|
Ian
Hudghton (Verts/ALE).
– Mr President,
Prime Minister, it seems that French and Dutch voters have
startled you into some attitude changes. Now all of a sudden you say that
the EU needs modernisation and yet not so long ago you told us that this
was what the Constitution was for. Now you find the agriculture funding
package that you signed up to not so long ago unacceptable. Now you cannot
sign up to a budget compromise, because it is not the right deal for
Britain. Yet your own government has repeatedly signed up to disastrous
deals, particularly for Scotland, such as the reform of the common
fisheries policy.
Speaking of disasters for Scotland, your own line on the EU
budget limit would end structural funding in Scotland at a cost of a
billion pounds. While it is true to say that the EU institutions need
reform, it is also true that euroscepticism has grown in Scotland because
you have continued the traditional UK Government practice of selling out
Scotland's interests in cobbled together compromises. The best form of
constitutional reform for Scotland would be to represent ourselves in the
European Union as an independent Member State. |
