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Business of the House (Lisbon Treaty)

I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker. One of the reasons why I support the programme motion so strongly is that I am certain that, in the days and weeks ahead, it will give us an opportunity to probe in much more detail the Conservative party’s attitude to the European Union, to Britain’s membership of the European Union, to the Lisbon treaty, and to their conservative and centre-right political colleagues in the rest of the European Union, from whom they now find themselves entirely isolated. I think I am right in saying that the only ally that the Conservative party has among its European Union counterparts is the Czech Civil Democratic party, the ODS, which is both in favour of the treaty and against a referendum.