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European Union (Amendment) Bill

It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Radice, who I greatly like and admire. This is symptomatic of the debate on the European Union: we are at cross-purposes and we will never meet. It seems sensible therefore to put the issue to a broader jury to see whether they agree with the noble Lord and his followers—the Europhiles—or the Eurosceptics or even the extreme, swivel-eyed Europhobes who want to get out of the European Union altogether. The noble Lord, Lord Radice, is right. The European Union has been very good for Europe in many ways. I have no quarrel with that. There is a mistaken view, which I hope is not shared by the Liberal Democrats, that UKIP wants to destroy it. That simply is not the case. Our case is that it is not good for Britain or necessary for Britain to be a member. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Radice, that it has been good for democracy in Europe and has made other countries in Europe richer, partly—I hope he would admit—with some of our taxpayers’ money; for instance, French agriculture and Spain. None the less, it has had very good effects for certain countries in Europe, if not all, but not necessarily for Britain. That is where we part company. In 1975, we had the referendum, which we talked about on earlier amendments, on the Common Market. There was no question of having a European army, qualified majority voting or even a European Parliament. It was on purely whether we wished to remain in—