European Union (Amendment) Bill

I found the speech of the right reverend Prelate very timely. He said certain things that have not been said by anybody else about the problem of connecting with the people; he also said that the Government—the Labour Party in this case—and maybe the Liberal Democrats are doing themselves short-term damage. This is very important. It may well be that the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats are doing themselves some short-term damage but why are they doing it? They are doing it because they think the strategic position of this country demands that we stay and play a very active part in the European Union. What is on the table is an incremental treaty—I do not know what other word would make some people happier or more afraid; it involves incrementalism. Although the treaty cannot be held responsible for this, we have seen, in the last year alone, several issues—Russia and energy policy through problems of justice and home affairs to migration and so on—in which it has become increasingly apparent that we need an extension of co-operation, of QMV and so on. The question therefore becomes, ““Is this something in a parliamentary democracy that is easy to judge by referendum?””. I echo my noble friend Lord Tomlinson in saying that I thought that the Prime Minister made the wrong decision four or five years ago to go for a referendum. He was perhaps on better terms with Rupert Murdoch at that time. The substantive reason is that if we look at the sort of campaign that we would run on a referendum it would be a xenophobic, one-sided, misrepresentation of what is happening in Europe. That would not enhance the value of parliamentary democracy and it would be a mad example of a reversion to populism such as would have been associated with a referendum in 1953 on capital punishment. Parliamentary democracy requires a lot of things to make it work. It requires some balance of different priorities on expenditure along with the budget. It requires a balance between freedom of speech—as we were discussing the other day—and not allowing people freely to intimidate other people in the community. Every day of the week we have to get these things right through parliamentary democracy. If we allowed this to go forward this time and said, ““This is how we operate parliamentary democracy in this country””, it would be a precedent that would come back to haunt us. Certainly we have to make the case; certainly on doorsteps there may be an issue at the moment because of a Pavlovian reaction to the question, ““What happened to our referendum?””. That is where the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, is coming from; he wants to get out of the whole thing. That is not my paranoia; it is what the noble Lord has just said, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, pointed out. That is why I believe that we should stand up for parliamentary democracy. If the Conservative Party comes up with some policy before a general election in 2010, I will be very surprised. It is currently putting together its policy with sticking plaster. If, as we all think is very likely, the treaty goes through, what exactly are we to make of David Cameron’s remark about not leaving matters there? That is the best he can do. There will be a crisis in the Conservative Party. Conservatives know that they cannot deliver the manifesto that they will cobble together on this topic, so where does that leave the sanctity of manifestos? As a trade union-oriented Member of the House, I point out that the Conservative Party is opposing the temporary and agency workers proposals. They were in the Labour Party manifesto, so since when has so much sanctity been attached to two-party and three-party politics?