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Debate on the Address

My Lords, I will revert to the topic that the rest of us have been debating. It is a good many years since I worked in the foreign service, but I still have one concern that troubles me: the extent to which the Government and Parliament, not excluding this House, are increasingly out of touch with public opinion. Informed public consent to major policies is a necessary basis of the democratic system that we have sought for so many years to establish in this country. Obtaining that consent is an essential part of good governance, and if the population at large concludes, as it appears to do at present, that the Government—and still more the European Union which is responsible for most of our legislation—have no time for its views, its disillusionment with politicians and political institutions will increase. That does not bode well for parliamentary government in our country. In the field of foreign policy that we are discussing today—or were—the most explosive issue is Iraq. When we debated Iraq in this House on 24 September 2002, it seemed probable that before long the United States would attack Iraq. The question was whether or not we should take part. I argued then that we should not, and that we should go to war only if we ourselves were threatened or if vital British interests were at stake. Since neither of those applied, I said that I did not believe that it would be right to send our young men there to face being killed. But Tony Blair decided that we should take part and the result has, sadly, been a disaster. Matters became still worse when his Government went on to involve us in fighting in Afghanistan, which my noble and gallant friend Lord Craig has told us, may go on for years: a grim prospect. The country was not consulted before the key decisions were taken. Everyone is made miserable by the continued loss of British lives in conflicts that essentially have little to do with us and appear likely to increase the risk of terrorism and to make the situation in the Middle East progressively worse. We are now left with no option but to disengage and gradually withdraw without too much loss of face. Now we have a new Prime Minister and perhaps the trickiest of foreign policy issue that he has to face is how to deal with the proposed EU reform treaty. We shall have to discuss that in detail early next year, but at this stage, although some aspects of the treaty appear sensible and necessary, it is clear that, as now drafted, it involves further pronounced steps towards European integration and brings much nearer the prospect of a country called Europe run from Brussels. It will result in the loss of our national veto in some 50 different areas and will give more responsibilities to Brussels where there will be a European Foreign Minister in all but name presiding over a European diplomatic service. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, has already quoted the Economist. It also said on 27 October: "““In 2003 this newspaper suggested putting the draft constitution in the bin and starting again. Given that the Lisbon treaty is merely a remuddled version, our advice remains unchanged””." The argument has of course been about whether there should be a referendum as was promised by the Labour Party in its manifesto. We have been here before. Many of us will remember the debate in this House on 14 July 1993, when a distinguished Conservative, the late Lord Blake, proposed that there should be a referendum on the Maastricht treaty. The Conservative Party shamefully bussed in numbers of backwoodsmen to achieve a massive vote to defeat that very reasonable proposal. It did the party no good at all. Now we have a Labour Government seeking for their part to deny a voice to people outside Westminster on a major step towards an integrated Europe. Polls show that seven out of 10 British people oppose the treaty, but the new Prime Minister seems prepared to ride roughshod over public opinion. Westminster appears isolated and cut off from the rest of the country, like Tewkesbury during the recent floods. Since the public seem to be opposed to the treaty and everyone, whether Europhile or Eurosceptic, is convinced that if there were to be a referendum people would vote overwhelmingly against accepting it, we should perhaps do more to find out what sensible people really want in our relationship with Europe. It would be useful to explore alternatives to the present state of affairs, where we are dragged grumbling towards a United States of Europe, which a number of noble Lords who have spoken seem content to accept, or take the drastic step of coming out without more ado. My own view for a long time has been that we should loosen up or leave. I was interested to see that a round dozen members of this House signed a letter from Global Vision business supporters which appeared in the Financial Times on 17 October. It called for Britain to negotiate a new relationship with Europe, preserving the benefits of free trade and co-operation on policy areas where we and our neighbours have common interests, but opting out of the journey towards political and economic union. Members of the other place have their constituencies, agents and surgeries which ought to give them a sense of what people out there are thinking, but nevertheless the message often does not appear to get through. In this House, we have none of that; we can rely only on the findings of polls, comments in the media and our varied personal contacts, but collectively we can get a sense of what people think. Nevertheless, at present, neither we nor the other place seem to respond adequately to the feelings of the country as a whole. Parliamentary democracy in Great Britain is not answering the helm. To some extent that is due to the party system. Politicians forget that they are a very small minority. Members of the three principal parties in this country altogether amount to about half a million people. This compares with more than 1 million members of the RSPB and 3.5 million members of the National Trust. Moreover, people are put off by what they hear about the whipping system, which does the image of Parliament no good at all. The fundamental problem is that our Governments, of whatever party, are usually determined to do what they want to do and to disregard opinion outside. Prime Ministers come to Downing Street with all sorts of good ideas, but once they get there, they lose touch with the country outside Westminster and deny the people as a whole a voice on the road ahead. This was the line taken by Charles I, and we know what happened to him. It is surely important that on foreign policy and defence, in which the lives of our citizens are often at risk, we should pay much more attention to the view of the country at large. This should be so obvious as to be not worth saying, but sadly this is not the case. I believe therefore that we should all work to get the Government and Parliament to listen much more to people outside Westminster, to take their views seriously and to pay real attention to what they say. I sat up when I heard at the beginning of the gracious Speech: "““My Government will take forward policies to respond to the rising aspirations of the people of the United Kingdom … and to entrust more power to Parliament and the people””." That sounds new and encouraging. We must watch to see what the Government do. The European reform treaty will be the first touchstone.