European Union (Amendment) Bill

I cannot understand why the Government have taken the attitude they have to granting a referendum on the Lisbon treaty. They are making a rod for their own backs. It does not matter what they say or how much they say that the Lisbon treaty is not the same as the constitution; the public at large simply does not believe it. That is why 86 per cent of the population consistently say that they want a referendum on this Lisbon treaty. The Government will ignore that at their peril. I forget who it was this afternoon who said it was unwise of Tony Blair to have promised a referendum on the constitution. The fact is that he did, and that promise went down well with the electorate. They have remembered it and now they are demanding it. The Government will ignore that demand at their peril. They are going through dangerous waters at the present time. Their refusal to grant a referendum has at least something to do with that. It has undermined the confidence of the people in the truthfulness of the Government. They still believe, and always will believe, that they were made a promise at the last election that they would be consulted before this constitutional treaty—call it what you like—was agreed and put into operation. Quite frankly, if the Government want to retrieve their position from the present abysmal one amongst the electorate, they should start listening to them. The electorate is telling them, ““We want a referendum; please give it to us””. I repeat: they ignore that request at their peril. Some noble Lords have said this afternoon that the Lisbon treaty is not the same as the constitution. Of course it will not be the same word for word because certain different agreements have been made, some of them worse than the constitution. I simply cannot understand why our Government, virtually alone among the other 26 members of the European Union—believe that the Lisbon treaty is different from the constitution.