LETTERS Bill's Bill
Sir: Bruce Anderson clearly has not read or comprehended my speech on my Referen- dum Bill (Politics, 15 June). This is all my fault. He conveniently overlooks the fact that the Bill would first require the Govern- ment to propose single-currency treaty amendments for the agenda for the Inter- governmental Conference. This is essential because the Government's White Paper on Europe rules out pressing ideas, such as monetary union, which it claims would not be accepted by the other member states just when they are most needed, and a majority of the electorate here and in Germany (where 500,000 have been on strike) are opposed to a single currency.
If we took the lead in Europe and pro- posed these amendments, the political leaders, including Chancellor Kohl, would be under intense pressure from their voters. If they are not proposed, we will be carried along on the tidal wave of federalism, which the United Kingdom helped to cre- ate by failing at Maastricht to veto the irre- versibility of monetary union, whilst merely agreeing to a revisable opt-out. If the oth- ers are not prepared to listen to us, we could veto the entire conference in our national, and in the European, interest. They are even now proposing a new Treaty on Defence and Foreign Policy without us. Mr Anderson may note that Maastricht was primarily about European government, the Single European Act primarily about trade and political co-operation.
Kenneth Clarke, as Mr Anderson will know, has said he has views on Europe sim- ilar to those of Hugh Dykes, Giles Radice, John Smith and Roy Jenkins. Gordon Brown has claimed his place in this list in the recent major debate. Kenneth Clarke's attack on those who voted for my Bill (which was not a Bill for withdrawal but for a referendum) as 'so-called Conservatives' is bizarre. We will 'turn Europe to our advantage' if, unlike Mr Clarke, we repudi- ate the single currency, redeem our loss of credibility over the ERM and broken tax promises and show that Labour cannot deliver their promises within monetary union, as I said at the Party Conference last year and in my attack on Tony Blair's speech on Europe last week.
Bill Cash
House of Commons, London SW1
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