European Union (Amendment) Bill

I would be more persuaded by the noble Lord’s suggestion that we transcend party advantage if his party had not stood its position on this matter on its head in the House of Lords compared with the position adopted by his party in the House of Commons. A number of the elected Members of the Liberal party in the House of Commons were sacked by the Leader of the Liberal party for abstaining on the Bill, and in this House the unelected Members on the Liberal Benches have decided to take a completely different position. I have considerable respect for the noble Lord, not least for his intellectual abilities, but for him to try to make the argument that his colleagues on those Benches are transcending party politics is the height of absurdity. Clearly they are playing party politics. They are rescuing the Government from the defeat they would suffer on the referendum question were his party to maintain its position. The noble Lord raised the issue of the role of this House. What is the role of this House? If this House is not able to stand up for the promises that were made to the electorate by almost every single Member of Parliament standing for election and insist on a referendum, people will begin to question what exactly this House is for. The noble Lord and his colleagues will have played a major part in bringing the House into disrepute by the way in which they are playing party politics and denying the people the right to speak on these matters as they were promised. Governments can govern only by consent. I am not a committed Euro-federalist. I believe that we should be in the European Union, and I want the European Union to work. One of the ways in which Governments have to operate is by consent. By forcing political structures on the people without consent, they will destroy the very institutions they support. It is not anti-European to insist on the people having a say; it is pro-European. It is in the interests of Europe that this should be seen to carry consent. The reason noble Lords on the Liberal Democrat Benches are denying the promise which their elected colleagues made to the voters is that they know that if there were a referendum, they would lose it very substantially. That is the difficulty. It has been compounded by the attitude that has been displayed, and I have pages and pages of quotes from leading Europeans. I have mentioned Valery Giscard d’Estaing. In a letter to Le Monde on 27 October—it has been quoted a number of times but we should keep it in mind—he said that the new treaty is designed to avoid having a referendum thanks to the fact that the articles are spread out and constitutional vocabulary has been removed. There is that word ““constitutional”” again. The reason why the noble Lord, Lord Lester, is puzzled and why the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, asks why the amendment is not appended to our Bills is that it is central to the whole debate about whether this new European institution will carry the consent, and be seen to carry the consent, of those who are affected by it. The amendment, though strikingly bland, is therefore necessary. In any other circumstances both the Government and the Liberal Democrat Benches would accept it. They refuse to accept it because of deceit. That is not a party political point. It is a deceit to tell people in a general election campaign—in order to get elected, to get on the red and the green Benches—not to worry about the European constitution, that it is not an issue for the campaign and they will have an opportunity to discuss it properly later, but then to turn round and say, ““We are withdrawing that opportunity””.