European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, it would be churlish of me not to rise and thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, for his extremely gracious remarks about our exchange. In the 50 or 60 hours of debate on this matter that I have attended in this House, I have been called far worse things than a bureaucrat. I can probably survive. It was very nice of the noble Lord to say what he did. In some ways I am extremely sympathetic to the thoughts that have been expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, but I am not at all convinced by the method advocated in the amendment in the Marshalled List. A government document on these points will not change public opinion in a helpful way, particularly if—this point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Dykes—a number of the noble Lord’s colleagues, here and in another place, rapidly rubbish said government document. It is pretty certain that they would do so, starting up again the whole debate about whether the Lisbon treaty is really as helpful, positive and harmless as the Government say. I fear that such a government document would simply not do the trick. I hate to return the ball to the other side of the net, but before we can start to turn opinion around in this country—and heaven knows it needs turning around—it is crucial that the Official Opposition tell us that they accept the ratification of the Lisbon treaty, and are going to live with it. That is absolutely crucial. If they do not say that, and the thought hovers around that in the next manifesto there will be some commitment to deconstructing the Lisbon treaty, there is no hope of taking this out of partisan politics. It will remain in partisan politics. The best thing that could possibly happen is for all three large parties to join in an information campaign. That would not then be open to the same problems as a campaign run simply by the Government. They should also agree not to score points off each other on European issues in the next election campaign, which must come by 2010. The Irish can do it. Every single party in Ireland, except Sinn Fein, is today campaigning for a ““yes”” vote. In every other European Union country, the norm at election time is for parties not to disagree fundamentally on European issues. They disagree about a whole lot of other things, and have a very good election. The winners become the Government and introduce the policies that they have been elected for. Europe is not greatly affected because it is a bi, tri or quadripartisan issue in those countries. If we could get to that situation, we would have some chance of turning the position around, even in the teeth of the Murdoch, Rothermere, et al., press. That is a terrible handicap to all of us, including noble Lords on the other side who take the same pro-European view as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. This is honestly not the right way to do it, but the sentiments expressed by the noble Lord are admirable and I share them totally.