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European Union (Amendment) Bill

I know that we are in Committee, and I am trying to give way as much as I can, but I must be allowed to make an argument. Why have the debates in this House on this treaty over the past six weeks been in essence the same as the public debate that raged about the European constitution? We would not be arguing about the same things if the two documents were fundamentally different. The Government are fond of alleging that the Conservative party is alone in its view of European affairs—they always omit to mention that they opposed vast tracts of the treaty to which they have now signed up—but on the issue of whether the constitution and the treaty are the same, it is the Government who are alone in Europe.