EU: UK Membership

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the eurozone may well have to become rather more integrated, but the European Union as it exists is not a simple first-tier/second-tier issue. In a couple of months’ time, we will debate the new Irish protocol. There are Czech protocols, Danish opt-outs and Irish opt-outs. When it comes to defence and foreign policy, Britain and France are very much at the core and Germany is occasionally on the edge. So it is not a simple matter of insiders and those on the fringes.

[Lord Dykes]

My noble friend’s credentials on Europe are of course impeccable, but will he reassure us that other senior members of the Government are not drifting almost accidentally and in a cavalier way into extreme referendumitis in order to appease some of their eccentric colleagues in the other place?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I read the stories in the Sunday newspapers the other week. I have no idea how authentic they were.