European Union (Amendment) Bill

I shall vote for the Bill and the treaty tonight. It is always a difficult matter to find oneself in a very small minority on an issue that engages one's party with a great deal of passion. I suppose that if I look back on what has really animated my political life, it has been the desire to see the United Kingdom engage thoroughly with Europe. It has been a fairly stony path, and I have to say that I see no positive conclusion yet. I shall vote for the treaty very much despite the Government, not because of them—particularly given that, of the two very amusing Front-Bench speeches, at least the one by my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) was intentionally so. Too often, the treaty is treated as a religion. The European Union is not a religious issue but a political one. It is not the Book of Revelations, nor is it the Book of Job. Different Members treat it as if it is either a wonderful document with biblical certainty, or nothing but a long chapter of lamentations—but it is neither of those. I am not very interested in the extent to which the treaty resembles the old constitution. Of course, countries that voted for the old constitution will think that it is the same thing, while those that were against it have every interest in showing that it is something different. What matters, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) said, is how bankable the various red line opt-ins and opt-outs are, because what is different, if they hold, is Britain's range of obligations under the treaty. It is the same treaty, in stark terms, but Britain's obligations are not the same as they were under the original constitution. We should judge the treaty on the very practical ground of which we have been proud in British politics: does it work? It may not be impeccable, but will it make things better, and does it contain hidden bear traps? The whole argument in this debate has really been about not whether it is intrinsically good or bad but whether there is something hidden in it that will push us inexorably towards a different sort of Europe. Since this is the 400th anniversary of Milton's birth, perhaps I can quote a line from ““Paradise Lost””—"““Present fears""Are less than horrible imaginings””," which is probably the motto of the Eurosceptics. The treaty flows from enlargement, which was a huge political victory. It is worth remembering that the enlargement of the European Union was the biggest and most dramatic peaceful shift of population and power in Europe since the decline of the western Roman empire 1,600 years ago. The changes give us a better chance of dealing with the new agendas that are pressing upon us, which have constantly been repeated in the debate—climate change, population movement, competitiveness and terrorism. They do not guarantee it—that is a question of political will—but institutionally, they make us better able to respond positively if member states can summon up the will. Most aspects are commonsensical. The so-called permanent president of the Council is perfectly sensible; rotation is a pretty daft idea. The foreign policy high representative will certainly improve co-operation. The fact that President Putin has just signed a gas deal with Bulgaria illustrates the extent to which the European Union needs to get its act together faced with the Russian state. As for qualified majority voting, it is worth remembering that it delivered one of the greatest British triumphs in the European Union—the single market. Mrs. Thatcher would never have delivered the single market without qualified majority voting; it was the instrument that delivered that huge British success story. I simply do not believe that some covert agenda will overwhelm either Britain's ability to state her interests or, for that matter, her identity. I would probably christen the opt-outs or red lines the ““Wellington clauses””, because they always remind me of the Duke of Wellington's thin red lines at Torres Vedras during the Peninsula war, where, very conveniently, the enemy was the French—an attitude that has rather endured, I have to say. When the impact of things such as population movement, which flows from climate change, hits the United Kingdom, I wonder whether we will eventually see the case for greater policy co-ordination and integration. The treaty is a pretty modest one. It does not compare with the Single European Act or Maastricht, but the consequences of failure would be huge. We are four years on from the French referendum veto and the Dutch veto. It is a huge matter for the United Kingdom, and huge for Europe. I am not persuaded by the case for a referendum. We are rightly concerned with the decline of Parliament and its subservience to the Executive. That is the subject of almost eternal debate. Frankly, I can think of no greater way of accelerating Parliament's decline than to move to voting by plebiscite, for three reasons. First, the liberal and tolerant society in which I believe would be put at risk if we moved to government by plebiscite. Secondly, plebiscite is almost invariably an instrument against change. Thirdly, it is a lethal weapon in the hands of the Executive. As a parliamentarian, I do not believe in any of those three things. There may be once-in-a-lifetime changes—the single currency would be one—that are appropriate matters for a referendum, but not this relatively modest treaty. We do need a pretty long respite from institutional change, but equally, there is a huge opportunity for Britain if it can overcome its habitual and, if I may say so, consensual response of baffled equivocation to any initiative that comes from Europe. That is why I said earlier that my political life had been in many ways animated by the desire to see Britain engage with Europe. Political and personal reasons lie behind that concern and preoccupation. I said that I had travelled on fairly stony ground; I hope that I may yet see, once this treaty is out of the way, the United Kingdom deciding that we should actually—in the old-fashioned Yorkshire expression—““get stuck in”” to our relationship with Europe, because there are huge benefits to be gained from a Europe that is in many ways more sympathetic to the UK's world view than it has been for many years. I shall vote for this treaty. I shall not, when the opportunity comes, vote for a referendum. It will be with great sadness, because of the position of my party, but with the understanding that tolerance of views that are privately, personally and passionately held has always been understood in this House, and it is in that spirit I shall vote in the way that I feel I must.