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ON THE RECORD
GEORGE ROBERTSON INTERVIEW
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC-1 DATE: 29.11.92
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JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: George Robertson, for your Party to show
real leadership on Europe, you would have to say unequivocally that Labour will
NOT let the Maastricht Bill fall in the House of Commons. But you don't seem
to have much stomach for that.
GEORGE ROBERTSON, MP: Well, that's your opinion and that's
your question and I think that is highly mischievous, editorialising that went
on in that film. I think as we approach the Committee stage this coming week
people will bear in mind the fact that the Government put this in its paving
motion, or its paving debate, a few weeks ago that it was urgent. So
dramatically urgent that they got the Bill back into Committee stage that they
could not wait until the Edinburgh Summit, and they'll also bear in mind our
arguments that we should wait until the Edinburgh Summit and here it is coming
back only eight days before that Summit.
i don't know who's being mischievous or
at least playing around with the future of Europe, but it's not the Labour
Party.
DIMBLEBY: Well, let's lay the mischief then and
let's be absolutely clear. Tell the public - are you going to let the
Maastricht Bill fall in the House of Commons or not?
ROBERTSON: Well, we're going to give this Bill,
and the Treaty that it incorporates into British Law, the proper debate and
scrutiny that the Bill requires. We are not going to give it easily because
we're going to expect a full debate on it. We didn't say that May was the end
of the process, it was the Government who said that the Committee stage would
take until May. Now we will, during the timetable that they have laid down,
give the debate the right run that it should get and make sure that the British
people get the scrutiny of this legislation that it demands.
DIMBLEBY: Okay. You'll let it have the right
run that you think is appropriate. I'm not asking you to curtail the debate or
to run it through the House, of course. What I want to know again is - you say
you're not happy with parts of it. In the end, are you going to let the
Maastricht Treaty fall or not? It's a rather fundamental question.
ROBERTSON: It depends on the outcome of the debate.
Surely...
DIMBLEBY: You could let it fall?
ROBERTSON: Well, surely, there is no advantage to
be gained from saying in advance we will give everything to the Government that
they want. We want, for instance, the Social Chapter. It is not included in
the debate, in the Bill as it stands just now because they, Britain is
specifically excluded from that. Now that is a very crucial part of - for the
Labour Party and for this country - of the debate that is up coming. It won't
come until right in the middle of the Committee stage.
Now, we're obviously going to contest
that very strongly and we intend to change the Government's mind on it.
DIMBLEBY: But that's all very well. You may be
able to change their mind. We won't know that, though it's part of the opt-out
Clause that Britain has. The other is, as you know, the single currency.
Leaving aside those two questions, the
rest of the Maastricht Treaty cannot be amended. It is word for word as it is.
My question once more to you - because this is the best way of answering the
charge that you're fudging and are all over the place, is to say at the end of
the day we want it, as the other countries of Europe, bar the Danes so far,
also want it.
ROBERTSON: Well, we want it. As Clare Short said
in your film, we want it with the Social Chapter included in it and we will,
therefore, go through it...
DIMBLEBY: Clare Short said you didn't want it.
ROBERTSON: She said that we should say to the
Government that if they give us a Social Chapter we will give them the Bill.
That's what SHE said. What we are saying is that there are a whole series of
other issues here that deserve to be, deserve, the British public deserve to
have answers on them. We'll decide at the end of it.
Our objective as a political Party is to
wreck the Government, not to wreck the Maastricht Treaty.
DIMBLEBY: Okay, well let's look at the particular
way in which you have the choice of saving the Maastricht Treaty or potentially
wrecking the Maastricht Treaty.
Let's take your opposition. The
official opposition that you have to the independent Central Bank - that's your
Party's view. You have an amendment laid down opposing that. You know that
it's in the Treaty and will not be removed. Are you going to vote for an
amendment which might bring down the Treaty on those grounds, or are you still
going to tell me we might to this, we might do that?
ROBERTSON: Well, that is one of many amendments
that we have down to the Treaty, all of which would have the affect of wrecking
it, but they are the only methods by which we can debate these very, very
important issues. We're not bound to vote for any of our amendments,
especially the amendments on areas like majority voting and the environment or,
say, new industrial powers, because we've got them down on the order paper
simply to allow debate and to explore the issues that are concerned with that.
And we would very much bear in mind the fact that any amendment we've made
would not be an amendment that would make for a more democratically accountable
Central Bank, it might mean that there would be no European Central Bank at
all. That's something that we would bear in mind.
But why should we declare in advance to
the Conservative Government at the moment what our tactics are going to be
during the Committee stage?
DIMBLEBY: We're not talking about the Conservative
Government in this alone. We're talking about the Europeans. Your European
friends think you're up to a stupid game, as they put it. Now just on that...
ROBERTSON: No they don't. They didn't say that at
all. Jean Pierre Cot in the edited bit of the speech that you put out made
it, gave a salutary warning to the French....
DIMBLEBY: Against stupid games.
ROBERTSON: To the French and to others - and he,
remember, considers that his own countrymen were playing a silly game when they
called a Referendum on Maastricht.
DIMBLEBY; Okay. On this Central Bank question.
You said that you wouldn't necessarily vote for an amendment that would bring
down the Treaty. You recognise that if the amendment against the Central Bank
is carried in Westminster - because you do vote for it, and enough Tory
sceptics also vote for that amendment - then Maastricht could not be ratified.
That's the case. Just as a simple fact, is it not?
ROBERTSON: Well, you're presuming that the
Committee stage amendment wouldn't be reversed in the report stage, or even
reversed in the House of Lords, but I'm saying to you is that when the day
comes when that amendment is put to the House of Commons we'll obviously make
a decision then, but to tell YOU in advance what our tactics are going to be
about closures or about guillotines, or about any of our amendments on the
order paper, is to give the Government advance warning at a time when this
Government is causing such huge damage to the British economy.
DIMBLEBY: But, I think, I suspect what you're up
to and you haven't given convincing evidence otherwise. What you're really up
to is doing for your Euro-sceptics what the Government has been trying to do
for its Euro-sceptics. You're trying to buy time with them, hold the Party
together, say the crunch doesn't come yet - stay on board folks.
ROBERTSON: Well, we're going to have something like
six months of debate on this Committee stage. Now we didn't decide on six
months. We were quite prepared for a shorter timetable had the Government
chosen to wait until after the Edinburgh Summit, for the conclusions of that
Summit, to at least let the people of this country know where we were going on
the Danish question.
The Government said it was hugely urgent
and have now delayed it to the point where it's only eight days before the
Summit. But with six months of debating ahead of us, and with the possibility
that we can also stop rail privatisation, water privatisation in Scotland, and
the abolition of the Wages Council because the Government has chosen to take
that out, why should I tell you in advance what our tactics are going to be?
DIMBLEBY: Well, I tell you - I suggest to you that
there are an awful lot of people interested in the principle of this and one
thing that they would want to know just to pursue this point through - is are
you willing to allow the sceptics to filibuster the Maastricht Bill into
oblivion? Or would you stop that happening?
ROBERTSON: We're not going to filibuster and we're
not going to allow others to filibuster. There is more than enough meat in
this Treaty to be debated right up until the time when the Government says it
has to be concluded, and that is what we will do. None of the sceptics..
DIMBLEBY: Would you ever accept a guillotine?
ROBERTSON: Well, we're not going to accept a
guillotine...
DIMBLEBY: Under any circumstances?
ROBERTSON: No Opposition in this country has
accepted a guillotine and we've made it absolutely clear that we will not vote
for a guillotine on this Bill or any other Bill.
DIMBLEBY: Under ANY circumstances?
ROBERTSON: Well, I'm not sure what circumstances
you are talking about. This Bill doesn't need to be filibustered to be given a
full and detailed consideration by the House of Commons, but it will be the
Labour PARTY that will run the Committee stage not right-wing Tory Nationalists
or any minority element within the Labour Party. We will give it the proper
detailed debating consideration that the British people expect of us.
DIMBLEBY: And they will judge, Mr. Robertson....
ROBERTSON: They will indeed.
DIMBLEBY: ..whether it's high principles that
you're fighting for or low politics that you're playing. Thank you very much
indeed.
ROBERTSON: Okay. Thanks.
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