European Union (Referendum) Bill

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Friday 10th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, I share some of the constitutional distaste for referenda, and I share the dismay of many of my pro-European colleagues about the toxicity with which the European issue has infected British politics for the past few decades. However, I am also a political realist and, like the noble Lord, Lord Owen, I recognise that it is pretty much the settled will of the British people that, at some point, there will be a referendum on our future relationships with Europe. The noble Lord, Lord Balfe, and I shall campaign again on the same side, and I believe that the campaign is winnable.

Between then and now, we have a very interesting political period; that is, interesting in the Chinese sense. We have European elections coming up this year, the outcome of which may well determine—or, rather, the relative success of UKIP may well determine—the vehemence with which the Conservative Party approaches the general election; later on in the year, we will have a referendum in Scotland that will irretrievably determine the future of the United Kingdom; and with this Bill and the referendum in 2016 or 2017, we will be voting on something that will irretrievably determine the future geopolitical position and influence of the United Kingdom.

In between all that, we have an old-fashioned general election. As my noble friend Lord Grocott, who takes a rather different view from me on Europe, pointed out, no Parliament can bind its successor. It has been argued on this Bill that the Lords should not attempt to dispute the will of the House of Commons, but it is the will not of this House of Commons but of the next one that will determine the nature of the referendum. This Bill attempts to determine now the timing, the question and the electorate—although, as the Electoral Commission and Delegated Powers Committee have pointed out, it fails to deal with the basis of conduct of that referendum. Whoever the next Government are and whatever the balance of the next House of Commons, we will need a new, comprehensive Bill if we are going to carry out any referendum. In that sense, although we have a very good attendance in the Chamber today for a Friday, we are all wasting our time.

However, there are aspects of the Bill that I want to address, because, apart from the valid objections from the Electoral Commission, any referendum will follow only a treaty change or the outcome of a bilateral negotiation. Given the turbulence in the eurozone, we do not know what kind of treaty changes are likely to be proposed, and we have no idea, not even from Mr Cameron, what the objectives of any bilateral negotiation will be and therefore in what context the possibility of a unilateral withdrawal will arise. The referendum and politics surrounding it will be utterly dependent on the outcome of one or other of those negotiations.

The present formulation of the question in the Bill does not allow for any reference to the outcome of negotiations or to any treaty. The outcome, will, of course, determine how many people vote. Under certain outcomes, I would find it difficult to vote for staying in. If the Tea Party totally takes over the Conservative Party and it wins the next general election and we opt out of many of the more beneficial aspects of the European Union, I would hesitate. I would probably still vote to stay in, but it would be a very different European Union. The outcome of the negotiations is important, and the way that it is sold to the electorate will determine the vote. That effectively makes the Bill redundant, although improvements could be made to it in this House regarding the conduct of the referendum, the electorate and the question itself. If the powers that be insist on giving substantial time—unprecedented time—to the Bill, the House will need to insist on conducting its normal scrutiny of Private Members’ Bills.

The Bill will not be the basis for a future referendum. There will be a prolonged period between now and then, and the world will inevitably change. All the passage of the Bill will do at this time is aggravate discord with our EU partners, and cause dismay in Washington, uncertainty and a reluctance to invest among global investors, as my noble friend Lord Monks graphically pointed out, and a reduction in Britain’s influence in the world. That is not a very good use of our Fridays, now or in the next few weeks.