European Union Bill

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle]

Whatever the specifics of the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, does it not illustrate the need to include in this clause some equivalent of the significance test provided in Clause 6? I wonder whether, in the spirit of co-operation and willingness to consider things in a flexible way, the Government might take away and consider—for all of these later clauses that require an Act of Parliament rather than a referendum—some flexibility that would allow a significance test to be applied by a Minister. That would require a lower level of parliamentary approval in cases where we are dealing with technicalities rather than important issues of policy.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Of course we will reflect on that, but I remind noble Lords that the purpose of this Act is to improve parliamentary scrutiny and oversight of the procedures of the EU.

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[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

Unlike the majority of amendments that we have discussed at some length so far, this amendment is intended to be helpful to the Government, and I hope that they will take it in that spirit. It is in my name as well as that of my noble friend Lord Pearson and the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, and it is simplicity itself. It would ensure that a future Government, who may be even more Euro-enthusiastic than this one, will not be able to reverse the effect of referendums held under Clause 6 by immediately calling another referendum to try to get a different result.

Noble Lords may say that this is completely unnecessary and that a referendum is a referendum and the result must stand, but we must bear in mind the unsavoury precedents set by the EU when referendums that give the so-called wrong answer are deemed inoperative by the Euro-elite. In 1993, Denmark voted against the Maastricht treaty, for example. It was tossed a few concessions and told to vote again and do better this time. In 2001, Ireland voted against the Nice treaty; similarly, there were more concessions and another referendum. In May 2005, France voted by a large majority against the constitutional treaty, followed three days later by an equally emphatic rejection by the Dutch electorate of that constitutional treaty. So what happened then? Let us bring on the Euro-clowns. First up is President of Luxembourg, Jean-Claude Juncker, who said after the two referendums:

“I really believe the French and Dutch did not vote no to the Constitutional Treaty. Unfortunately the electorate did not realise that the Constitutional Treaty was specifically aimed at meeting their concerns and that’s why we need to have a period of explanation”—

or perhaps now a period of reprofiling.

Next in the ring is Monsieur Giscard d'Estaing, the ex-President of France, one of the hapless fathers of the constitutional treaty, who said:

“It is not France that has said no. It is 55 per cent of the French people”.

Work that one out. He went on to say:

“The rejection of the Constitution was a mistake which will have to be corrected ... It was a mistake to use the referendum process, but when you make a mistake you can correct it”.

In other words, do not use the referendum process and do not ask people what they think—just tell them what is good for them.

Clown number three was the Italian Foreign Minister at the time, Giuliano Amato, whose considered opinion was that the no votes were,

“a request for more Europe not less”.

In the words of one of the most respected correspondents, or columnists, “You couldn’t make it up, could you?”.

[Lord Liddle]

For the sake of accuracy about what happened, is the noble Lord not aware of the fact that in France a major part of the no vote on the constitutional treaty was because of the argument that that treaty was not sufficiently social? People like Laurent Fabius made it part of their campaign that, “It’s not that we’re against Europe, it’s that this isn’t for a sufficiently social Europe”. In that sense, the argument was right; this was a vote not against Europe but against a particular view of Europe.

[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

My Lords, I am very familiar with that argument, which was wheeled out after the constitutional referendum by numerous pro-Europe commentators—they said that it was about the colour of Monsieur Chirac’s socks or something; it was not about the constitution at all—but I know, because I was in France at the time of the referendum, that people were very engaged in the debate. So whatever the noble Lord on the Front Bench may say, there was a rejection by the French people by a 55 per cent majority of the constitutional treaty. I do not think that his arguments hold water.

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[Lord Waddington]

My Lords, few things have done more harm to the reputation of the European Union than the telling of countries that have voted against new treaties or treaty changes that they should carry on voting until they come up with what the other members or the Commission consider the right answer. Behaviour of that sort is a denial of the right to say, “Change cannot take place unless we all agree and, as we don’t all agree, you and I must put up with the status quo”. That is what signing a treaty is all about. I submit that what happened over Denmark in the early 1990s, after the Danish people voted no to Maastricht in June 1992, was an abuse of power. It was also a terrible lost opportunity, which was responsible for much of the trouble and strife that hit the Major Government.

My noble friend Lord Spicer wrote a very perceptive article on this in Total Politics in March of this year. I hope Governments have learnt from what then happened. The Conservative Government were not happy about many aspects of Maastricht, particularly the removal from sovereign states of the power to manage their own economies. While we had opted out of the euro, there was a nagging fear that the European Court might even find that our opt-out was illegal.

[Lord Liddle]

If the Conservative Party had such objections to the Maastricht treaty, why did the Prime Minister of the time, John Major, on the day of the negotiation of the treaty describe it as “Game, set and match for Britain”?

[Lord Waddington]

I was referring to the opt-out and am describing what happened subsequently. I am not here to defend the Major Government, of which I was a member at that time, although not later when it came to ratifying the treaty. I am just describing the history of the matter.