European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, we on these Benches must start by congratulating the Conservative Front Bench on correcting the Welsh spelling of the question in this amendment. Just before we came here, we had done a little research on what ““Libson”” was about, but the spelling was corrected yesterday. I hesitate to criticise the Conservatives because over the past week my party has been bombarded by letters from various Conservative leaders in the Commons and Lords. The letter that we received yesterday from William Hague made it quite clear that he had not read Monday’s Hansard when he wrote to protest at the position that we had taken. I hope that the Conservative Front Bench in the Lords will occasionally manage to get their colleagues in the Commons to pay more attention to the way in which we discuss, debate and revise in this House in Committee and on Report. Perhaps I should start by criticising the Labour Government. We are where we are because the Labour Government have, for the past 10 years, failed to make a constructive case for British membership of the European Union. Since they have failed to make that constructive case, the British debate has slipped further backwards towards what one has to call the Daily Mail view—of European integration as a threat. We have heard echoes of that from the noble Lord, Lord Howell. We heard of the Convention of Cintra and had the image of the poor British holed up in a corner of the Continent and forced to submit to humiliating conditions dictated by the French. That is what he implied by that reference. I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Howell, that, as I have worked through the details of the Bill—I speak as someone who has worked on the European Union for a long time—I have been struck by the relative modesty of the changes that it makes. They are useful and constructive changes, but this is not a revolution. This is an evolutionary process of amendment. I want to make a passing comment, since the Irish referendum campaign is clearly preoccupying us, on the Irish ““no”” campaign. The Irish Times has made it clear in two or three articles in past few days that there is a peculiar coalition of eccentric right-wing millionaires with strong links to the American neoconservatives and left-wing socialists and nationalists in Sinn Fein, and that is not itself such as to encourage enthusiasm, particularly in view of the fact that it has refused to say where its funds have come from—perhaps from non-domiciled and offshore people, as with some people in the Conservative Party. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, has added his name to this amendment and, from the tone of his introductory speech, I assume that if there is to be a referendum, he will campaign actively for people to say ““no””. I note that his colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, does not have his name to the amendment and, from the number of things that he has said in the course of our discussions in this House, it is quite clear that he will be campaigning for a ““yes””. So we have a Conservative Party that is likely to be divided on the issue, which is very reminiscent of Harold Wilson’s Labour Party.