European Union (Amendment) Bill

If the noble Lord can find a scintilla of evidence that I argued on that basis, I would be grateful if he could bring it to my attention and I will check whether I was taking the right medication that day. I have no such evidence of ever having used what I regard as an essentially fatuous argument. I am not going to give way again because we have plenty of points of substance to debate, rather than these childish debating points. I have told the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, that I will not give way to him because his are always childish debating points. What I have said is very clear. There is a difference between the constitutional treaty that was rejected and the reform treaty that we have before us. The referendum pledge was made in relation to one and not the other. I believe that the pledge was wrong and said so in this Chamber at the time. My right honourable friend Tony Blair, then Prime Minister, made a major error of judgment in that decision. The pledge that was made at that time is not transferable to these completely different and new circumstances. I hope that, if the noble Lord does not have a flash of common sense before the end of the debate and does not withdraw his amendment, it will be resoundingly defeated.