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European Union (Amendment) Bill

I will just say a brief word on this really rather astonishing debate, without seeking to impugn anyone’s character. I find the amendment mischievous, because the European Union is in fact doing what I think noble Lords opposite wished it to do, which is to systematise the possibility for a member state to leave if it wished and decided so to do. The doctrine that the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, is adumbrating is the doctrine of unilateralism in regard to international obligations. You enter into them when you feel like it, you tear them up when you feel like it and you tell everyone else to go to hell when you feel like it. I do not happen to think that is a very good way of running international affairs, whether in the European Union or anywhere else, and I hope that the amendment will be withdrawn, because it is totally mischievous.