European Union (Amendment) Bill

There is a smell of fear over this Chamber this afternoon. We know perfectly well what this is about. I am disappointed that the right hon. Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) is going to join the Liberals—I actually vote in the Division Lobby. [Laughter.] I am glad that is clear. I voted in the notorious Division last November. I believe in referendums as a general proposition. In fact, I moved for a referendum on Maastricht, as some hon. Members present will recall. To try to get support for that, I went to see the then leader of the Liberal Democrats, Lord Ashdown, who gave his support. The Liberal Democrats would have voted for a referendum on Maastricht. I use that example because Maastricht was a treaty. There is a fear hanging over the House, because each of our parties—those on the Liberal Democrat Benches are not alone in this; the parties include the Conservatives and Labour, as well as the Liberal Democrats—promised a vote on the treaty in their election manifesto. We have now heard all the semantics and the attempts to say, ““This isn't the same, it's slightly different”” or ““Its composition is this or that””, but when the public look—and as we have seen in the 19 hours given to clause 2—they see that the transference of power goes on. When the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) said that there was one-way traffic, I woke up. ““Ah, yes! I've heard that expression before””, I thought, but normally it is a one-way ratchet. No, the hon. Gentleman has got the traffic direction wrong. He was complaining that other people in this country argue about his proposition—about the divinity of Europe or otherwise. The issue is controversial: people do criticise the treaties; they do believe that they knock the sovereignty of Parliament; and they do believe that they undermine the relationship between a Member of Parliament and his constituents and between the Government who make the laws and the population of Britain. People do believe that, but the ratchet—the one-way traffic—has been the ever-increasing power of the European Community, now Union. That is what the central issue has always been. However, the promise that the three parties made is what Parliament is all about—the greatest trust of all. When we stood in front of our electorate and said that there would be a referendum on the treaty, it caused panic.