European Union (Amendment) Bill

I hope that hon. Gentlemen will wait a moment. I am coming to the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto of 2005, then I will gladly give way. That stated:"““We are therefore clear in our support for the constitution, which we believe is in Britain’s interest—but ratification must be subject to a referendum of the British people.””" A few months later, at their party conference in Blackpool, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Clegg) proposed a conference motion that stated:"““Any proposals which involve significant change in the relationship between the Union, the Member States and its citizens should be approved in Britain through a referendum””." That is of interest to the Committee, because it went further even than the manifesto commitment. Not only, in the view of the then future leader of the Liberal Democrats, should the constitution be submitted to a referendum, but any proposals involving significant change in the relationship between the EU and its member states, he said, should be submitted to a referendum. That is an interesting view. Difficult as it is to argue that the Lisbon treaty is fundamentally different from the EU constitution, relying, as the argument does, on the exaggeration of the significance of a small number of changes, when one considers the sheer sweep of the treaty’s provisions—the creation of a president and Foreign Minister, or high representative, the abolition of so many vetoes, the provision, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) pointed out, for the abolition of even more to come, the total collapsing of the third pillar of the EU, the widened scope of the European Court of Justice and the increased powers of the European Parliament—an argument that the treaty is not even a significant change in the relationship of the EU to the member states can only be an exercise in intellectual nonsense and political deception. And that is what it is.