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European Council

Obviously, I cannot agree with my right hon. Friend on that. We have never, on conventional amending treaties, had referendums. We did not on the Single European Act; we did not on Maastricht; we did not on Amsterdam; we did not on Nice. We accepted that the constitutional treaty was in a different bracket precisely because it purported to be a constitution that governed all the various items in Europe. As a result of the changes that we have made, it is impossible to say that. This treaty transfers less power than any of the four previous treaties in the past 20 years. In respect of the politics of it—I say this as much to the Conservative party as I do to my right hon. Friend, for whom, as he knows, I have a lot of respect—the Conservative party has fought three elections on Euroscepticism: a fat lot of good it did them.