from the UK to the EU be subject to a referendum. In addition, that it was our objective to secure the return of powers already granted to the EU.  We have already passed the law which will ensure that a referendum now precedes any further power being ceded to the EU. The Government believes however, that a referendum on the EU right now would be a huge distraction from the main effort of sorting the public finances, particularly given the eurozone crisis. I think that my political party had as much right to remind its MPs of this and to try and persuade them to vote against a referendum, as the MPs had every right to reject that advice.

Some people however, said that by whipping the vote, we raised the temperature and that it would have been better to allow an un-whipped vote to ‘let off steam’ on the issue. I think this would have been the worst possible outcome: it would have made the Government look weak and indifferent. If the Government has a strong view, and it had, then it should whip accordingly.

My reaction to so many emails was to send a ‘standard’ response. In fact, I sent them the article I wrote in the Forest Journal at the beginning of October in which I explained why I was against a referendum and addressed the complaint that we were promised a referendum that has yet to be delivered. Some correspondents replied saying that they had found the article helpful, others emailed back saying it was outrageous and arrogant. There is no accounting for the caprice of human nature, or as my Granny used to say “there’s no telling with folk”.