European Union (Amendment) Bill

Let me deal with the other two parties as well. The Labour party is quite unable to explain sensibly why the treaty is so different from the constitution that it should now be released from the obligation that it entered into—for pre-electoral reasons, as the hon. Member for Glasgow, South-West rightly said—to hold a referendum. I believe that those reasons were mixed up with Mr. Murdoch as much as with the electorate. On the Liberals’ position, with great respect, I am sorry that I upset their spokesman, the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey), with whom I have usually agreed throughout these debates on the treaty. The fact is that he has drawn the short straw. He had to get up and explain why, having promised a referendum on the constitution, he thought that the treaty was so different that he was not going to vote on it at all. The position of all three parties is almost impossible to explain.