European Union (Amendment) Bill

I am most grateful to the noble Lord. Indeed, I was going to make my own contribution to the Liberal Democrats’ position. For the third time lucky. As far as I can see, but it is a swiftly moving target, it is also the policy of the Liberal Democrat Party. So it is an unusual pleasure to be teamed up with it, for a change. I gather that its leader, Mr Clegg, flounced out of the Commons when he was not allowed to debate this amendment, which he supported, there. I happened to hear Mr Clegg confirming this happy state of affairs on the ““Today”” programme at 8.12 am on the morning of 25 April this year. I fear it is worth quoting the relevant extract. Mr Clegg had just finished saying that he had always brought to politics, "““energy, authenticity and a great deal of energy and enthusiasm””" —that was his repetition. He was being interviewed by John Humphrys, who is worth quoting: "““Authenticity—in terms of Europe, you have a strong position on Europe, or all Liberal Democrats should have a strong position on Europe, clearly it’s an important issue for you and your party, and you are meant to have a clear position. But you fudged it over the one important debate that there was in the House of Commons, that’s to say the referendum debate””." To which Mr Clegg replied, "““The positional we took was that the referendum, which we wanted to see take place, was a referendum on the big question about Europe, which is whether we stay in or out. What we disagreed with, as the party, was the Conservative proposal to have a referendum—a very narrow referendum—only on this Lisbon Treaty. And even if the Tories had got their way and there was a referendum, it had then been rejected, it wouldn’t have changed a thing to the way in which the European Union is presently organised. So we wanted the serious debate on the underlying issue, the underlying angst, if you like, in the European issue. We were thwarted in our attempt to even have that debate in the House of Commons, we made our ... I made my sort of, you know, frustration about that perfectly plain””." By which I think he was referring to walking out of the House of Commons. So I think that we have the Liberal Democrat position there. I trust that your Lordships agree that it is pretty clear.