---

European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, like the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Richard, I believe that this House should decide how we proceed in the rather remarkable circumstances that face us following the Irish referendum. I agree with them that this has been a very thorough debate, and I have been through most of these debates. Given our procedures, it has been a rather more detailed and considered debate than that in another House. Therefore, I have no complaints about the procedures. I was expecting a vote from which I would have abstained. I admit that that is not a marvellous position to adopt, but I am not prepared to vote against a treaty under which I may well want to live. But then the Irish vote came. In the referendum debate I said that if the Irish voted yes, I would support the treaty and campaign for it in a referendum. In the circumstances we face today, however, we have to make a much trickier and more difficult political decision. I believe that it is our role to help the Irish. Ireland is a country with which we have very close affiliations. We know that a lot of our people would have voted in exactly the same way and in probably rather larger proportions if they had had a referendum. The noble Lord made a good debating point when he asked whether we would have cancelled a referendum. He said that we would not have done so. However, exactly the same situation has occurred. The former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, told the country that there would be a referendum on the constitutional treaty regardless of whether the French or the Dutch voted against it in their referendums. When they did vote against it, he very sensibly changed his mind. We had not undertaken all the elaborate procedures to get a referendum going and he saw that it would be pretty pointless to have one in the circumstances of their rejection. I think that that is the answer to the noble Lord—that if a referendum were cancellable, we would have cancelled it; if it were not cancellable because it was due to take place in the next three or four days, we would have gone through with it. We are pragmatic people trying to make practical decisions. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, who is in her place, wrote an article in today’s Guardian addressing this complex situation. The article explains her long record of pro-Europeanism and asks: "““So what is to be done? The European Council, meeting later this week, should launch two working groups with a remit to report back by the end of the year, one to see what elements of the Lisbon treaty that were needed to make the enlarged union function efficiently could be introduced by cooperation between governments””." She suggested that a lot could be done and cited the Maastricht treaty, and I agree with that. She continued: "““The second working group would propose steps to reduce the volume of EU legislation, simplify contorted language and provide explanatory memoranda””," and went on to talk about the need to involve our citizens and to learn from this experience of failing to carry conviction with our people if the European Union is to remain rooted in democracy. Those are the practical ways to do it. Now comes the question. Some people argue that the Prime Minister would be in a better position on Thursday and Friday if the treaty had been ratified. I note that the noble Lord who follows these things agrees with that. That is a serious argument and we should not disparage it. However, we now know pretty comprehensively that a number of countries want to force the Irish to have a second referendum. That is very clear from what the French and German Ministers have said and from a very good report in Monday’s Financial Times from a correspondent who follows these things very closely. There is a very strong element, supported by France and Germany, which wants to muscle the Irish and either put them into a state of undefined limbo for a year or more until the Croatian accession treaty comes along, and proceed with 26 countries, or force them to have a second referendum before that. Those seem to be the only two options. That is unacceptable for many people in this country, and I believe it would be unacceptable to our Prime Minister. It is much better for this House to take this unique opportunity to exercise its judgment and simply say, ““Let us wait a few days—maybe no more than a week””.