WES TM S TER HAUL
Page 7
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
LORRY drivers of the United Kingdom unite! You have nothing to lose but your Common Market shackles!
And, as the massed ranks of transport worker's force a cowering Government to take us out of Europe, there cheering them on will undoubtedly be the man who had this vision late one night last week, Dennis Skinner, the Labour MP for Bolsover.
The idea came to him as he sat listening to other MPs talking with apprehension of the widespread transport strikes that would break out if the Commons agreed to a "prayer" asking the Queen to annul the European driving hours rules.
It was a prayer not meant to be answered — for if it were then the whole paraphernalia of Brussels transport regulations would be enforced at once, a prospect too horrifying to contemplate.
Then why, for Heaven's sake, had the Tories put it down for debate? Because it was the only way they could get a debate on the European regulations.
It was a course of action not without its dangers.
Austin Mitchell, for instance, with fresh memories of a strike by 1,200 heavy goods vehicle drivers in his Grimsby constituency. Given half a chance he would have voted for the Prayer and its consequences ... "let us have the regulation in all its pristine folly so we can see the Market for the lunacy it is."
Not strong enough meat for the redblooded Mr Skinner. Perhaps some people outside the Commons should take action against the Common Market and its activities, he observed darkly.
It might be the duty of MPs to support the Prayer and hope that it was carried.
Well, the House did not rise to its collective feet to cheer him to the echo, but never during his seven and a half years in the Commons has Mr Skinner come nearer to winning friends and influencing people.
For, to put it mildly, no one liked Brussels — or at least its transport schemes — that night. Who better to quote than Transport Minister William Rodgers? He recalled that his Tory opposite number Norman Fowler had spoken of "contention, concern and problems," while Labour man John Ellis had used the word "ludicrous" and "bureaucratic".
He would not dissent, observed the Minister, while he found it very difficult to disa gree with Liberal David Penhaligon, who had said that everyone would like the whole matter to go away.
But it cannot go away. At least not until Skinner's Crusade throws out the heathen.