Tag: Iain Duncan Smith

The speech made by Iain Duncan Smith, the then Leader of the Opposition, on 18 September 2003.

The new political year has just begun.

And I can almost hear you groan!

Well, the outlook from 10 Downing Street is certainly bleak.

The Labour Party is divided from top to bottom:

…on Iraq and relations with the United States…

…on the euro and relations with the European Union…

…on foundation hospitals, tuition fees, and the whole direction of public service reform.

Throughout Whitehall, political will has been replaced by political infighting.

Ministers’ commitment to their country has been replaced by concern for their jobs.

And that concern is valid.

The Hutton Inquiry has exposed to the public’s view the inner workings of this Government.

And the public have had enough of it.

However, I do not intend to make a speech about the immediate difficulties of the Government.

Beyond all the serious charges in the Hutton Inquiry…

… – Hoon versus Gilligan, Blair and the mistreatment of Dr Kelly – …

…there are the serious failures of this Government that affect the everyday lives of the British people.

Labour’s mismanagement of the economy is one of its least reported failures.

It is under-reported because the growing weaknesses of the UK economy, are growing beneath the surface.

Like an iceberg we can only see the tip of the uncompetitiveness and supply side rigidities that Labour is creating.

Last year, business investment fell at its fastest rate for nearly 40 years.

Manufacturing is losing 10,000 jobs a month, without gaining in competitiveness:

…we have had a trade deficit in each and every month since August 1997.

The UK stock market has fallen – and fallen further and faster than in other advanced countries.

Since May 1997, the FTSE 100 has been outperformed by the Dow Jones by over 40 per cent…

…and by the French stock market by over 30 per cent.

GDP growth has slowed…

…and Gordon Brown’s forecasts may well prove over-optimistic for a third time in a row.

Next March, with falling tax receipts squeezing his spending programmes, the Chancellor will face a dilemma:

He can choose more tax and borrowing, or – for the first time – he can choose real reform to the public services.

I have an idea which he will go for.

The most striking feature of our economy since 1997, of course, is the increase in the burden of tax.

There have been sixty tax rises since Labour came to power.

Since 1997…

…the overall tax take has increased by 50%…

…and as I reminded the Prime Minister in Parliament yesterday, that includes a 70% rise in Council Tax…

…the savings ratio has fallen by 50%…

…and the amount of the average personal pension has also fallen by 50%.

It is not plausible to claim – as Gordon Brown does – that these facts are unrelated.

High taxation damages the economy and erodes the incentive to save.

Households now put aside less than 5% of their income for the future.

This is hardly surprising.

Gordon Brown has imposed a five billion pounds a year tax on pensions.

The withdrawal of the dividend tax credit has imposed a downward pressure on equities…

…further eroding the value of pensions invested in the stock market.

And the unstoppable advance of the means-test, higher and higher up the income scale…

…has seen the incentive to save grow smaller and smaller.

According to the New Economics Foundation, British citizens on average owe 120% of their disposable incomes – at a time when real take-home pay is actually falling.

In seeking to boost saving, it is important that savings and investment products are properly explained and marketed.

I am glad that the Financial Services Authority is turning its attention to financial promotions…

…though I hope that statutory regulation will not be necessary.

We have had enough of that already.

Membership organisations like the Chartered Insurance Institute…

…which has been setting professional standards for financial services for over a hundred years…

…are often better placed to monitor best practice than Government is.

And I strongly commend the work you are doing alongside the FSA to improve professional practice.

The central plank of our election platform is that Conservatives offer a fair deal for everyone.

You will hear a lot about that fair deal in the coming months – and I would like briefly to outline what we mean by it.

Earlier this week I addressed an important Conservative conference on poverty.

I pointed out that economic inequality has widened since Labour took office.

And that over the last five decades – the life of the welfare state – upward social mobility has become harder, not easier.

Labour has failed to tackle poverty.

Conservatives have a different way.

We want a society in which no-one is left behind – where no-one has to put up with second-rate housing or education or healthcare.

And we want a society in which no-one is held back from realising their potential.

That includes entrepreneurs – the people who create the wealth which Governments tax and redistribute.

You are the agents of social justice in this country.

You are the people this country depends on for a better and fairer future.

But Labour has hurt wealth creation.

The sad fact is that productivity growth has halved since 1997.

The combined cost of Labour’s tax and red tape has been estimated by the CBI at £15 billion a year.

And as Digby Jones of the CBI commented recently, business people feel, and I quote:

“that the most dominant feature of running a business [today]… is no longer creating wealth – it is dealing with regulations.”

So when Conservatives talk about a fair deal they mean a fair deal for everyone:

…for the poor, trapped in poverty…

…for the taxpayer, denied value for money…

…and for business people, taxed and regulated to despair.

These are not contradictory messages.

They are a single message.

A fair deal for everyone.

How will we go about delivering the fair deal?

As far as your industry is concerned, we urgently need to revive the culture of long-term responsibility – the culture of saving.

That is why we propose what we have called the Lifetime Savings Account.

This would allow people to save in an escrow account with the benefit of a matching Government contribution.

They could withdraw the money if they needed it, and re-invest at a later date without sacrificing the Government contribution.

But this country also needs sounder economic foundations.

I should emphasise that we cannot, at this stage, anticipate the economic situation in two or three years’ time.

But Conservatives will always be a lower tax party than Labour.

In order to achieve this, the first thing we must do is tackle the problem of high taxation at its root –

…the culture of profligacy and waste which is found in our unreformed public services.

The Chancellor likes to boast of his ‘investment’ in our schools and hospitals.

But as we know all too well, most of the Government’s public expenditure is not ‘investment’ at all.

It is spending to stand still.

Inputs rise, but outputs remain the same.

Figures from the Office of National Statistics show Government’s current spending has increased by 50% since 1997…

…but that the value of Government outputs has increased by only 15%.

Since Labour came to power, public service productivity has actually declined by 5%.

This is most evident in the NHS.

Since 1999 we have seen a 22 per cent increase in health spending, but a meagre 1.6 per cent increase in the number of patients treated…

…and an actual fall – of half a per cent – in the number of hospital admissions.

These figures pre-date this year’s National Insurance rise, which has fallen especially hard on large employers like the NHS.

Labour are taxing… spending… wasting… and failing.

We must reverse this trend, and improve the efficiency of our public services.

And by reforming them, Conservatives will provide proper value for taxpayers’ money, and make savings which can be returned to the people.

I want to end with a word on the euro.

On Sunday Sweden rejected the single currency.

Not a single country has yet endorsed the euro in a referendum.

I believe that after the Swedish vote the prospects for a referendum in this Parliament are remote.

Of course, if we win the next election, the prospects for a referendum in the next Parliament will be non-existent.

And that is why I urge the business community to support us in that election.

Many of you will have a different view from me on the single currency.

But I hope you agree that what the British economy needs most is certainty.

Mr Blair is incapable of providing it.

He has promised his colleagues in Europe that he will call a referendum.

But he knows that he would lose it if he did so.

So there is only one alternative route for him – the route he always chooses.

The route of the third way: ambivalence.

Ambiguity.

Calculated indecision.

One Cabinet minister authorised to say one thing, another instructed to say the opposite.

Well, that might be the way the Labour Party operates.

But after six years of mixed messages and confusion, the British people, and British businesses in particular, are entitled to a little certainty.

They will get it with the Conservative Party.

The speech made by Iain Duncan Smith, the then Leader of the Opposition, on 20 September 2003.

It’s great to be back in Scotland.

Betsy and I had three wonderful weeks with the children here in the summer.

I could say we came to support the British tourist industry.

In fact we came because we just love Scotland.

The Prime Minister spent his holiday abroad.

After all, he can’t enjoy being in Britain much these days.

There are lots of things he probably wants to get away from.

The damning questions of the Hutton Inquiry…

…the failure of his policies on health and education…

…his own party – and Mr Cook and Ms Short in particular…

And his oldest friend, the man next door who wants his job.

Over the summer I watched the David Kelly tragedy unfold with growing horror.

In response to Dr Kelly’s death a panicked Tony Blair established the Hutton Inquiry.

I welcome Lord Hutton’s work and I hope it will help Dr Kelly’s family to understand a little more about why this dedicated civil servant lost his life.

We called for a judicial inquiry and I, today, restate that demand for a desperately needed investigation into the many questions that the

Hutton Inquiry does not have the authority to answer.

Particularly Labour’s alleged manipulation of the pre-war dossiers presented to Parliament.

I will not anticipate the outcome of the Hutton Inquiry but it has already done the British people a great service.

It has exposed the deceitful and manipulative way that this Labour Government works.

This Government has been confirmed as the most closed, secretive and downright dishonest Government of my lifetime.

It took the death of a senior public servant to shine a light into the deepest and darkest workings of Tony Blair’s government.

First Mr Blair denied having anything to do with the public naming of Dr Kelly and was then forced to admit that he chaired the meetings at which the exposure strategy was devised.

But there have been many other shameful episodes in the history of New Labour.

I think of the way the Paddington train crash survivors were bullied and the attempt to use the tragedy of September 11th as a good day to bury bad news.

I remember the Eccelestone, Mittalgate, Hinduja and Bristol flat affairs.

Labour’s culture of spin and deceit is destroying the British public’s faith in the democratic process.

Peter Mandelson, Alistair Campbell and Stephen Byers have been rightly blamed for contributing to this culture.

But it is not enough for each of them to have resigned.

Tony Blair appointed and directed all of these people.

Only with his departure from Downing Street will the culture of lies be shut down for good.

That’s why Tony Blair should go and go now.

I’ve always thought that Tony Blair’s support was as wide as his grin and as shallow as his record.

And on Thursday – in Brent – voters abandoned Labour in their droves.

They abandoned Labour because they saw through the veneer and saw Tony Blair’s record of rising crime and failing public services.

Let me make it absolutely clear: Thursday night was a disastrous night for the Labour government and Tony Blair. A good night for us all who have opposed him.

We watched as the Liberal Democrats used the usual tricks, of course, faithful to the words of their secret campaign handbook: ‘Be wicked. Act Shamelessly. Stir endlessly.’

But this week something else happened, which was different and dramatic.

The Liberal Democrats made a strategic blunder.

The lie that the Liberal Democrats are a moderate party of the centre was exposed like never before.

I am determined that the campaign which won them Brent will lose them seats all over Britain at the next election.

Charles Kennedy, in a desperate attempt to shore up his own position, attacked Labour from the left in Brent.

The result is that people who voted for Red Ken Livingstone in the 1980s are now voting for the Liberal Democrats.

As our vote held up, we saw a move from Left to Left.

The Liberal Democrats talk about honesty in politics.

But they are a Left-wing party who pretend to be moderate when it suits them.

In Brent East, Labour voters were honest about wanting to punish this government.

And so they voted for a party that wants even higher tax than Labour.

Even more spending.

That is opposed to any attempt to toughen up Labour’s failing and chaotic asylum system.

That will weaken our criminal justice system by not jailing first time burglars.

And of course, that wants to scrap the pound.

Oh yes ….. The Liberal Democrats are a left wing party – proof positive is that here in Scotland, they work alongside the Labour Party in a joint administration.

But not just that.

At their party conference next week, Liberals want to abolish the monarchy, ban smacking, and impose compulsory sex education for seven year-olds.

These are offensive policies.

The idea that Thursday night’s result in Brent suggests the Lib Dems are now the main party of opposition is nonsense.

Brent wasn’t the only by-election on Thursday – throughout the country as many people voted in council by-elections as voted in Brent.

And the Conservatives won 45% of the vote to Labour’s 25% and the Lib Dems’ 16%.

And let me remind you that on May 1st, the Conservatives won control of more councils in a single night than the Lib Dems control at all and became the largest party in local government.

And in Scotland in May the party made great progress in the elections for the Scottish Parliament. We are on the move.

And I have a message for “Hurricane Charlie”. Hurricanes spin round and round, making a lot of noise but they leave havoc in their wake and always blow themselves out.

We should also recognise that at last the Lib Dems said in public what we have known in private for too long.

From now on, they cannot have it both ways.

The party of Brent East cannot be the party of Newbury, Guildford, and Aberdeenshire West.

The voters of those places, and others as well, will now recognize the Liberal Democrats’ deceit and double standards.

The defeat for the Labour Government is good news. We should all celebrate the fact that the electorate have punished Mr Blair.

And it is our job to remind them endlessly of the Liberal Democrats who won Brent East and ensure they never vote Liberal Democrat again.

I’m pretty used to Labour and the Liberals joining forces – I see it most weeks at Prime Minister’s Questions.

In Scotland the combination has been disastrous.

Just look at the public services since 1999.

The number of people on NHS waiting lists has risen by a quarter.

Two thousand more NHS administrators.

600 less beds.

25 per cent more violent crime.

37 per cent more drug crime.

Half of all 14 year-olds not meeting the expected standards for reading or writing.

The number of assaults on teachers up an appalling 700 per cent – because of the Executive’s ludicrous refusal to exclude disruptive pupils.

That is the record of Labour and the Liberals in Scotland.

So forget about the third party.

And forget about the third way.

Throughout Britain there are only two ways of doing things.

You can centralise the public services, tax and tax the public to pay for them, and blame everybody else when things go wrong.

Or you can give both power and responsibility to the people in the front line:

…the professionals who provide our public services and the citizens who use them.

That’s a real devolution of power…

…the kind of ‘devolution’ the Scottish people deserve.

Next month, in Blackpool, our party will show that we are ready to govern again.

You’ll see the first draft of the manifesto we will present to the British people at the next general election.

I want to run through the outlines of that manifesto with you today.

Even in the devolved areas of policy, I know David and his team are working along similar lines to the party in Westminster.

Britain used to have a health service and an education system as good as any in the world.

Sadly, in neither case can we be so confident anymore.

It’s not that we don’t have excellent heads, inspiring teachers or dedicated doctors and nurses.

We do.

And I pay tribute to their dedication and professionalism.

But the structures these professionals work in suffer chronic levels of bureaucracy.

Staff are undermined and underrated.

Neither teachers nor doctors are free to practice their vocations, to follow their training and use their experience in the service of the people.

According to Mr Blair, their experience counts for nothing.

Their commitment and knowledge of the children, the patients, the communities they serve, counts for nothing in Labour’s Scotland, Labour’s Britain.

What counts, said Mr Blair, is what works.

He means what works for him, and his electoral fortunes.

Labour’s basic, governing belief is what I call Total Politics.

For New Labour, everything that ever happens in every school, every hospital and every police force must be directed, supervised and controlled from the centre.

Conservatives, both north and south, have a different vision from Labour.

We’ll put parents and patients in charge of the services they receive.

And that means we’ll give them choice.

I want to be very clear what I mean by choice.

I do not mean the choice of the high street.

I do not expect parents and patients to shop around for a school or clinic, the way they shop around for a holiday or a television.

There is a profound difference between choice in the marketplace and choice in the public services.

Choice in the marketplace means variety and abundance….

Choice in public services means a guarantee – and peace of mind.

It means that you are not stuck with second-rate services.

It means you have an alternative if you need it.

So when Conservatives say to people: We want you to have choice…

…we do not mean, you’re on your own.

We mean: we will fight to ensure…

… that in the things that matter…

… – in your family’s healthcare and education – …

…we will be by your side.

We will enable patients to receive their treatment anywhere in the health service…

…and if decent treatment is not available in the NHS, we will assist them to go private.

And in the inner cities, we will give parents the right to take their children’s education to the school of their choice.

We will fight to ensure…

…that no-one is held back by a lack of opportunity…

… and no-one is left behind by a lack of compassion.

With choice for the users of public services, we can give freedom to the providers.

In healthcare, we will trust our hospitals to the people we trust our lives to: the people who work in them.

Doctors will follow clinical priorities, not political guidelines.

In education, Scottish Conservatives won’t tell schools what to do.

We will give them the freedom they need to cater to local demand.

We will encourage a greater choice of specialist schools, including faith and Steiner schools.

And because children only get one chance at education…

…we will restore discipline in schools.

We will give head teachers the power to exclude violent or disruptive pupils who make learning impossible for everybody else.

In higher education, we will give universities and colleges back their freedom.

Independent institutions, dedicated to pursuing excellence not government targets.

And we will abolish the Lib-Lab graduate tax.

The Liberals like to peddle the fiction that there are no tuition fees in Scotland.

What you really have are fees paid through the tax system at a later date.

Combining income tax, national insurance and graduate tax, young Scottish graduate earning just £10,000 a year will be paying an effective marginal tax rate of 42%.

In England and Wales, Labour want to introduce extra fees, on top of the tuition fees they’ve already imposed.

Another one of Labour’s broken promises.

Of course, top-up fees and graduate taxes amount to the same thing.

A tax on learning.

Almost the first thing we do will be to pay the tuition costs of all students in Scotland.

And we will increase the value of the student loan to £5,000 a year.

We will guarantee access to higher education solely on merit.

And in England and Wales we will scrap the top-up fees.

My visit to the Gallowgate estate in Glasgow was one of many I have made to hard-pressed communities since I became leader.

The places and people have been different, but the problems are the same.

Dependency, drugs, crime.

The breakdown of family and community in the face of unbearable pressure.

Everywhere the sense of hopelessness which is the unmistakable mark of real poverty.

All these communities had one other thing in common.

They’ve been ruled by Labour for as long as anyone can remember.

By Labour councils.

And a Labour Executive.

Labour policies.

And Labour results.

But blaming Labour isn’t good enough.

We have to deliver policies that will make a difference.

If Gallowgate shames us, it also inspires us.

In the midst of despair there is hope.

Local people, abandoned by government, are finding their own solutions.

Community groups are succeeding where the politicians have failed.

But they do need the help of politicians – because we might not have the solutions to local problems…

… but we have the money, and we have the power, to remove obstacles and make local solutions really take off.

As one remarkable woman from the Gallowgate Family Support Group told me:

“We don’t need more politics.

“We need more hope.

“Just give us hope and we will do the rest.”

And that’s what I will do.

So where do we start?

We start by taking back the streets for the law abiding citizen.

We start by winning back the estates from the muggers and the drug dealers.

We start by getting the police back on the beat.

Because there can be no end to poverty without a start to security.

Figures from the Executive show that, on average, there are only 138 police officers out on foot patrol in the whole of Scotland.

Conservatives believe in visible, effective, neighbourhood policing.

That’s why in England and Wales we have pledged to put 40,000 additional police where they are needed the most – on our streets.

And why under a Conservative Government here in Scotland there would be more money to fight crime and keep you safe in your communities.

David …..

We believe in getting persistent offenders off the streets.

And we believe in fast track prosecution and stiffer sentencing for drug dealers.

Because the fight against crime and the fight against drugs are one and the same.

Since 1999, drug deaths have increased by 70%.

Every day in Scotland, a life is lost to drugs.

That is the legacy of Labour’s “Know the Score” strategy.

Conservatives, north and south, are united behind a different approach.

United behind the parents and grandparents of the Gallowgate Family Support Group.

As Annabel Goldie says

“addicts need to be faced with a stark “tough love” choice between immediate and effective rehabilitation or the full force of the law.”

We will give those addicts that choice.

And that is how we will give hope to their families.

In delivering a fair deal for the broken communities of our nation, we will never punish the prosperous.

That is Labour’s way.

When Conservatives talk about a fair deal we mean a fair deal for everyone:

…for the poor, trapped in poverty…

…for the taxpayer, denied value for money…

…for the elderly, denied a decent pension…

…and for business people, taxed and regulated to despair.

These are not contradictory messages.

They become one message.

A fair deal for everyone.

Since Tony Blair promised ‘we have no plans to increase tax’, Gordon Brown has imposed sixty tax rises on the British people.

This week, I forced the Prime Minister to admit that Council Tax in England and Wales has risen by 70% since he came to power.

In Scotland, the increase has been less fast, but still an enormous 42%.

Poor pensioners are paying almost a tenth of their incomes in Council Tax.

And what are we seeing for all these increases?

Certainly not the improvements we all so desperately want.

Public sector productivity has actually declined since 1997…

… but taxes keep on climbing, and taking money which people need to save and invest.

Since 1997…

…the overall tax take has increased by half…

… but household saving is down by half.

Spending on public services has increased by 50 per cent…

…but the volume of public services we receive has increased by only 15 per cent.

But at the same time there has been a fall of 5% fall in productivity.

In the health service, Labour has spent 22% more money in the last three years.

But less than 2% more patients are being treated.

And today we hear we are to be asked to pay 5p more tax for a gallon of petrol.

That is Labour’s record.

Taxing.

Spending.

Wasting.

Failing.

The next Conservative government will be different.

We will reform our public services so they deliver value for money for taxpayers.

By eliminating waste and by getting more money to the front line of our public services, we will deliver better public services…

… and, let me be absolutely clear, we will be a lower tax Government than Labour.

Down in Westminster, Scottish politics sometimes gets overlooked.

There are a lot of Scottish MPs, of course.

Half the Cabinet seem to come from north of the border.

But don’t kid yourself that this Government pays a lot of attention to Scotland.

This summer’s botched reshuffle saw the Secretary of State’s position abolished, then reinstated.

The plaque removed from the building, then screwed back on.

And we end up with the job being done on a part-time basis by the Transport Secretary.

It’s not as if Alistair Darling hasn’t got enough to be getting on with – sorting out the chaos on our roads and railways!

Well at my Shadow Cabinet table Jacqui Lait is a powerful advocate for the interests of Scotland.

Thank you Jacqui for all you do.

If this Government insults the office of the Secretary of State, that is nothing to the way it insults the Scottish regiments.

Throughout the history of the Union, Scotsmen formed the backbone of the British Army.

My father used to tell me stories of the great battles fought by Scottish regiments in defence of the United Kingdom and its interests.

Battles like Waterloo and Balaclava and through both world wars all noble monuments to the bravery of the Scottish regiments.

I was proud to serve in the Scots Guards.

I am deeply troubled that the Government is considering further disbandments.

An attack on the Scottish regiments is an attack on the Union.

An attack that Scottish Conservatives must repel.

I am appalled by the false economies this Government is always trying to make at our armed forces’ expense.

I know that the army is a costly asset.

But we will not save taxpayers money by weakening the defences of the United Kingdom.

Nor will we fulfill our responsibility to the environment by eroding our most precious national resources – I mean our stock of North Sea fish.

As Ted Brocklebank said recently, Scotland has the richest fishing grounds in Europe…

…and we have a duty, not only as Britons but as members of the European Union, to sustain this remarkable, renewable gift of nature for future generations.

This duty is not being met by the Common Fisheries Policy.

Over two million tonnes of healthy fish thrown back into the sea every year – and this is the how the EU tries to ‘conserve’ fish stocks.

What nonsense.

My commitment to conservation begins with the UK Government regaining control of UK waters.

We will do this by negotiation if possible – by unilateral action if necessary.

To those who say, you cannot withdraw from the CFP, I say: watch me.

If Parliamentary sovereignty means anything, it means that.

And while we are on that only the Conservative Party will campaign to give the British people a referendum on the European Constitution. Only the Conservative Party will give people the respect they deserve.

Parliament is also supposed to be sovereign over our borders.

But Labour’s asylum and immigration system is a disgrace.

Conservatives will scrap that system lock, stock and barrel.

We’ll make sure that all applications are processed offshore.

No one will be allowed to sneak into this country illegally and then claim asylum.

We will introduce a system based on quotas – so we, not the criminal gangs, decide how many people we receive and from where.

We will fulfill Britain’s duty to genuine refugees but eliminate the waste, abuse and injustice of the present system.

When Conservatives take office we will cut the number of asylum seekers entering Britain dramatically.

And so as we near the next election, I want to set out two challenges to the party.

First, I want us to take over from the Nationalists as the official opposition in Scotland.

After all, as the only party on the centre-right, we’re the real opposition anyway.

The only party to speak up for families, for businesses, and for the Union.

Already the Scottish people are abandoning the other parties.

The disintegration of Labour and the Nationalists is our opportunity.

In the May elections we drew level with the Nationalists, and will now charge ahead to chase Labour’s lead.

And I want to pay tribute to the man who is leading that charge – the directly-elected member for Edinburgh Pentlands: David McLetchie.

David is an outstanding leader of the Scottish Conservatives.

Don’t take it from me.

The Times this week said that under David’s leadership, the Party has – I quote – “rediscovered a confidence and a voice that it has lacked since 1997”.

I have every confidence in him and his team as he leads you towards the European elections next year and the general election whenever it is called.

I have said before that a victory in the general election, without victories in Scotland, is not a complete victory.

And I stand by those words.

For this is the second challenge for the party across the United Kingdom.

I mean victory at the general election.

When I became leader two years ago I knew we had a mountain to climb.

And halfway through the Parliament, the top is finally in sight.

Trust in this Government has entirely seeped away.

Trust in the Conservatives is returning.

Back in 2001 I set my Shadow Cabinet team a task.

To develop an analysis of Labour’s failure which would not just be a means of attacking the Government.

But also be a plan for our Government.

And I can tell you now that my team has delivered.

Next month we will unveil policies in health, in education, in home affairs…

…which will bring home to the British people the control over their lives that Labour has stolen.

From now until the election I will be tireless.

I will be tireless in exposing Labour’s failure.

Tireless in speaking up for the victims of that failure.

And tireless in campaigning for the Conservative solution for that failure.

I know that you will be with me in this campaign.

After 11 years, many defeats and huge difficulties we gather here today all of us knowing that it is different now.

I do not stand here and tell you that victory is ours by right, it is not.

I do not stand here and tell you that the next year and a half will be easy, it will not.

However, I will tell you that for the first time in 11 years this party has at last earned the right to be heard.

That the next year and a half is for the first time in far too many years a contest.

Everyone of us is here today bound together by one strong and abiding belief that each and everyone of us loves our country.

It brought me here and it sustains me.

And I know that the British people are the most decent, determined and tolerant people that I have ever met anywhere.

And I know that they are worth fighting for.

That is our challenge.

That is also our duty.

To fight for the British people and to regain power for the British people.

Together, united, focused and determined, come with me and let us show them that we are ready for government.

The speech made by Iain Duncan Smith, the then Leader of the Opposition, on 23 September 2003.

I know that we can win the next general election. And I want to tell you how.

Today we are in the best position for eleven years…the largest and fastest growing party of local government, with levels of representation as high as in Labour’s winter of discontent in 1979.

Tonight I want to explain how that has come about…how we will build on that to create a real lead over Labour by the next election.

Already, people are sick and tired of Labour.

The 70 per cent increase in council tax. Sixty new tax rises. Failing schools and hospitals. Rising gun crime. Labour’s lies about the war.

But we also need to expose one of the biggest lies in British politics today.

For too long, we’ve allowed the Liberal Democrats to get away with murder:

…sending different messages to different groups.

Pretending to Conservative voters that they are a moderate party and a suitable alternative to Labour.

From Guildford to Hereford, from Newbury to Aberdeenshire, we need to remind voters what Liberal Democrats are saying in seats like Brent.

On Saturday I made a strong attack on the Lib Dems. It wasn’t a tactic in response to Brent. But the beginning of a major campaign. A campaign we will take to every doorstep in Britain – and has already produced results on the front pages of the Sun and the Times. As those papers have proved, the Lib Dems are not moderates.

In Brent, they campaigned on a platform of anti-Americanism and even higher public spending. At their conference this week, they are voting to abolish the monarchy, ban smacking and impose compulsory sex education for seven year-olds. They’ve moved from weak Left to loony Left. Red Kennedy isn’t an alternative to Tony Blair – he’s his echo.

Blair’s soft on soft drugs – Kennedy’s soft on hard drugs too. He wants higher taxes, weaker asylum rules, fewer burglars in prison and an end to our national currency.

Now I know that everyone here – and everyone in the wider Party – sees straight through Tony Blair and his government of liars and incompetents. We want him out today, and we can’t quite believe that he’s still in No. 10.

But I have to tell you something. Not everyone in the country has felt like that for as long as we have. Most people have been willing to give Tony Blair the benefit of the doubt. But that has now changed. Most people now believe that Labour’s policy on the public services – the policy of throwing untold billions at them – is failing and will always fail.

As we have seen over the summer, trust in Mr Blair has collapsed. And I can tell you that in the things which matter – on schools, hospitals, crime and transport – people are beginning to trust the Conservatives.

People are disappointed and they are angry. And now the Conservatives must be their champions. Earlier this month we published Total Politics, a critique of Labour’s record of centralization of the public services. That paper contains the policy framework for the next Conservative government, a government committed to a fair deal for everyone.

Next month at Blackpool, we will fill out the details of that framework. Policies to put parents and patients first…to return power to front-line professionals…and to deliver what Labour is congenitally incapable of delivering: taxpayer value for money.

We’ve never been more advanced in the parliamentary cycle. We have the policies in place. We have the organization in place. And we have a full eighteen months to take the fight to the government. To convince people that there is an alternative to Labour. And at the same time – to finish off the Liberal Democrats.

After 11 years, many defeats and huge difficulties we gather here today all of us knowing in our hearts that it is different now. That the prize is before us.

But knowing it’s different is not enough. We need to want to win more strongly than anything else. We need to set aside all else but this. To wake up every morning with the sole and over-riding ambition to drive Tony Blair from office. I have that ambition. I know you do too.

The speech made by Iain Duncan Smith, the then Leader of the Opposition, in Loughborough on 23 October 2003.

I know that the reputation students have for staying out late and drinking too much is only rivalled by the reputation journalists have for doing the same – so it’s particularly good to see so many representatives of both groups here today.

This is an important event.

It’s our opportunity to introduce to you some of the key people who will be fighting next year’s local and European elections for the Conservative Party in this area.

And those elections are extremely important.

Local councils are increasingly spending more and more of people’s money and being asked to deliver more and more of their services. That’s why next year’s local elections will be fought on the key battlegrounds of value for money and service delivery.

In May this year, people across the country put their trust in the Conservative Party to deliver better standards of service for lower levels of tax.

They did so, because Conservative councils have a good record of doing so. On average, Conservative councils charge £81 less on Band D homes than Labour councils, and £99 less than Liberal Democrat councils.

Yet an analysis of performance figures provided by the Audit Commission shows that the standard of our service delivery far outstrips that of our political opponents.

This is why today we are the largest and fastest growing party of local government in Britain.

But next year’s elections are not just about the day-to-day issues of local government – they are also of crucial importance to the way Britain conducts its future relations with Europe.

I pay tribute particularly, to the work of your two local Conservative MEPs in this region – Chris Heaton-Harris and Roger Helmer, who is here today.

They have both worked extremely hard over the past four years to expose the fraud and maladministration at the heart of the European Commission.

And they have been prepared to stand up for the interests of the East Midlands by opposing Labour’s destructive plans for regional assemblies and by supporting local industry and commerce.

They will also be part of this team that will be at the forefront of the Conservative campaign we have launched this week to give the people a say on the proposed European Constitution which is as unnecessary as it is unwanted.

We have a record of success on which to campaign next year.

But we also have new ideas and solutions in many policy areas that we will continue to promote.

We will show that it is once again the Conservative Party that is coming up with solutions to people’s problems.

And it is once again the Conservative Party that is committed to holding no one back while leaving no one behind.

John spoke earlier about the specific problems we want to address here today. Problems faced by young people who are under pressure to achieve their best but who get little help from their government to do so.

For students in Loughborough those problems can take two main forms.

For those who hope to go on to a successful sporting career, one of the key concerns is the pressure to use performance enhancing drugs to be able to train and compete better.

As Conservatives, we are proud of our record in supporting British sport. For example, we established the National Lottery that has helped to fund many great sporting initiatives around the country.

But today, the distribution of lottery funds is carried out by the same body that funds our doping control programme.

That programme is often inconsistent and the grounds for appeal are sometimes unclear.

It’s time to give a fair deal to Britain’s young athletes so that they know where they stand and so that we can keep our sport drug-free.

So today, we call on the Government to establish a new UK Independent Agency for Doping Control in Sport – an agency that is completely free of interference from government or from those who fund sporting projects.

This would strengthen the existing mechanisms for dealing with doping cases in a robust, consistent and fair way under a unified system to cover all Governing bodies of Sport.

We hope the Government will accept this proposal now, so that our young sportsmen and women can have confidence they will be treated fairly and that we can be confident that our sport is as free from drugs as possible.

There is, however, a further threat to our nation’s future potential that is not specific to this town or this area.

Labour’s plans to impose a huge tax on learning – a charge of £3,000 a year for the average student – will deter many of our brightest and best young people from going to university in the first place.

At the same time, their plans to socially engineer the selection process for universities are simply unfair and are unthinkable for our party – a party that believes in opportunity and achievement for all based on merit and hard-work.

While the Government ploughs on with its plans in defiance of every strand of opposition and with arrogant disregard for general public opinion, I am happy to restate our commitment on tuition fees once again here today:

We will abolish all Labour’s tuition fees.

We believe access to university should be based on merit and merit alone.

And we believe those young people who don’t want to go to university should have just as much opportunity in life as those who do.

That’s our fair deal for young people.

I’m delighted to be here today. To be able to visit this beautiful area, to be going to see the excellent facilities at Loughborough University and to be able to launch this excellent campaign team for next year’s elections.

And I’m pleased to be able to bring the Conservative message of a fair deal for everyone to the people of the East Midlands.

A fair deal for everyone is our ambition for this country. And we will continue to demonstrate how we will achieve that ambition by delivering practical solutions to the problems the people of Britain face today.

Solutions like those I’ve spoken about this morning.

A fair deal for everyone will be the message we campaign on through next year’s elections and on into the general election.

It’s what British People deserve.

It’s what we will deliver.

The statement made by Iain Duncan Smith, the then Leader of the Opposition, outside Conservative Central Office on 28 October 2003.

I am pleased that the Parliamentary party has responded to my call for a swift resolution. I welcome the fact that this matter will now be decided quickly, openly and in the clear light of day, and I look forward to addressing the 1922 Committee tomorrow to make the case for my continued leadership of this Party.

I believe that I have achieved a lot during the last two years. Following a second general election defeat and a divisive leadership contest, the Conservative Party was twenty points behind in the opinion polls. We are now equal with Labour in the polls, and we have become the largest party of local government.

But I do not seek a vote of confidence solely on my past record. I seek the approval of my colleagues for the campaign that is now beginning.

A vote of confidence in me will ensure we immediately start communicating to the British people the Conservative alternative to Labour. A vote of confidence in me can maintain the party unity on tax and Europe which we have achieved over the last two years – and ensure that we remain committed to the far-reaching set of policies in health, education, pensions, policing and asylum which we unveiled in Blackpool this month.

I regard it as my duty to warn my party that a change of leadership at this stage will be regarded with despair and contempt by many loyal supporters, and gravely imperil the party’s prospects at the next election.

I know I have the confidence of the grass roots – and I look forward to their original election of me, and their continued support, being validated by my Parliamentary colleagues. Then, united behind my leadership, we can begin the campaign to win the next election.

The speech made by Iain Duncan Smith, the out-going Leader of the Conservative Party, at the CPS in London on 30 October 2003.

As I said last night, out there in Smith Square, it has been an immense honour to have led the Conservative party for the last two years.

I very much hope that – as tonight seems likely – my successor is chosen quickly, so that we can all get behind the leader.

The new leader will have my absolute loyalty.

And I encourage all those members of the voluntary party who made me the first leader of the party elected by the grass roots, to also give that leader their whole-hearted support.

From this moment onwards, we must never again allow our own private interests and squabbles to distract us from the task of opposition –
…the task of exposing this government’s manifold failures and defeating them at the next election.

This speech was planned a little time ago, as the beginning of our great push to communicate the policies we announced at Blackpool.

I decided I wanted to make the speech here at the CPS.

This think-tank has always performed the role of intellectual pioneer for the Conservative Party, and, indeed, for the country…
…and I could think of a no better place to set out the programme for the first Conservative government of the 21st century – the government I hoped to lead.

Events, you might have noticed, have somewhat overtaken me.

But last night, after hearing the result of the confidence vote, I decided that I would still make this speech.

Because although I will not lead the first Conservative government of this century, I believe I have provided its manifesto, its policy prospectus.

I believe our Party now has an agenda as radical and attractive as that drawn up by Keith Joseph at the dawn of the Thatcher era.

I’d like to take this opportunity to pay particular tribute to Greg Clark and his team in the Policy Unit.

I know Greg has worked closely with the CPS in recent years and I am sorry he isn’t here tonight.

He wisely went on holiday to Mexico at the end of last week!

But he and his team – some of whom I see here – deserve the thanks of the entire party for what they have done.

It is my deepest wish that the policies they have worked on for so long will form the programme of the next Conservative government.

It is a settlement which, after much hard work, has won the support of all wings of the party – but which has lost none of its radicalism in the process.

Tonight I want to talk about four inter-linked principles which I hope Conservatives will continue to stand for, whoever is elected leader –
…the principles which will be my legacy to this Party.

The first is the need for a complete renewal of our public services.

The second is the need to place social justice, and concern for the plight of the vulnerable, at the very core of Conservative thinking.

The third is the need for freedom, the rule of law and a strong and competitive economy.

And the fourth is the need to defend the state itself, and the constitutional arrangements of the United Kingdom.

The first task of the next Conservative government must be public service renewal.

Of course, Conservatives were the joint authors of the welfare state.

It was the Conservative health minister in Churchill’s wartime government who drew up the first plans for the NHS.

It was Rab Butler who passed the great Education Act of 1944, ensuring mass education for Britain’s children.

It was Harold Macmillan who, as housing minister in the early 50s, built up the public housing stock.

Conservatives can share the credit for the creation and maintenance of the welfare state…

…but we must also take our share of the blame for its failures – and commit ourselves to its renewal.

The era of uniform, comprehensive, state-run services is over.

Consumers are no longer prepared to be told to get what they’re given and be grateful.

The professionals who deliver public services are no longer prepared to be treated like cogs in the machine.

Taxpayers are no longer prepared to be billed, again and again, to pay for the ever-rising cost of a failed system.

If the plans I have laid down are followed by my successor…

…the next Conservative government will make a real and immediate difference to people’s lives.

Every parent in England and Wales will have a Better Schools Passport, giving them total control over the education of their child.

Every citizen will have a Patient’s Passport, entitling them to free care anywhere in the NHS.

And if, for whatever reason, they have to go private, they will get help to do so.

The right-to-buy programme will be extended…

…so that housing association tenants can also experience the satisfaction and responsibility of home ownership.

We will scrap Labour’s tuition fees for students and stopped their plans for extra top-up fees.

And we will work to end the means test for pensioners and improve and incentivise saving for retirement.

We will begin this process by raising the basic state pension in line with earnings.

All these are radical, feasible, Conservative policies.

They are based on the simple principle of trust.

The welfare state was founded in a period when people were expected to trust the government – not government to trust the people.

We’ll reverse that relationship.

Under the first Conservative government of the 21st century, the state will not be a monopoly provider of education and healthcare.

It will primarily be a funder, and a regulator.

Government will trust teachers and doctors, managers and ministers, to make the decisions about how they work.

Politicians often talk about how much we value our public service professionals.

Conservative policies prove we mean it.

Second is my commitment to one nation Conservatism.

A child born into poverty in the first decade of the 21st century is more likely to stay poor than a child born into poverty in the 1950s.

This is a shameful fact.

Sadly, this Labour government – despite its best intentions – has not succeeded in reversing the trend.

Inequality has actually widened under Tony Blair.

Gordon Brown’s notional target of lifting a million children out of poverty has only been met by lifting families from just below the poverty line to just above it.

Persistent poverty – real, grinding hardship – has often got worse under Labour.

For too long the Labour Party have abused a monopoly position on these issues.

Labour have failed to address the material roots of poverty and haven’t even begun to address the relational and spiritual dimensions of deprivation.

But if Conservatives are to become an effective party of social justice we must not just oppose the worn-out approach of the liberal left…

We must also oppose the nihilistic individualism of the libertarian right.

One nation will never be built if public policy ignores some of the leading causes of poverty…

Causes like family breakdown and drug addiction.

There is nothing compassionate about weakness in the face of the drug menace.

Social justice will never be achieved if government undermines society’s most basic institution –

…the marriage-centred family and the many people of all backgrounds who benefit from its care.

The poverty and crime killing so many communities won’t be defeated if we don’t help young people stay off drugs and recover from their addictions.

That much was made clear to me when I met with a support group for the parents and grandparents of drug addicts in Glasgow.

The faith and courage of the Gallowgate Family Support Group also taught me that drugs can be defeated.

As Jim Doherty of that support group told me – “just give us hope and we will do the rest.”

If the Conservative Party has half as much courage as those parents and grandparents,

…then we will go forward to the next election with a policy on drugs that does – indeed – bring hope to Britain’s hard-pressed communities.

We will also need courage if we are to do the right thing by Britain’s hard-pressed families.

Those who believe that family breakdown is a purely private matter are blind to the enormous public consequences –

…as well as the personal consequences for the children to which we all owe a duty of care.

I am personally determined that a hard-headed and open-hearted approach to questions of poverty becomes a central theme of conversation and debate within the Conservative Party.

An effective approach to drugs.

Help for families to stay together.

And a renewal of very local forms of voluntary activity and social entrepreneurship that often succeed where the centralised state fails.

These should be the leading ingredients of one nation Conservatism in the twenty-first century.

My social justice agenda springs from my visit to Easterhouse in February 2002.

That was dismissed by many as a media stunt.

But that visit – and many more to hard-pressed neighbourhoods since – have had a profound impact on me.

If my main legacy to the Conservative Party is a body of policy…

…my commitment to fight poverty is that body’s beating heart.

In the coming weeks I intend to think carefully about how I, personally, will take that commitment forward.

Freedom

The third principle I wish to leave my successor is the enduring Conservative commitment to freedom.

Not a freedom that cuts people off from one another…

…but build communities where no one is held back by a lack of opportunity, and no one is left behind by a lack of compassion.

Today, Britain feels like a place where you need a license to live your life.

Taxes have risen by a half since 1997 – regulations rule every aspect of our lives.

We must cut taxes and red tape.

The next Conservative government must be a low tax government.

It was John Stuart Mill who said: ‘a state that dwarfs its citizens, will find that with small men, no great things can be accomplished’.

Today we are too afraid of risk…

…the risks that bring reward.

Everything I have been talking about tonight tends to this: we must unleash the creative energies of the British people…

…to serve themselves, their families and their communities far more effectively than the state ever will.

But there is another freedom – the freedom from fear.

You can’t have a free people without order.

That’s why the fight against crime is a fight for freedom.

Conservative proposals will deliver 40,000 extra policemen and give every local community real control of their local force.

I now come to my third principle of my legacy to the Conservative Party.

Labour has not only undermined the cultural defences of civilisation.

It has undermined the state itself.

It has politicised the civil service.

Eroded civil liberties.

Suborned our once-independent intelligence services.

Neglected the armed forces.

And held in Parliament in contempt.

I have talked about a Government that trusts people.

We also need a Government that people can trust.

Conservatives must restore the integrity of our national institutions – and restore integrity to public life.

Most of all, we must have some honesty about Europe.

Because we are now, truly, at a fork in the road.

It has been the genius of our evolving Constitution that every step forward has been the continuation of an older tradition.

But this is different.

The proposed EU Constitution represents an explicit and total break with the past.

The Constitution gives EU law primacy over UK law, and creates the European Court of Justice as the sovereign legal authority of the United Kingdom –

…the position previously held by the Queen in Parliament.

This Treaty is something no Government can accept on the authority of its own elected mandate.

The British Constitution is not the property of Tony Blair, to do with as he will.

It is the property of the British people, held by the Government only in trust.

No Prime Minister or Member of Parliament can vote away the basis on which he holds his office or his seat.

So I have established the Conservative Party policy on this question: we are against the European constitution in principle.

Three months ago, in Prague, I set out Conservative policy clearly and simply – and with the support of all wings of the party.

Under the Conservatives, Britain will reclaim exclusive control of agriculture, fisheries and foreign aid.

We will stem the tide of European regulation, and refuse to be part of a common foreign policy or a European army.

And we will retain control of our borders and of our economy.

This is not a blueprint for withdrawal from the EU.

It is a positive step towards the sort of EU which most Europeans want: diverse, flexible, comprising independent states.

We must build a new Europe.

Not a single, unitary and unaccountable super-state –

…but a loose association of independent democracies, co-operating as they see fit but retaining their sovereign right to run their own affairs.

We must take this vision forward.

A great deal has changed for me over the past two years.

Serving as leader of the opposition meant challenges on a scale that no one who hasn’t done the job can appreciate.

There have been some privileges – but many more problems!

All of this – from the sweet moments of victory to the bitter moments of defeat – have changed me.

I’m still stubborn, and self-opinionated – and I’m still almost always right!

But anyone with a modicum of sensitivity and insight – and I hope I’ve got at least a bit of both –

…couldn’t help but be changed by what I’ve seen and done since 2001.

So I’ve got an admission.

I’ve been on a journey.

A political journey as well as one all around this country.

I’ve been appalled by much of what I’ve seen.

In 21st century Britain, children dying of drugs that their parents died of too.

In 21st century Britain, poverty still real.

In 21st century Britain, pensioners trapped in their homes by fear of crime.

On this journey, I’ve been reminded of something that lies deep in the Conservative conscience…

…buried too deep for too long…

…that our party fulfils its greatest purpose when we bring social solidarity by delivering social justice.

The people who taught me this lesson weren’t academics.

They certainly weren’t the national media.

Our party is sometimes accused by the media of being out of touch with modern Britain.

In truth, the whole political class has lost touch with those in greatest need.

Can we wonder that millions despair of politicians – and so opt out of the political process?

My teachers were those often patronisingly described by those on the Westminster scene as ‘ordinary people’.

In Gallowgate and Easterhouse, Hackney and Handsworth…

…I’ve met extra-ordinary people who fight for the poorest Britons, in communities ruined by drugs and crime.

These remarkable men and women taught me more about leadership than any politician could have.

They are real leaders.

Their strength is their certain belief in the most profound of human qualities – hope, compassion, and a sense of fairness –

…beliefs derived from real lives, lived on the front line.

The only meaningful freedoms for them are the freedom from fear and want, crime and addiction – they yearn not for license, but for order.

My journey is not a trip to an uncertain future – but the journey home.

To a Conservative home, where the security of family and community bring hope and fairness.

My journey is not over.

My mission will continue.

It is the Conservative mission for fairness…

…true to our inheritance…

…vital for our people…

…worthy of our nation.

The speech made by Iain Duncan Smith, shortly after he ceased being Leader of the Opposition, at the Congress for Democracy on 7 November 2003.

My speech today was planned some time ago under rather different personal circumstances.

I am, however, very glad to honour my agreement to speak, in my new capacity as a backbench MP.

I take this opportunity to congratulate Michael Howard very warmly on his election…

…to pledge my absolute loyalty to him as my new leader…

…and to wish him the very best of luck as he continues the Conservative campaign against this failing Labour government.

When I became leader in 2001, we were told by every pundit and commentator that the Party would never unite on Europe.

We were told it so often we nearly believed it ourselves.

At the end of my leadership, I consider that prediction to have been confounded.

One of the greatest legacies that I leave my party is unity on the question of Europe.

This unity was not achieved at the cost of principle.

Our position remains firmly anti-federalist.

If the Party stays true to the line I laid down…

We will repatriate our fisheries and our foreign aid budget.

We will never accept a European army or a common foreign policy.

We oppose the single currency not just for the moment, but for ever – on principle.

And in Prague earlier this year –

…following many weeks of consultation with all shades of opinion within the Party –

…I stated that we oppose the European Constitution also, on principle.

Labour’s dishonesty: tidying up?

With every passing day, the dishonesty of the present Government has become more clear to the British people.

In almost every aspect of its activity, Labour has lied about its record and its intentions.

But nowhere has this tendency been more marked than on the question of Europe.

Remember when Tony Blair declared his love for the pound?

For seven years, we have been solemnly assured by Mr Blair of his intention to defend our national independence.

For seven years, one item of independence after another has crossed the channel to Europe.

Remember when he said he would never consent to a European army?

Remember when he said foreign judges would never have power over British citizens in Britain?

Treaty after treaty… summit after summit… directive after directive…

…the right of the British people to govern themselves has drained away.

The colours are fading from the Union Jack.

For seven years, Labour have shifted and shuffled, twisted and turned…

…to justify what can never be justified: the ceding of our sovereignty to Brussels.

And the ultimate, the crowning insult to the intelligence of the public…

…has been Labour’s rhetoric on the European Constitution.

The Foreign Secretary has said that that the draft Constitution simply codifies the principles on which Europe already operates.

The Minister for Europe has said that the draft Constitution is merely a ‘tidying up exercise’.

And the Prime Minister has said that the draft Constitution:

‘do[es] not involve any fundamental change in the relationship between the EU and Member States.’

All three men are either deceiving themselves – or they are trying to deceive the British people.

[As we have heard from Martin Howe], the Constitution goes much further than existing treaties.

Everyone knows it is far more than a tidying up exercise.

Other European nations certainly think so – which is why they’re holding referendums on it.

It does represent a fundamental change in the relationship between the EU and the Member States.

It gives Brussels a new power to ‘co-ordinate’ the economic, employment and social policies of the Member States

It incorporates the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights into UK law.

It makes criminal and judicial affairs no longer subject to intergovernmental decision-making…

…but to the new supranational area of ‘freedom, security and justice’.

It lowers the hurdle of Qualified Majority Voting to an even lower level than that agreed at Nice…

…which we were told would be the last change before enlargement.

It establishes a common asylum policy, and does not include the opt-out Britain has previously negotiated on this issue.

It makes provision for an autonomous EU defence capability outside NATO – in other words, a European army.

And it requires Member States to – I quote –

‘actively and unreservedly support the Union’s common foreign and security policy in a spirit of loyalty and mutual solidarity…

…[and] ensure that their national policies conform to the positions of the Union.’

These are all unacceptable examples of the encroachment of Brussels –

…and they are telling evidence of the way the Blair-Brown Government has lied to the British people about Europe.

Some claim the British people will lose influence if they reject Old Europe’s agenda.

But influence must never be bought at the price of our permanent interest.

Influence is a means.

Britain’s permanent national interest is an end.

Every one of these changes is unacceptable because none of them is in Britain’s national interest.

Changes to our lives

How will these changes impact on our daily lives?

The Constitution stipulates that the EU will pursue a ‘social market economy’ –

…that is, the high unemployment, low growth model of France and Germany.

The EU will ‘co-ordinate’ health and education policy –

…meaning NHS and schools reform will have to wait on the approval of Brussels.

The Constitution gives the EU the right to raise its own taxes.

It reverses the industrial legislation of the Thatcher years, allowing workers the unlimited right to strike.

It allows the EU to define criminal offences and set minimum sentences.

In every area of domestic policy, it diminishes Britain and the British people.

Treaty or Constitution

So there is a more fundamental principle at stake than the Government’s dishonesty.

Article I-10 of the Constitution states that:

‘The Constitution, and law adopted by the Union’s Institutions in exercising competences conferred on it, shall have primacy over the law of the Member States.’

And yet the Government insists that the Constitution marks no fundamental change.

Some of the Government’s deceit may be born of ignorance.

There is certainly some confusion in the Government.

In September Jack Straw told Parliament that international treaties already take primacy over UK law.

But in the same month he issued a White Paper saying that our ‘ultimate guarantee of Parliamentary sovereignty’ is protected…

…because Parliament may repeal the Acts which give effect to the treaties.

He is simultaneously arguing that the Constitution changes nothing because the EU has primacy already…

…and that the Constitution changes nothing because we will keep our national sovereignty.

What, I wonder, does the Government think is not undergoing any ‘fundamental change’ –

…our dependence or our independence?

The reality is, of course, that fundamental change is happening – and it is happening to our independence.

We’re losing it.

Jack Straw’s obfuscations hint at an important truth.

Of course treaties take primacy over UK law…

…in the sense that a country may not plead national obligations to escape international ones.

And of course Parliament may repeal an Act giving effect to a treaty.

But [as Martin has made clear,] what is envisaged here is much more than a treaty.

It is a Constitution.

And the difference is crucial.

Treaties derive their authority from the assent of independent states – and they lapse once that assent is withdrawn.

A Constitution is its own source of legal authority – and once enacted, it becomes permanent.

In all the Treaties of the EU, authority explicitly derives from the ‘High Contracting Parties’, i.e. the Member States.

Under the new Constitution, authority explicitly derives from the text of the Constitution itself…

…and under the terms of Article I-10 which I quoted just now, the authority of the Constitution is binding and permanent.

The Constitution formally dissolves the present EU and creates a new one –

…an EU which, for the first time, has a legal personality distinct from the Member States.

And it creates the European Court of Justice as a supreme court…

…with supremacy over British law and with the power to determine its own powers.

The British Constitution

If this is not a fundamental change, one wonders what Mr Blair and Mr Straw think would be!

From being an international agreement between Governments…

…the EU is becoming a part – and, what’s worse, the governing part – of the internal Constitutions of the Member States.

Because this is the really important thing about the new Constitution.

It does not merely alter the legal basis of the European Union.

As the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution reported last month…

…it alters the Constitutional arrangements of the United Kingdom itself.

Jack Straw states that this is ‘a Constitution for the EU, not for Member States’.

He’s wrong.

This is a Constitution for Britain – and one which abrogates the Constitution we already have…

…the oldest Constitution in the western world.

Democracy only thrives when it is embodied in a living culture and society –

…and as Edmund Burke said, a nation extends in time as well as space.

It is an historical community as well as a geographical one.

This is a change to the way we are governed…

…as profound as anything that has happened in 1,000 years of British history.

In particular, Tony Blair is reversing the Glorious Revolution of 1688…

…when sovereignty was established in the people of the United Kingdom…

…and incorporated in the name of the ‘Queen in Parliament’.

He’s about to do away with both Queen and Parliament –

…and by a final irony, he will do so by ordering a Parliamentary majority and demanding the Royal Assent.

He should get neither.

Under this unwanted and unnecessary Constitution, ultimate sovereignty will rest not with the Queen in Parliament…

…but with the European Court of Justice.

This is something no Government – nor Parliament, nor Queen – can accept on their own authority.

The British Constitution is not the property of Tony Blair, to do with as he will.

It is the property of the British people.

It is held only in trust by the Government.

No Prime Minister or Member of Parliament can vote away the basis on which he holds his office or his seat.

Martin Howe’s book [launched at the event] quotes John Locke in the defence of the Revolution of 1688…

Locke said:

“the Legislature cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands. For it being but a delegated power from the People, they who

have it cannot pass it to others.”

This is a fundamental principle and one I could scarcely feel more strongly about.

The power we as politicians have is not our own.

It does not come down to us by divine right.

Our power is the people’s – it is the power of the collective will of our nation.

We do not have the right to vote it away –

…any more than we can vote never to have another general election, and decide to hold our seats forever.

In Britain, sovereignty rests with the people, represented by the Queen in Parliament.

If it is to be represented by the institutions of the European Union, then its ultimate source, the people, must be consulted.

No sham of a Parliamentary division, called by the Prime Minister and whipped along the party line…

…is going to make legitimate a change of this magnitude.

New Europe

Only one thing can possibly do that – a referendum.

Mine is a positive vision of the future.

A vision of a new Europe.

This is not a blue-print for withdrawal from the EU.

We will always have institutional links with our European partners.

Britain does not want to exist independently of the continent we form part of.

But nor do we want to exist as a part of a single, unitary and unaccountable super-state.

We must reject the false choice laid down by Mr Blair.

It’s not ‘old Europe’ or ‘no Europe’.

There is a third option.

A new Europe.

A Europe of independent democracies, co-operating as they see fit…

…but retaining their sovereign right to run their own affairs.

A Europe diverse and flexible, harmonious and free.

Transparent and accountable to the people who pay for it.

A Europe of national democracies.

The sort of Europe most Europeans want.

An EU which looks to the world outside, not one focused on constantly reorganising its own internal arrangements.

An EU which wants to expand more than it wants to deepen.

An EU actively committed to the relief of poverty and disease in Africa…

…the former colonial territories of the European powers, now so shamefully neglected.

A New Europe of nations dedicating their will and wealth to the twin objectives of global justice and global security.

A truly global Europe would see its greatest challenge to be responsibility to those in greatest need.

But the EU is pitiful.

The world is hungrier because of what EU agriculture and fishing policies…

…have done to the world’s poorest farmers and producers.

Why does so much of the EU aid budget end up in the hands of corrupt officials?

Why is so much of the current EU aid budget having to pick up the pieces from the Union’s protectionist trade policies?

And why does the EU spend its time frustrating – rather than furthering –
…the efforts of the civilised world to root out terrorism?

New Europe must do better.

Peroration

My path in politics has been guided by my belief in Britain…

…my respect for our nation’s past and my ambitions for its future.

My leadership of the Conservative Party has been inspired by belief in the strength and qualities of the British people…

…and the expression of their will in institutions accountable to them.

This belief has sustained me throughout my time as leader – and as a Member of Parliament.

From Maastricht to the present day, I have always been prepared to fight for our country’s independence…

…no matter the personal cost.

And I will continue to do so.

I fear little.

But I do fear the might of an insensitive, destructive and distant power…

…uncaring of Britain’s interest…

…and uncompromising in its campaign to deprive the British people of their democratic birthright.

All good men and women should fear such a threat.

But let our fear breed energy.

Let it breed a fierce appetite for the fight ahead.

This is a fight for our nation.

But not only for our nation.

It is a fight for all nations.

For generations Britons have fought for freedom – for their freedom and for the freedom of others.

Surely my party, with its proud history, must stand up for others as much as for ourselves…

…and fight for a better way – for a new Europe.

This is a fight for the truth.

A fight we must win.

The fight of our lives.