European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, my judgment is that this treaty is sufficiently different from the constitution to merit a different approach. I should just give headlines on the other matters: the practical difficulties. It depends on who poses the question and the wider context. My experience of the Welsh referendum in 1979 was that 80 per cent of the people of Wales were against the devolution proposals of the Government. In 1997, 50 per cent were in favour and 50 per cent were against. Does one imagine that there was some mass conversion over that period? No, it was the fact that, in 1997, an incoming Labour Government with an overwhelming majority put forward the proposal, so it depended very much on who posed the question and the wider context. There was a weak Labour Government in 1979, who was highly unpopular, and in 1997, there was a popular Labour Government with a very substantial majority. It depends when the question is put. For example, in Sweden there was general antipathy to the European Union. There was only a brief window of opportunity when the pendulum of Swedish opinion swung in favour of the European Union and by happy chance, or unhappy chance, the Swedes had their referendum at that time. So public opinion can be highly volatile, as we saw in Sweden. There can be problems in interpreting the result. If there is a very low participation rate, does one ask what is sufficient in terms of public opinion? Perhaps the real issue is that one cannot reduce such a complex matter to a single issue. I recall that President Mitterrand said that in referendums the French people always answer the wrong question. I was one of those who, on the French referendum on Maastricht, appeared on platforms in France arguing for a ““yes”” vote at that time. It struck me that the issue was not that of Maastricht, but whether or not one liked President Mitterrand, and there were issues about immigration and textiles which were wholly unrelated to the Maastricht treaty. In the Irish referendum tomorrow, there are questions about abortion, defence and neutrality, which do not appear in this treaty. The question cannot be reduced to a single issue. The fundamental issue is that although in Parliament one can debate and negotiate with opposing groups, in the popular vote one cannot negotiate with the people. If, perchance, the Irish people were to vote against tomorrow, who would know what the particular issues were on which they rejected the treaty?