European Union (Amendment) Bill

I would not have intervened but for the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, intervened. With respect, I do not agree for a moment that his question was the right one. First, we need only listen to what the noble Lord, Lord Owen, just said. Secondly, we have to take into account the fact that this is a self-amending treaty, which traduces the sovereign interests and entitlements of this country. Thirdly—and I shall be brief, as I had not intended to speak, as I said—the assertion from the Liberal Benches that what the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, is justified is totally misconceived. I was involved at a very early stage at Messina—long before many of your Lordships because I am so old—where there was a fundamental disagreement. There were two prisoners of war there; I was interested in the issue because I was a prisoner of war, and we did not want any more wars in Europe. That was the fundamental basis of what we determined to do, and I have lost faith in what is happening now. There is a totally different objective; we are a large group of 37 states, bordering on the former Soviet Union, creating problems that we cannot resolve with it or, indeed, with China, which could be better resolved by ordinary diplomacy. As my noble friend Lord Howell said some time ago, we are moving in the wrong direction and we have to watch it. The fundamental distinction has never been resolved, not at Messina, not at Maastricht and not with ever-closer union, not until we ratify this treaty. We have never accepted a federalist administration. We stood against it. We would not have gone into it with one. I know that from my little experience. So what happened? At Messina, they decided that they could not resolve it and so would leave it out of the Rome treaty, and they did. There it was. A court of justice was set up and left to resolve it, and my word, it did. It inevitably went for it with a federalist approach, unlike our approach of retaining our own sovereignty—incidentally, that was de Gaulle’s approach too. I shall not go on any more. Here we are today. This has not yet been resolved. I do not want it resolved against the interests of the sovereignty of my country and therefore, as matters stand, unless we can come to some accommodation, I am not happy with the treaty.