European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Roper, but he will forgive me if I do not follow his argument. There are a few so wedded to the European project that they would rather say that black is white than say anything that they think might imperil its progress. The vast majority of people concede that the constitutional treaty and the Lisbon treaty have, to all intents and purposes, the same effect. In so far as there are differences, they are there for one specific purpose: to give Governments such as ours an excuse to go back on their undertaking to hold a referendum. That is not the product of my imaginings or a tale that I have made up. As my noble friend Lord Forsyth indicated, the president of Germany actually explained in a letter how, in order to help countries such as Britain, she was going to bring back the rejected constitution under a new name and use, "““different terminology without changing the … substance””." Of course, she was as good as her word. Our Prime Minister says that other countries may have signed up to what is the constitutional treaty in a new wrapping but that we have not done so because of all the opt-ins, opt-outs, red lines and so forth. That will not wash for a moment. Not only, says the Commons European Scrutiny Committee, do the opt-outs ““leak like a sieve””, but they are substantially the same opt-outs as those negotiated at the time of the constitutional treaty. Contrary to what the noble Baroness, Lady Symons of Vernham Dean, said, the opt-outs were negotiated before the referendum promise was made. There is no doubt of that at all. Respect for Parliament will continue to decline so long as our leaders do not play straight with the British public. I cannot match the eloquence of my noble friend Lord Forsyth, but I agree with him that it is our plain duty to hold the Government to their promise. If we are not prepared to do that, quite frankly we might as well pack up and go home. What is the point of this House if we are not prepared to do that? The Government like to say that the Conservatives are almost alone in disagreeing with the terms of the treaty, but my right honourable friend William Hague pointed out on 21 January in the other place that that is far from correct. Why is that? It is because the Government themselves, at one time or another, have expressed their opposition to almost all its contents. Eventually, they gave way, conceded or surrendered—use whichever word you want—but when we go through the history of this matter from the time of the convention we find that the Government themselves objected to 90 per cent of the proposals in this treaty. The European Council is to be chaired by a full-time President and will become a formal EU institution subject to the jurisdiction of the ECJ. It is absurd to describe that as only a modest step to ensure more efficient working, which seems to be the line taken by my noble friend Lord Brittan. At the moment, meetings of the Council are chaired by a head of government, who, quite obviously, has a vested interest in protecting the rights of member states. Instead of that, we are to have a new-style Council presided over by someone barred from holding a national office, an unelected paid official like the President of the Commission. Surely this unelected official, like the President of the Commission, will consider it his prime duty to drive forward the interests of the Union whether or not they are at the expense of member states. I consider that a matter of great constitutional significance. We have not heard much about it now being possible to merge the posts of Council President and Commission President. Tony Blair opposed it, but it is in the treaty. On 4 February, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, pooh-poohed the idea of any such merger coming about—he took me up on the point—but I invite your Lordships to turn to page 46 of the EU Committee report. There we find that the Commission, far from ruling it out, said that while it was not a current issue it could well return. We should all heed that warning of another constitutional change of immense importance in the offing. On the EU high representative, Mr Blair said that he was not going to have an EU Foreign Minister at any costs, but that is what we have in all but name. Furthermore, against Mr Blair’s express wishes, this person, although a member of the Commission, is going to take the chair at meetings of EU Foreign Ministers. Is it really a matter of little account that a bureaucrat, a civil servant, an official, is going to preside when the democratically elected representatives of the member states meet? I do not think so. Nor do I, like Mr Blair, think it of little account that where the EU has agreed a common position the UK will be under an obligation to ask the high representative to present the EU position in the Security Council. Incidentally, the former Prime Minister thought it ““simply unacceptable”” that there should be majority voting on proposals made by the high representative, but that is what we have. We also have an EU diplomatic service, which—surprise, surprise—Tony Blair said he was totally against. Noble Lords may remember that Mr Blair was also against the European Parliament electing the President of the Commission; he was against a treaty being amendable without a formal treaty negotiation; and he was against the ECJ being given jurisdiction over justice and home affairs matters, over the criminal law and policing. But, in the end, he signed up to it all, and that is a matter of constitutional significance. As for the EU getting explicit legal personality, it can already sign up to agreements in so-called first pillar areas such as trade, but surely it is not a mere formality, a trivial tidying-up, that it will now be able to sign treaties covering every aspect of foreign policy and defence and even crime and judicial matters. By the treaty, the EU has acquired another of the attributes of statehood; it is another constitutional step. One does not know whether to laugh or cry on the subject of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. First it had no more significance than the Beano; then it was merely declaratory; and then it was very dangerous and on no account was it to get into the treaty. However, it is in it and the protocol, which is so much boasted of, ensures that British people get the worst of all worlds. British citizens cannot go to court if they think that their rights under the charter have been infringed but they will be bound by decisions of the court in proceedings brought by citizens of other countries. There is no mystery about this and I hope that it is said plainly by a few other speakers. The interpretation of the charter from the European Court of Justice will become part of European law and, as European law has primacy over our law, our courts will follow the European Court’s rulings in cases brought by citizens of other states. That is why I say—and it really is as plain as a pikestaff—that as a result of the protocol we will get the worst of all worlds. Then there is the alleged significant increase in powers of national parliaments. On examination, that proves to be nothing more than mere window dressing. We will get notice of draft EU legislation, but for what purpose? What is the use of that if there is no real possibility of parliaments being able to reject such legislation? What possibility is there of nine national parliaments in an eight-week period all voting to claim a breach of subsidiarity? The answer to that is precisely nil. If a miracle were to happen, the Commission could reconsider and then proceed anyhow. How dare anybody boast that the treaty is about giving power to Parliament, when Parliament is being shorn of power through a vast increase in majority voting in areas such as internal security and criminal law—areas central to national sovereignty? The Government could have done so much. They could have fought to prise from the Commission its almost total monopoly of the right to initiate legislation and reminded the other heads of government that the whole object of the exercise, according to the Laeken declaration, was to bring the EU closer to its citizens, not to grab more power for the bureaucrats. They could have demanded a clear division of power between member states and Brussels to stop the relentless drift of power from member states to the EU, which the Laeken declaration suggested had to be stopped, but they have done precisely the opposite. They have given up the veto in anything between 40 and 60 new areas, depending on interpretation, as page 49 of the report says—and 26 of those extensions of majority voting were opposed strongly by our Government. They have agreed to it being made much more difficult for Britain to block legislation under QMV and agreed to most powers being shared, which is a ludicrous and insulting description of national Governments being allowed to do only what the Commission has graciously decided not to do. If the Government had rejected this treaty, they might well have triggered a genuine rethink about the future of Europe, but we proceed as if we had no option but to surrender on every point and to go along with the majority. That has always been the view of the Europhiles: one has to agree with the majority, as failure to do so could precipitate a crisis or, even worse, show a lack of commitment to the project, which would mean that we were isolated. We hear that sort of nonsense spoken every day. What it means is that, although everybody is supposed to agree to a new treaty or to a change to a treaty, we must always agree because if we do not we will be isolated. As a result, surrender has become a habit and, through surrender, we have robbed our citizens of the right to hold to account and sack those who make most of our laws. The Government have signed up to a treaty that is bad for Britain and bad for democracy and they have ratted on their promise to give the people a say in a referendum. They have behaved disgracefully.