European Union (Amendment) Bill

As many Members want to speak, I shall try to be as brief as possible. It is a great delight to follow the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash). There could be no two Members more diametrically opposed than him and me on nearly every issue, and certainly on Europe. What has been interesting about today’s debate is first and foremost the fact that the Tory party has exposed itself as having an enormous problem about the European Union—[Interruption.] If the Tories can contain themselves, I shall move on to the Liberal Democrats in a moment. The Conservatives have form. Without a referendum they took through the Single European Act, which was probably the single biggest piece of legislation that dramatically affected the UK’s relationship with the European Union, and they took through Maastricht without a referendum—in both cases on remarkably small majorities. So far, there have been 40 Divisions during our debates on the Bill and the average majority has been 170, almost a two-thirds majority in every case, so it is difficult to advance the argument for a referendum on that basis. Another problem for the Conservatives is that their party is radically split—[Interruption.] They can moan and groan, but none the less they will have to face the truth. It is not just that a few Conservative Members will vote with us; the much bigger division, which is why they are campaigning for a referendum, is between those who want to leave the European Union entirely and those who are a little bit more sensible in their policy towards Europe. The Conservatives’ other problem is that they have no allies in Europe, so whenever they talk about renegotiating, as the right hon. and learned Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) did, they know perfectly well that they are deceiving the people of Britain, as there is nobody with whom they could negotiate. They would have either to have the kind of hissy-fit that the Liberal Democrats had last week, or back down from their position. It is for party management reasons, and from no point of principle, that the Conservative party has arrived at its position today, which is that there should be a referendum on any treaty whatever. That is what the shadow Foreign Secretary said; he said that any treaty that a Government brought forward should have to be put to a referendum. That is sheer nonsense, because the UK signs up to many treaties. None of them should be put to a referendum, because when any treaty has been negotiated, it is difficult to come to an informed position on it on the basis of a simple yes or no in a referendum.