Business of the House (Lisbon Treaty)

I shall certainly want to discuss that if I am called when we come to debate the amendments that will doubtless be tabled on the issue of the referendum. At this stage, I will simply make the point that the Lisbon treaty is different in nature and in substance from the constitutional treaty on which I, and other Members, promised a referendum. I must say that I do not find it in the least surprising that the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper) and his party object not only to the treaty but to the programme motion. I believe it was at the 2006 Conservative party conference that the party’s leader said it was high time his party stopped ““banging on about Europe””. Those were his exact words. He said that the Conservative party had been banging on about Europe and, not surprisingly, losing the attention of the public as a result. We have heard from so many Members this afternoon that same obsession with procedure, that same nit-picking, that same—in many cases—belief in conspiracies whenever Brussels is mentioned, which has characterised the British Conservative party’s attitude to Europe for two decades or more, and which contributed so much to their expulsion from government.