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European Union (Amendment) Bill

I am pleased to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) because he started with the important point about the labels that we give people for their attitude towards Europe. We do not have the language to describe those of us who broadly agree with co-operation between European Union member states that goes beyond pure trade relationships but also make critical assessments. We immediately jump to calling people Europhobes or Europhiles or Eurosceptics. Just for the record, I find fault with the treaty and with the organisation, but I absolutely refuse to be labelled as a bad European or a Eurosceptic by anyone for that reason. I will take no lessons from anyone about that. That leads me on to why we need to consider the substance of the treaty. I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), because he started to describe the consequences of some of the provisions in the treaty and to explain what will happen. People might like it or not like it, but we need to start saying what is within the treaty. I suggest that those on our Front Bench should look a little at the history of how we ended up with this piece of legislation, which started life with the Laeken declaration. The treaty started because there were perceived to be two problems in the European Union. One was to do with its bureaucratic efficiency—at that stage, by the way, a review was needed for enlargement, so let us park that one for the moment, because enlargement happened. The second and much more fundamental problem was a disengagement from the institutions by the people of Europe and the loss of the kind of democratic legitimacy that people had hoped for when we started direct elections to the European Parliament. In reality, all that happened was that fewer and fewer people either turned up for elections or related to the institutions. Someone then came up with an answer—a constitution. That treaty—the constitution—was continuously changed. The French rejected it, and we started giving it different names, but we should waste no time today asking whether the treaty is the same as the constitution. It is a bit like Heinz baked beans: with more than 57 varieties, we know what the thing is in essence, and in essence it requires democratic legitimacy from all the people in the member states of the European Union.