European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, I am obliged to help from any quarter. My noble friend Lord Anderson is also the only one I have heard so far this afternoon averting to the position of Poland. I know how far the Polish process has gone. However, it seems that the President of Poland has lost his fountain pen, because he has not signed off on this treaty for several weeks now and there is no sign that he is in a hurry to do so. That deals with those two points. I think that our Prime Minister is probably quite happy with what has happened, rather as his predecessor was. We have to recognise that our Prime Minister kept us out of the eurozone, did he not? Yes, he did. Two-speed Europe? We are not at the heart of things, are we? The noble Lord has left the Chamber. We are not in Schengen, are we? How happy are we with the idea of a common corporation tax base? How happy are we with French ideas on competition policy when their frozen yoghurt business is vital to the national interest? What a shower. A common defence policy? Unfortunately, my noble friend Lord Tomlinson is not in his place. The other day he got up and said how all the NATO powers are not pulling their weight in Afghanistan. My noble friend the Minister on the Front Bench did not go so far as to correct him; she merely said that the European powers were not pulling their weight in Afghanistan. We know that the Spaniards, the French and the Germans do not send their troops anywhere very dangerous in Afghanistan—and we are supposed to consider a common defence and security policy with people like that. Frankly, I do not want influence with that crowd; I really do not. I wish that my noble friend would smile a little bit; she looks so unhappy. I have no desire whatever to make the European Union more efficient, because the way that it is behaving in its inefficient way is thoroughly distasteful in many directions. I shall not elaborate on those, as my views are well known. One thing that seems absolutely clear is that this treaty is dead. Something else may replace it. I have never been one to whom necrophilia has appealed as a form of activity and I do not intend to engage in an act of political necrophilia this afternoon.