European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2018-12-04
Topic: International Affairs
Daniel Robert Kawczynski (Conservative, Centre-right): Mercifully, there are no more UK Independence party Members of Parliament in this Chamber, but we have to remember that in the last European Union elections, they won the largest number of seats, and certainly, in our county of Shropshire, they won the most votes when those elections took place. In the debate today, we have not properly referenced the huge numbers of British people who voted for UKIP in the EU elections because of their frustration with the European Union. I consider UKIP to be a very malign, rabidly right-wing organisation and party. Some of their language on migration and immigrants was a real concern to me, particularly being the first ever Polish-born British Member of Parliament and very proud of the extraordinary contribution that 1 million Poles have made to this country I am pleased that UKIP is withering on the vine. Today, even Nigel Farage quit UKIP, but I am really concerned about the references that have been made during this debate, in many speeches, to the wish for a second referendum. I am absolutely convinced that if we have another referendum and try to overturn the decision that was taken, this will give wind to UKIP sails and it will be resurrected as a genuine political force Many Members of Parliament have spoken about how we will have to spend many years adapting ourselves to our new relationship with the European Union. They are clearly oblivious to the amount of constant work that we have had to do in this Chamber to adapt ourselves to its move towards a supra-national state. There are two issues that I want to address briefly: one is the single currency and the other is the EU army There are 19 eurozone countries, but the eight that do not have the euro are contractually obliged so to do. They have no alternative but to join the eurozone, yet the people in these countries do not wish to abandon their currencies. In the Czech Republic, 71% of the electorate do not want the euro. In Sweden, 72% do not, and in Poland, the country of my birth, 62% of the electorate do not want to give up the złoty, yet they are moving towards a single currency for the whole European Union. We have an opt-out—one of only two countries to have one—but it is not inconceivable that at some stage in the future, if we remained in the EU, say in 10 or 30 years, the EU might come back and say, "You know you thought you had an opt-out? Well, think again. We cannot have a system with 27 countries using the same currency and you being an exception." Secondly, there is the European army. I take my daughter, Alexis, to the Polish-Russian border every year for our summer holidays, and I say to her, "Darling, this is the most highly militarised part of Europe, and if the tit-for-tat missile deployments continue at the pace they have been over the last few years, it will be the equivalent of the North and South Korean border." Despite that, the EU wants to create a single European army that, at best, will duplicate the services of NATO, an organisation that has kept the peace on our continent for 70 years, and, at worst, will usurp NATO as the supreme defence posture for the continent of Europe Let us not forget that, once we pull out of the EU, there will be six countries committed to the common defence of our continent that are not members of the EU and never will be: America and Britain, two permanent members of the UN Security Council; Canada and Iceland, protecting the Atlantic; Norway, in the extreme north; and Turkey, protecting our southern flank from ISIS and its extremely dangerous moves.