European Union (Amendment) Bill

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, for trying to be charitable to the Conservative Front Bench. He did it in a slightly strange way by saying that we were ignorant and guilty, but maybe he is trying to stretch out a hand. Of course, a case can be made for supporting the amendment. If it were carried and there was an in or out referendum, I agree totally with those who said that the vast majority of this country want to stay in the EU. That leaves open the question of what type of EU and what way it is going. We in the Conservative Party would campaign vigorously to stay in the European Union, and I am in favour of membership of this grouping. Those of us who have been involved with this for 30 or 40 years would be in an extraordinary position if we were not in favour of creating the right kind of European region and Union that can overcome any difficulties by working together. I do not think that we have been at all clever in recent times in playing the European Union hand. We have missed every opportunity after the rejection of the constitution. Hampton Court was claimed to be a great success but it was a feeble disaster and bypassed all sorts of opportunities for the UK. I find that quite shaming. Generally, our negotiations in these matters during the convention were a disaster, which I repeat many of us foresaw from the beginning because it was a top-down arrangement and not a bottom-up calling together of the great national parliaments and the great states of Europe. The negotiating was abysmal and landed the British Government with all sorts of commitments they did not want. Much of that has flowed into the Lisbon treaty where many of the undertakings still reside. That is not a good story, but in no way does it detract from our wish to see a strong, modern European Union adjust to the networked world, revolutionised by information technology and globalisation, that is now before us. It is completely different from the world in which the European Economic Community and European Community were originally designed and conceived. It is true that the EU serves not our interests, as the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, said, but some of our interests. Close co-operation in the European Union undoubtedly serves some interests, but not all, and in a fast-changing world the pattern of those interests is also changing fast. Noble Lords opposite or, perhaps, all round, were wrong to be too mocking of that part of the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, and others. They rightly said not that the new world of Asia is a substitute for, and opposite from, being members of the European Union—it was not at all right for the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, to seem to set those two against each other when, on the contrary, they go together—but that there are vast opportunities growing outside the European Union. Those who say that the European Union is our destiny— we do not hear quite so much from them at the moment, and that phrase seems to have disappeared, thank goodness—or that it is the only game in town do not understand that what is happening now in the world is very different. I hope that that message has reached some parts of the Government, such as the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which was, for years, very much convinced that we were on the losing side in Europe and had to be involved by giving everything to the European system in order not to be outwitted by the clever Quai d’Orsay and the Auswärtiges Amt, and so on. I think that that message is reaching the Foreign Office: its latest annual report is an interesting document showing real signs of appreciating the strength of our position in the world network, and that we cannot rely totally on our European partners by seeing everything through that prism in dealing with the world. It still has not got the message on the Commonwealth—the most powerful network of the future—but I am happy that it is making progress. For the rest, I agree with the great majority of the people; my noble friends Lord Astor and Lord Trenchard, and others, want to stay in the European Union and see it develop in the right way, not the wrong one. The great majority want to stay in, just as they also appear to want a referendum. About our Liberal Democrat colleagues, I feel that enough has been said.