European Union (Amendment) Bill

As I pointed out yesterday, the defence protocols are very clear. They maintain people's right to work within NATO, and envisage it as a bulwark for what is happening in the EU and the countries within it. I did not say that it was the EU that brought down Soviet domination. People were attracted and motivated by the force of the democratic arrangements in the EU, as has been demonstrated by the succession of revolutions that have taken place throughout Europe since then. The right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory), who always makes thoughtful contributions, quoted—as I did yesterday—from paragraph 42 of our Committee's 35th report. It was published on 9 October 2007, before Ministers returned to Europe, under pressure—or encouraged by those who had taken part in evidence sessions and discussions with the—to find a way of protecting the United Kingdom from a simplified revision procedure. They did not bring back an intergovernmental conference mandate because they clearly did not consider that useful, but they did bring back conditions for opting in, along with article 10 to protocol 10 and firm commitments to unanimity of common foreign and security, defence and tax policy. They also brought back the agreement that if we departed from unanimity, we would move to qualified majority voting only through the procedure that we now know as the passerelle.