European Union (Amendment) Bill

I totally agree with the hon. Lady. She has made a case for the Liberal Democrat position on a referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union. The case for the EU is there, both in the history books and in the well-known future challenges for our country and our world. Fifty years ago, would anyone have predicted decades of peace in northern Europe, such that the very idea of war between millennial adversaries has become unthinkable? Forty years ago, could we have hoped for the ending of the dictatorships that littered southern Europe? Thirty years ago, would anyone have predicted the reunification of Europe, with communism finished and democracy taking root in central and eastern Europe? I do not seek to credit the European ideal or Union alone with those achievements, but equally, to deny a central role for the EU in our modern day and in our future peace and prosperity is historically illiterate. When we look ahead to climate change, to the fight against terrorism, to defeating internationally organised crime and to meeting the global economic challenges, I frankly find it inconceivable to believe that we would be better equipped without the EU, and without a strengthened EU. That is the challenge for our Prime Minister. He talks sensibly about a global Europe. He describes himself as a pro-European realist. He sets out an attractive agenda, beyond Lisbon, of completing the single market and focusing Europe on enterprise, innovation and skills. Yet he seems to go out of his way to lose friends and lose influence in Europe—from snubbing the other 26 EU leaders at the signing of the Lisbon treaty, to the provocation of calling a European economic summit in London at the end of this month to which only France, Germany and Italy have been invited. The Foreign Secretary has been put in an impossible position, trying to build alliances and partnerships throughout the EU, while the Prime Minister cuts across him. It is good to sign new trade deals with China, but when it comes to the crunch, who should be our closest and strongest allies? It is surely those countries that are democracies, that abide by the rule of law and that respect human rights. Indeed, it is through the power of the EU collectively that we are far more likely to influence China on the road to liberal democracy. It is time that the Prime Minister learned to love the EU and see it for what it really is, outside the broken kaleidoscope of Mr. Murdoch's editorial rooms. Having made the case for the treaty and for the EU, let me come to the issue of referendums. Do we support a referendum on the Lisbon treaty? As my immediate predecessor as foreign and commonwealth affairs spokesman, my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Mr. Moore), said in this House:"““In our judgment, the changes made to create this amending treaty have altered its constitutional significance, so we should not hold a referendum on it.””—[Official Report, 12 November 2007; Vol. 467, c. 430.]" I share his view. Instead, we argue for a different referendum—a referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union. Let us face it: a referendum on any EU treaty would become a referendum on the UK's continued membership. Let us not have that debate by proxy on a treaty referendum. Let us have a debate that people want by asking a straightforward, in or out question.