European Union (Amendment) Bill

I have three points to make. First, during all the great debates upon Maastricht I was not a Member of the Government. If I had been, I might have given the Government of the day some very good advice; it would be the same as the advice that I give to this Government. There are times when it is a very good thing to get this out of the system and to allow people to let off steam. If we had had a referendum on Maastricht it would have avoided many of the problems which followed thereafter. But it is quite ridiculous to compare the situation over Maastricht with the situation today. I cannot remember the Conservative Government promising the people a referendum and then ratting on it. The point here is that this Government promised a referendum and are ratting on that obligation. That is the answer to the points made by the noble Lord except to say that I am not advocating now leaving the European Union. I am merely stating certain things which it would be wise to do to make sure that if we were to enter into renegotiations we would be in a much stronger position than if we had not been able to legislate to undo that which has been done in this treaty without the consent of the British people and with the collusion of Members such as the noble Lord who has just spoken.