European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, it is always fun to listen to the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland. He is always a cheerful speaker, and was so this evening. Not many of your Lordships would admit to having changed their mind on such a fundamental matter as a referendum within 24 hours, particularly as a result of four speakers. But I should warn the noble Viscount that we are only halfway through, and there is plenty of time for the pendulum to switch the other way. I doubt that my speech will have such a cataclysmic effect on him. There cannot have been many Bills which have had such a major impact on the country as this one. The number of your Lordships taking part is a witness to that. People on all sides feel strongly about this matter, and points have been made with great clarity and courtesy. I am afraid that my observations will not rise to the pinnacles of erudition that have been obvious in the various points that other noble Lords have made. I thought that I had better find out about the Bill, so I went to the Printed Paper Office and obtained a copy of the European Union (Amendment) Bill, which consists of a modest four pages and schedules. I read it; I did not understand a word of it. But then I do not have the advantage of being a lawyer. I then asked whether I could have a copy of the treaty of Lisbon. I was given The Treaty of Lisbon: An Impact Assessment, Volume I. It was an inch thick; it weighed two pounds, four ounces and consisted of 300 pages. Then I was given The Treaty of Lisbon, Volume II. That was seven-eighths of an inch thick. It weighed two pounds, four ounces and consisted of 479 pages. I was then given The Treaty of Lisbon, amending the Treaty establishing the European Union and the treaty establishing the European Community, Command Paper 7294. That was three-quarters of an inch thick, weighing two pounds, seven ounces, and consisting of 294 pages. I was also given the Consolidated Texts of the European Union Treaties as amended by the Treaty of Lisbon, Command Paper 7310. That was seven-eighths of an inch thick, and it weighed three pounds, eight ounces and consisted of 328 pages. In all, those books were four and a half inches thick; they weighed 10 pounds, seven ounces; they consisted of 1,401 pages. The total cost if they had been bought by a member of the public would have been £112.55. This is wheelbarrow stuff. It is alarming. I thought, ““Well, what does it all mean?”” and had a look. It was enough to flatten anyone’s curiosity, but, oddly enough, not mine. I looked at random at the document called The Treaty of Lisbon, amending the Treaty establishing the European Union and the treaty establishing the European Community. On page 142, I found under ““The Union’s Annual Budget”” the following: "““262) A Chapter 3 ““THE UNION'S ANNUAL BUDGET”” shall be inserted after Article 270a.""263) An Article 270b shall be inserted, with the wording of Article 272(1).""264) Article 271 shall become the new Article 273a; it shall be amended as set out below in point 267.""265) Article 272(1) shall become Article 270b and paragraphs 2 to 10 of Article 272 shall be replaced by the following:””" Then, on page 151, the document states under ““General and Final Provisions””: "““279) Part Six shall be renumbered "PART SEVEN".""280) Articles 281, 293, 305 and 314 shall be repealed. Article 286 shall be replaced by Article 16 B.""281) In Article 282, the following sentence shall be added at the end: ““However, the Union shall be represented by each of the institutions, by virtue of their administrative autonomy, in matters relating to their respective operation.”” …""286) Article 294 shall become Article 48a.""287) Article 299 shall be amended as follows:""(a) paragraph 1 shall be deleted. The first subparagraph of paragraph 2 and paragraphs 3 to 6 shall become Article 311a; they shall be amended as set out below in point 293””." And then we are supposed to know what it is all about. I find it quite astonishing. In the normal course of events, I would almost consider it an insult. I defy anyone who is not a lawyer, and a constitutional lawyer at that, to understand what on earth is going on, or to understand what it is that we are being asked to accept. And yet it is this extraordinary document, which the Prime Minister signed in that somewhat inglorious ceremony the other day, which one is now being asked to ratify and to approve. I know that everyone was fearful of the previous constitution, believing that we were giving away to another body—namely, the European Union—some of our constitutional and sovereign rights. At the previous election, as everyone knows, every party—Labour, Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats—gave an undertaking that if the constitution were to re-emerge, the country would have to have a referendum on it. Even the Prime Minister, Mr Blair, said that, "““we will have a referendum on the constitution in any event and that is a government promise””." My noble friend Lord Ryder said that he need not have made that promise—indeed, should not have made it—but as he said, he did make it, and that must be respected. The Government obviously do not want a referendum because they are frightened that they would lose it. What appears now after the treaty of Lisbon is virtually the same as the previous constitution, without the flag, the national anthem and the foreign Minister, but we now have a high representative—a sort of Pooh-Bah. The Prime Minister said that it is not the same and that the, "““constitutional project, as the document states, was abandoned””." But that was not the view of his colleagues in Europe. Angela Merkel, the Geman Chancellor, said: "““The substance of the constitution is preserved. That is a fact””." The Spanish Prime Minister went further and said: "““A great part of the content of the European Constitution is captured in the new treaties … We have not let a single substantial point of the constitutional treaty go … It is, without a doubt, much more than a treaty. This is a project of foundational character, a treaty for a new Europe””." Margot Wallström, the European Commissioner, said: "““It’s essentially the same proposal as the old Constitution””." The Czech President said: "““Only cosmetic changes have been made and the basic document remains the same””." What about Giscard d’Estaing, the author of the European constitution, who said—and I find this astonishing: "““Public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them directly. All the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden and disguised in some way. What was””—" already— "““difficult to understand will become utterly incomprehensible””?" He can say that again. He continued: "““But the substance has been retained … Why not have a single text? The only reason is that this would look too much like the constitutional treaty. Making cosmetic changes would make the text more easy to swallow””." Can you believe it? Yet this is what we are being asked to approve. Karel de Gucht, the Belgian foreign Minister, said, with a candidness which was stark: "““The aim of the Constitutional treaty was to be more readable; the aim of this treaty is to be unreadable … The Constitution aimed to be clear, whereas this Treaty had to be unclear. It is a success””." Then there is the withering comment of Jean-Claude Juncker, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, who said: "““Britain is different. Of course there will be transfers of sovereignty. But would I be intelligent to draw the attention of public opinion to this fact?””" If this is what his colleagues in Europe think about the treaty, how can the right honourable gentleman the Prime Minister say that is not the same as the old constitution but under a different name? It is all shrouded in total mystery in these documents. Some years ago, when I was in the Ministry of Agriculture, I had the privilege of going to the Council of Ministers. I was deeply impressed with all those countries—France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the United Kingdom and so forth—which 30 years earlier had been blasting each other’s countries to pieces and killing their citizens, but which were now sitting round a table arguing about the price of a pat of butter. It was very moving and I became a great advocate of the European Economic Community. But in my judgment things have gone wrong since then and I blame it on the leaders of the Community. The European Economic Community transmogrified into the European Community and then into the European Union. The leaders have gone ahead with their inflammatory and glorious ideas of making everyone coalesce into one Union, whether they like it or not, and about which the people were never consulted. Like a military battle, the advancing troops have gone ahead too fast and have become out of touch with their main body of people and their lines of communication have broken. The leaders of thought—or those wishing to make an impression during their lives—have gone way beyond what people think and what people want, and for which they have no mandate. People have been invited, unwittingly, to give up their sovereignty—yes, their laws, their judgments, their parliamentary procedures which have stood the test of time and which have been ingrained into their lives and in which they have found solace, contentment and trust—and to pour it all into the pot of the European Union which is untried, untested and from which, once committed, there is no redress, and where laws and regulations are made for which there is no democratic accountability and whose accounts are so suspect that the Court of Auditors has not felt able to sign them off for 14 years. I do not think that this is what the people of this country want. On principle I do not like referendums. It is the job of Parliament to decide. But the pass was sold in 1975 when there was a referendum on the European Economic Community. The reason why people in this country want one now is that they do not believe that Parliament has the right or the obligation or the responsibility to hand over sovereignty—nothing less than that—to an outside body. The fact is that the verbiage of this treaty, and all which surrounds it, is the re-encapsulation of the constitution, but in a way which no one can understand. All parties agreed that there should be a referendum on this, and that is what I think there should be. If I may say so, it is disingenuous of the Prime Minister to try to refuse it.