European Union (Amendment) Bill
11th March 2008
During a speech by Labour MP, Patricia Hewitt, David Burrowes challenges her on her conversion to pro-European since her party's manifesto for the 1983 election.
Mr. David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con): The right hon. Lady has given us the history of her journey to becoming a pro-European and taken us back to the 1970s. May we take her back to 1983? Did she share the platform of wanting to get out of Europe, which was no doubt then a manifesto commitment of the current Prime Minister?
Ms Hewitt: I did indeed. I stood for the constituency that is now represented so ably by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), and did so on the manifesto on which we all fought that election. I learned an enormous amount from the voters to whom I listened during the campaign. I learned that my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) was correct to describe our manifesto as
“the longest suicide note in history”.
It was not a manifesto that any party that was serious about forming a Government should have written. The British people formed their judgment on us, and after that election I went to work for Neil Kinnock when he became leader of the Labour party and began the long march back to reconnecting us with the British people and enabling us to form a Government again.
