European Union (Amendment) Bill

If Lord Denning is looking down on us he would be very displeased to hear that his utterances were political, because they were nothing of the sort. What the noble Lord is saying is based on his belief that the European Communities Act has already acquired a special status and is quite unlike any other Act of Parliament except, perhaps, the Bill of Rights. I do not accept that. If one takes the view that what one Parliament can do another can undo, and that an Act of Parliament is an Act of Parliament is an Act of Parliament, I am right and the noble Lord is wrong. But let me continue with what I have got to say. It is a matter of enormous regret that with every day that passes it looks less and less likely that this House will do its duty and insist on the Members of the other place honouring the promises they all made to their constituents that there would be a referendum on the matters originally in the constitutional treaty and now in the treaty of Lisbon. If people are going to break their promises to their constituents—and are encouraged to do so by Members of this House—there should be some kind of safety valve to deal with the situation which will then arise. If there is no referendum, it is not altogether unlikely that after the next general election there will be returned to Parliament a party with a clear mandate to renegotiate parts of this treaty, and that in office there will be a Government in a position to secure the passage through Parliament of legislation which reflects the people’s wishes—which they have not so far been allowed to express and which Members of this House seem determined to prevent them expressing—but which may be inconsistent with the 1972 Act and our treaty obligations. The consequence of that would not be our departure from the EU but a renegotiation, with the other members probably recognising that for trade reasons alone—Britain being a far more valuable trading partner for them than Europe is for us—it would be to their advantage to try to meet Britain’s concerns and keep it within the fold. We would be in a very powerful negotiating position if by then we had secured the passage through Parliament of legislation removing from British law the obligation of which we and the British people believe we should be free. We would be in a much weaker negotiating position if no such legislation had been passed by our Parliament; and we would be in a still weaker position if legislation had been passed which our courts had found of no effect.