European Union (Amendment) Bill

If my right hon. Friend will forgive me, other hon. Members are waiting to contribute. I cannot give way all the time, and I am not going to give way even to my hon. Friends who agree with me, some of whom may also be trying to catch your eye, Sir Alan. Finally, let me deal with a question that really must be addressed: if we find that a referendum is carried, what happens then? That is relevant; the question cannot be avoided. It will change the course of history only if we get a no vote. That illustrates my objection to referendums. The trouble with introducing a referendum into a constitution, as Mussolini well understood, is that it renders Parliament powerless. In this case, it would also render the Government powerless. I happen to believe that good democratic Governments often have to take tough and unpopular decisions. They do not do that if they live by newspaper headlines and focus groups; indeed, that gets them into the mess that the present Government have got themselves into. Governments have to take unpopular decisions that the focus groups do not like—that is what Margaret Thatcher did—and then offer themselves for re-election to see if they can survive democratically when, some years later, people see the consequences of what has been done. Let us say that on this occasion we finish the parliamentary process, in which the majorities have been about two to one in favour of the treaty of Lisbon, and we then hold a referendum. Given that everyone I have so far met who is demanding a referendum actually intends to vote no, what do we do then? [Interruption.] Someone says that we should carry on with the present treaty. The hon. Member for Glasgow, South-West addressed this question, but effectively tried to sweep it away. The fact is that everyone across western Europe is absolutely fed up with the tedious process of carrying through reform of institutions, which it was previously thought would be pretty routine and agreed by most people, after the enlargement of the Union. If 26 other countries succeed in ratifying the treaty—that means the Irish succeeding with their referendum—and then the British come along and say, ““Sadly, although we, the Government, agree with ratification, and Parliament agrees with it by two to one, we’ve just got a no vote at the demand of The Sun newspaper. What do we do now?”” It cannot be assumed that everyone else will renegotiate. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) at least accepted that major renegotiation would have to be faced up to. The idea that the other 26 Governments, all of which will have gone through the process of getting the treaty ratified—which will have been politically costly for some of them—will then turn around and say to the Brits, ““Well, of course we shall now have to negotiate a European Union on a completely different basis,”” is, like many of the other arguments I have heard during these debates, absolute fantasy. It would not happen.