My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We have to be very careful of the law of unintended consequences when we go down a particular path.
Issues are bound to arise that either no one thought about or thought would have significance outside of an abstract environment but subsequently became significant, or that were parked so that we could come back to them at a later date. The reality, as we found throughout the whole post-referendum period—oven-ready this and oven-ready that—is that lots of things that were parked are coming back to bite. The problem with that, as I said, is the law of unseen and ignored consequences—those things are waiting around the corner, and turn up like an uninvited and unwelcome guest in our house.
Please bear with me, Madam Deputy Speaker, on the potential unintended consequences of coming out of a treaty. Imagine what would happen if we decided to abrogate the North Atlantic treaty—which, of course, no one would dream of doing. We know there would certainly be huge consequences to such an action. I suspect Members understand there would be pretty immediate and most probably predictable consequences to that. However, it is sometimes the unpredictability of taking actions that comes back to haunt us.
The same could be said for other treaties, which may appear to be of little significance and consequence in the short term, but which might take on a whole new persona down the line. I am not sure that many people would initially grasp the consequences of, say, breaching the Antarctic treaty, but there would be consequences in due course. If we abrogate a treaty, or part of a treaty, it is unlikely that we can then somehow revisit it, change domestic law and expect other countries to accept that.
I will finish on this point, because it is important. There are other treaties that we have to look to—I could go into detail on them, but I will not. What about— [Interruption.] Well, if Members insist. How about the 1963 nuclear test ban treaty? What would happen if we decided to tweak that a little bit through domestic law?