European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Inglewood (Con)]

My Lords, the evening is getting on, and it is clear that we are going to have a referendum and that we know the wording of the question, so I do not want to talk about that. Rather, I would like to talk, like a number of other speakers this evening, about the choice facing British voters. What, in the real world, are we choosing between when we answer the question? This is not a hypothetical matter. It is not a university exam question.

On the one hand, a positive response to the question “Should this country remain in the EU?” is that one is voting either for the status quo or the status quo as amended by the current negotiations. What actually, however, is the alternative? Presumably, negotiation on a whole range of issues will have to begin. It is clearly not possible, after all, to go back to the world of the late 1960s. What is going to happen? How long is it going to take? What is going to be the opposite of the status quo, as it might be amended? We simply do not know.

An appealing argument, which I think will be attractive to many people, goes along the lines of, “I would like to leave, but on certain conditions. If not, no thank you”. How does the referendum help someone who thinks like that? How do you vote if that is your view?

Another idea, which has been canvassed quite widely, is that we should enter into some kind of associate membership. Were that to be a possibility, what is its compatibility with the questions in the referendum? Which way do you vote? It certainly is not clear to me.

In my experience of these matters, which is based on 10 years as a Member of the European Parliament, different people have very different perceptions of the various aspects of what being in the European Union is all about. Some think that the UK constitution is a sacrament; others think that the European project is sacramental; and most people do not think either of those things. Some people think that the EU is too expensive; others think it is good value. Some think that it is insufficiently Thatcherite and others think that it is not adequately Corbynista. Some think that it is undemocratic and interferes too much; others think that it is nothing like as bad as the UK system, with its extensive use of secondary legislation. Some people think that the CAP is an appalling French conspiracy, while others maintain that is the last bastion of British rural values under threat from that tyrannical tsunami of 21st-century urbanism. And then there is the whole question of the union that is the United Kingdom.

The debate and the issues are multifaceted and are perceived very subjectively. I am concerned about how people are going to begin to set out in their own minds the reality of arrangements governing matters, some of which do not run at all with the grain of traditional political thinking in this country. For many people who have not made up their minds—I understand that that is about a third of voters—the problem will be knowing where to start.

Having worked for 10 years in the European institutions, I still have contacts in Brussels—if I might touch on the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, I looked into the question because I have a European parliamentary pension and it is paid regardless of any political statement I may make about the European Union of any kind, so I am told. From those contacts, my intelligence is that there is a considerable body of good will towards resolving what one might describe as the “UK question”, partly because many recognise, at least to some extent, the general applicability and desirability of the points we are making, and partly from a genuine wish not to lose us. However, it is a bit like marriage. Any fool can get married and any fool can get divorced; it is the subsequent disputes over money and the children which so often degenerate into drawn-out vindictiveness and extreme acrimony—that is where the trouble starts. This indicates to me the difficulty of negotiating a post-referendum withdrawal.

The Bill promises to transfer in a particular case the type of decision-making traditionally exercised by government with Parliament and to hand it over to the electorate. It is a many-sided, complicated and esoteric bundle of issues which need careful consideration. This is something which Governments traditionally have always had to deal with, but they have always been able to rely on the Civil Service to provide them with impartial advice. Even if it is not followed—and it is not always by any means—it is inevitably of considerable help in resolving the tricky questions. In this case, the electorate are being asked to take a decision without any equivalent support. It is absolutely clear that the referendum campaign will be open season for every political mountebank and snake oil salesman around and, no doubt, they will be arguing on all sides of the debate. I believe that government has a general responsibility and particular duty of care to the individual elector to enable them to have access to at least some baseline information about the matter in hand, of the kind that the Civil Service gives to government day in, day out. People may or may not use it, but providing it will assist and improve the political credibility of the referendum’s outcome, since it will be less easy for the losers to argue that the voters were misled or got it wrong through ignorance.

As we know, one of the ostensible purposes of the referendum is to settle the question of EU membership. I am very far from sure that it will—the last one did not—and anticipate that the matter will remain open until one or other option is generally concluded no longer a realistic possibility. That was the case in the 18th century over the whole question of Jacobitism, which seems to me to be the closest parallel. Ensuring that our electorate as a whole have access to some basic baseline information, as was the case in 1975, is an essential aspect of all this, so I urge the Government to give the public similar relevant information.

The political landscape over which the referendum will be fought is in many aspects unfamiliar. When in an unfamiliar landscape, a decent map helps. I was in Palermo 10 days ago and I had never been there before. If I had not had a decent map, I dare say that I would still be wandering around the byways, or even worse. If such information were provided, it would be analogous to what the Civil Service does for the Government day in, day out. If it is good enough for the Government, it is good enough for the people.