European Union (Amendment) Bill

I did not wish to intervene, but I have spent nearly 40 years listening to schizophrenic pontificating politicians. While I was sitting here, I asked myself two things: how many of the letter ““e”” are there in the months of the year—there are six—and how many of the letter ““r””? And how many political Peers are there? Are we talking about political Peers? The noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, tried to put me down when I was going to be constructive. At an early age, I was put on a secret committee of this House to determine what our strategy should be when—and if—we entered the EU. I spoke at one of those meetings with really great men and Peers and was told afterwards that I was not there to speak, I was there to listen because this European lark would take many, many years and people would bang on about it ad infinitum. The noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, spoke about hanging. When we had a vote in this House back in the 1970s, almost the same number of people voted to go into the EU as voted for the abolition of hanging. It was an overwhelming majority. What happened then? The Labour Party decided that it would intervene and introduce this new thing called a referendum. I had the job of raising money to finance our delegation to the European Parliament because the Labour Party refused to go and to send anybody. As a result, there could be no Treasury vote. We were totally opposed to referenda; suddenly the Conservative Party is saying that they are a good thing. I think that they are a complete and utter waste of time unless you have consulted the people. There are many ways of consulting, such as an election. What a stupid thing to do—we nearly had an election before Christmas. I am a bit worried about the right reverend Prelate because something will be happening in his patch fairly shortly; I wondered whether he was making a political speech, but I am sure that he was not. My view is fairly simple. I have spent my life working in and around the EU, but I have always fought and competed with it; I have never colluded. I always thought that treaties were about making peace. I hate all this bureaucracy and these pieces of paper that nobody understands. If you asked the electorate tomorrow what this is all about, they would probably sound a little like the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, and say that it is about surrendering power. I have always regarded things as an opportunity. I worry now that the Government may not have consulted and do not know what they should consult about. I have a feeling that, within the bones of the country, there would be opposition to what is proposed if people knew what that was. I believe in elected representatives. Roughly 106,000 people in this country are elected representatives, from parish councils through to regional councils and various other bodies. I rang various associations today to ask which of them had been consulted on this. The answer was none. Perhaps we are democratic. Then I thought, ““I am one of the elected ones in this place, so perhaps that takes the number up by another 92””. But I am still not sure how I can equate my feeling that referenda are wrong with my feeling that the Government have not consulted. I do not believe that the Government are with it at the moment. I wish them well, but sometimes there are things that you can do from within and sometimes you can do them from without.