Sir William Cash:

While the Deputy says cohesion, I say union. For practical purposes, Europe already is at loggerheads with itself and this is evident. It may not be that there have been riots and protests in Ireland but go to Italy, Spain, Greece or other countries, Portugal also has had its dose, and there are really serious problems that could be avoided by having a more flexible arrangement. The idea of having vetoes does not mean to say one would use them the whole time. As for the way one could achieve co-operation, which I would have thought is what subsidiarity ultimately is all about, one would achieve that degree of agreement whereby, if it was clear there was a vital national interest a particular country could not stomach, one would not go down that route. If I may, I will refer to the White Paper of 1971 when we joined. That might seem a long time ago but it is only 40-odd years. The structure of the 1972 Act with which we still live, and which is quite clear - it is a very short Act - effectively rules out the idea of our being able now, as a result of subsequent treaties, to exercise a veto. However, at the time the aforementioned White Paper went through, it included a very important statement that when entering the European Community, we would do so on the basis that in our vital national interest, we would retain the veto. Moreover, there was an interesting further sentence that went on to state that to do otherwise would endanger the very fabric of the European Community itself. This was because people recognised that if one tries to push everybody into a compression chamber and they do not want it, one will get the lack of trust that now has developed to the level of up to 60% to which I referred. In addition, one will have a low turnout of approximately 40% of the whole of the European Union. Moreover, as I believe some countries have compulsory voting, this means the turnout was very low indeed. This is not good evidence that everything is hunky-dory and it is very important for us to step back.

If I may, I will refer briefly and finally to the question of what will happen within the respective parts of the United Kingdom. I think Deputy Kyne is right and that in Scotland, there is a very different perception as reflected by the SNP. The SNP had a meteoric rise around the time of the referendum and is embedding itself. I think I was the first to identify this point and will give the joint committee a book I wrote about John Bright afterwards, which has a chapter on the entire question of Britain and Ireland in the mid-19th century in respect of the issue of home rule, but at the 1922 Committee a few weeks ago, I stated that I thought Alex Salmond would be like Parnell. I said that what will happen is he will come down and some even think the SNP might get 40 to 45 seats from Labour. I agree with the Deputy that they are very different in their attitudes to the European Union, but in the event of a referendum, David Cameron, in reply to a question I put to him, has ruled out the possibility that Nicola Sturgeon was putting forward, which is that Scotland would have its own separate referendum regarding the European Union or would be able to disaggregate the votes that were taken in the referendum. I can only state that they will strive for that, as they will strive for the disintegration of the United Kingdom because like Parnell's objective, that is absolute for them, and will create massive disruption in the House of Commons. This is why I was in favour of English laws and presented my paper to Chequers for that purpose when David Cameron invited us there.

I think there is a real problem with the SNP. By the way, I do not think the SNP will enter into a formal coalition with the Labour Party because that would be a Trojan horse for the Labour Party for sure. There is a lot of debate about this. Alex Salmond is a very accomplished political performer and, more than that, practitioner. He will create havoc if he has a lot of seats and holds the balance of power. On the European issue, I remind the committee that the preponderance of the United Kingdom population is in England. We could be presented with some very difficult questions if the SNP comes down and really disrupts the House of Commons on the basis that it wants to achieve independence for Scotland. I do not disagree with the Deputy that the SNP has a different view on the EU, although I have heard it is not as consistent as some people think. There are people in Scotland who recognise that being part of the United Kingdom has great advantages. It should not be forgotten that we won the vote on that by ten percentage points.