European Union (Amendment) Bill

moved Amendment No. 162: 162: Clause 8, page 4, line 8, at beginning insert ““Subject to subsections (4) to (9) below,”” The noble Lord said: With this amendment we come to the core of our many debates, although I must confess that we seem to have come to that core several times already. I have no doubt that we will come to it again. We all know what it is. These Benches question why the present Government resist a referendum on the Lisbon treaty while we believe more strongly than ever that there should be one. I say ““more strongly than ever”” because perhaps I did not start with enough faith and commitment, as I should have done, about the nature of this treaty text. When I have read it through line by line as we have come to the amendments and looked at Open Europe’s The Lisbon Treaty and the European Constitution: A side-by-side comparison, I have been absolutely staggered by the fact that word after word, line after line, sentence after sentence and paragraph after paragraph are exactly the same. It is the same document. Even if not everyone agrees with that, the father of the convention on the constitutional treaty, Valery Giscard d’Estaing, saw the point immediately. He announced very firmly that all—I emphasise all—of the earlier proposals were in the new text, although he did candidly admit that some of them would be disguised. The point was also happily and enthusiastically conceded by a whole range of European Union leaders. In fact, almost all of them did except our own in the United Kingdom. It is curious to be told day after day that something is not which clearly is. It is as though the Government’s case has fallen into the hands of some child fantasy storyteller, and not a very good one at that. The story seems to zigzag from argument to argument and scene to scene in different parts of the forest. First we are told that it is different because the constitution concept has been abandoned; then we are told that, anyway, even if it is a constitution, the red lines will protect us. That, of course, is the classic Billy Bunter argument: ““I did not steal the currant cake, and anyway it did not have currants in it””. Anyway, the European Scrutiny Committee in the other place said that the red lines leaked ““like a sieve””. It said that the opt-out from the charter was non-existent, which turns out to be true; that the tax danger was mostly never there, at any rate not for direct taxation; and that the protection for foreign policy is highly debatable. Anyway, the Government made all those claims last time for the constitutional treaty which preceded this one. Then, we were told: ““Never mind about that. If that doesn’t stand up, it’s not constitutional””. Well, it transparently is constitutional, and our own Constitution Committee confirms it. It says that it has inevitable constitutional implications. Are we to dismiss our own House of Lords committee on that? Then, the Government said: ““Well, even if it’s constitutional, we should not really go for referendums””. I admit, having listened to the earlier debate and the stentorian arguments of my noble friend Lord Brittan of Spennithorne, that I am not a fan of referendums either. I must confess that I took a referendum Bill for Northern Ireland through the House of Commons many years ago, with the total support of all my colleagues, even those who were not very keen on referendums. Nevertheless, it was felt to be justified in that case. Heaven knows that we have had enough of them recently. The current Government have used the referendum weapon very frequently, and now I understand that it is proposed to use it in Scotland. That is what I read in the newspapers. If people do not like referendums, that is understandable; but if it is raised into being a principle against referendums, it becomes totally unintelligible. If that argument does not stand, then it is argued that other countries are not having a referendum. Well, Ireland is having one very shortly. And do we always have to be the copycats? Do we always have to say, ““If they are not doing it, we must follow suit””? Then, we are told that it is too complicated for the British people to understand, although the Irish are apparently managing to understand it and the French and the Dutch managed to understand it. I know that some lively words were exchanged on that in the previous debate, and I do not want to stir them up again. However, I do not think that that proposition can survive for two seconds without raising questions about the intellectual capacities and sheer shrewdness of the people when carefully and properly consulted about an issue. As for the concept of the constitution being abandoned, this is where we reach the edges of credulity. We know that it is just the wrapping that has been abandoned. I am all for pretty wrapping and doing up parcels beautifully. When I visit Japan I think how marvellous they are at wrapping things up. But it is what is inside that matters. It really is wearying constantly to be told that two and two does not make four and that black is white. In the words of my right honourable friend Kenneth Clarke, with whom I have worked closely in the past, will the Government, "““stop all this nonsense about its being different from the constitution when it is plainly the same in substance””?—[Official Report, Commons, 5/3/08; col. 1785.]" That seems pretty definite. Having listed all those arguments that are paraded, there is one reason above all why none of these pleas should be accepted: the Government promised a referendum, as did the Liberal Democrats and my own party. We did it in our manifestos in 2005. The parties went even further than the promises in the manifestos. In the Sun, the former Primer Minister, Tony Blair, said, "““we will have a referendum on the constitution in any event—and that is a government promise””." As for the Liberal Democrats—I was going to say the dear old Lib Dems, but I am not sure those are quite the right words—we are getting used to their vagaries. My colleague William Hague had a few words for the anatomical state of their party in the Commons debates. I shall spare their blushes here; I think that these matters are much too vulgar for your Lordships’ House. However, their new leader, Mr Clegg, said at their party conference: "““Any proposals which involve significant change in the relationship between the Union, the member states and its citizens should be approved in Britain through a referendum””." What could be plainer than that? Every independent analysis confirms that the two treaties are virtual replicas. According to the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, a very distinguished committee, as I know, 240 of the 250 proposals in the constitutional treaty are reproduced identically in this one. That very distinguished committee—by no means dominated by the Opposition; on the contrary, it is dominated by the Government—said that, "““there is no material difference between the provisions on foreign affairs in the Constitutional Treaty, which the Government made subject to approval in a referendum and those in the Lisbon Treaty on which a referendum is being denied””."