European Union (Amendment) Bill

moved Amendment No. 29: 29: Clause 8, page 4, line 2, leave out ““Section 3”” and insert ““Sections 1 to 6”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, I hope that in Amendment No. 32 in my name and that of other noble Lords, I have this time got the Welsh language right and that all the words in that wonderful tongue are correct. This debate starts with something of a mystery. As we have argued and debated our way through the text of the treaty and the Bill, most of us can see—and it becomes clearer page by page—that the words are almost identical to those of the former constitutional treaty. In most places they are absolutely identical. The constitutional treaty met a sticky end when it was voted down in referenda in the Netherlands and France some years ago. The mystery is this: if our eyes can see the identical words, how is it that—while we see one thing—Ministers insist on seeing something quite different? Of course, the answer requires no detective work at all. We do not need Hercule Poirot to see exactly what has happened. The treaty drafters and this Government have rather cleverly achieved an illusion by using a methodological device to argue that the constitutional concept has been abandoned. That is the position of the Government as I understand it. This switch is obviously ingenious and delights all the Sir Humphreys, but that view has virtually no support Europe-wide. In fact, almost all Europe's leaders have been frank and candid about what has been done and about the digital enhancement that has taken place to make the text look different. The only body that is constantly quoted as insisting on the difference is the Dutch Council of State. Throughout our debates, that body has been paraded as a fig leaf for the apologists, but when I came to look at the details of its report to the Netherlands Government, even that august body revealingly let slip in that report—should your Lordships be interested, it is on page 9 and again on pages and 10 and 14—that the Lisbon treaty's goals are, "““in keeping with the EU's constitutional development””," and that the differences with the constitutional treaty, which was turned down, amount to no more than ““shifts in emphasis”” and the ““abolition of symbols””. The truth is that the treaty and the Bill are the outcome of weak negotiation by a weak and failing Government propped up, of course, by the Liberal Democrat Party. The treaty is crammed with measures that the Government earlier fought desperately to reject. Quite aside from the Bill, the treaty itself and the negotiation give us a very poor deal indeed. As someone said the other day, not since the Convention of Cintra has there been anything as bad out of Portugal. It is on almost precisely this text now before us that all three parties promised a referendum. All three parties said that they would give the people a say. None of us knows what the people would say nor the outcome of a referendum were there to be one. People in the Republic of Ireland will tell us tomorrow in a referendum what they think. They have had an excellent campaign and debate and it seems that the outcome is close. Some people say that it depends entirely on the weather. In thinking about the Irish referendum, we incidentally note and reject the patronising view that the treaty would be too difficult for the British public to understand and that it can be comprehended only by the sublime genius of the minds of the Foreign Office. We do not know what the outcome would be. We do not know what impact there would be if the treaty falls as a result of the Irish rejection, although we have some reports from Brussels, including the FT’s excellent Quentin Peel, that far from stymieing the EU advance, it would clear matters up and that the smaller member states are longing for the whole thing to be dropped. Mr Peel quotes a Brussels official as saying that few tears would be shed if the whole thing were dropped. We do not know what the impact would be, although we have had many dire predictions. Nor do we know the full purpose of the treaty and what effects it will have on our constitution. There are legions of known unknowns in this treaty. There are provisions that allow new provisions and powers that permit new powers, and it is full of what astronomers call dark matter. The other night, in an exchange at a late hour, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, said that this goes further than any other treaty on accountability. But it goes further than any other treaty in its open-endedness as well. It leaves countless doors and windows open for the new departures, transfers of power and treaty changes without proper parliamentary control. That is the nature of it and I am not sure that any such Bill—people have referred to Maastricht and so forth—with such open-ended features has ever been presented to Parliament before. As a dodgy company floatation prospectus might say, its aim seems to be to carry out an undertaking of great advantage by means and for purposes which will be explained later. I fear that the directors of the South Sea Company would have recognised that approach. We do not know any of those things. However, we do know that the public are being hoodwinked—and the public know that as well. The latest YouGov poll shows that 65 per cent know it is the same text as before. They believe that Labour has broken its promise. Some 51 per cent of those polled want a referendum say on this. The Lord President may have come across this poll and may know something about it. The only misnomer in this excellent poll is the phrase YouGov. We do not ““gov””. A failing Government try to ““gov”” and a so-called listening Government do not listen. The Government say they want to be closer to the people yet take good care to keep as far as they can from them on this issue. The same goes for the Liberal Democrat party and its belief in listening to and being closer to the people—not, it seems, on this issue.