European Affairs

The answer to that question is that the European Union has spent the last seven or eight years debating institutional questions which people do not feel have addressed their concerns, and the sooner it puts such institutional navel-gazing behind it, the better. Let me point out to Opposition Members who are nodding and agreeing that they want to put institutional sclerosis behind them that the proposals that they are advocating are designed precisely to introduce yet another decade of institutional navel-gazing. I suggest that if they are serious about wanting to allow the European Union to address the real issues, they should understand that it is a major mistake to try to unpick the Lisbon treaty after it has been passed in the House of Commons. We shall have to wait and see what happens in the Irish referendum, although I shall have some words to say about that later.