Authors:
  • If democracy is destroyed in Britain, it will be not the communists, Trotskyists or subversives but this House which threw it away. The rights that are entrusted to us are not for us to give away. Even if I agree with everything that is proposed, I cannot hand away powers lent to me for five years by the people of Chesterfield. I just could not do it. It would be theft of public rights.

    Tony Benn's Speech in House of Commons during a debate on the Treaty of Maastricht, hansard.millbanksystems.com. November 20, 1991.
Cite this Page: Citation