European Union Bill

Lord Willoughby de Broke Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

30: After Clause 12, insert the following new Clause—
“Repeat referendums
Where a referendum has been held in pursuance of any of section 2, 3 or 6, a further referendum on the same treaty or decision, or treaties or decisions, cannot be held until a period of three years has expired.”

[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

My Lords, I brought a similar amendment to this in Committee which did not find favour with the Government. That was in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, and my noble friend Lord Pearson of Rannoch. I listened to the arguments then that the five-year gap that we proposed was perhaps too long, so this amendment proposes simply a mandatory three-year gap between referendums. When he replied to that similar amendment on 23 May, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, went off on a rather bizarre tangent about the European Gendarmerie Force, which I had not even mentioned in my speech. I do not know quite what that was all about. However, in reply to my amendment he went on to say:

“If the Government were defeated in a referendum, it would be tantamount to a defeat of the Government”,

and they would have to reconsider the matter. He went on to say:

“It would be unusual for the Government then to consider asking the public the same question in short order, having failed to convince them”—[Official Report, 23/5/11; col. 1623-24—]

at the time to change their minds the second time around.

The point of my amendment is that this is what has happened in the EU in the past. It is exactly what happened on the Maastricht treaty and in Ireland with the Nice treaty. It happened on the constitutional treaty. When the French and the Dutch voted that down, it was brought back under the cloak of the Lisbon treaty with a rather unsavoury démarche which allowed the then Government to pretend that it was not the same thing at all as the constitutional treaty. Yet a stinkweed by any other name still smells as foul. This constant backsliding, weaving, dodging and bobbing and ducking are what have given the European Union a bad name. Several speakers made the same point on the amendments that we discussed this afternoon: that there is a very prevalent distrust of the EU in this country, and not only in this country but throughout the European Union now.

In many of his remarks during both Committee and Report, the noble Lord, Lord Howell, has repeatedly underlined that the purpose of this Bill is to reduce the distrust of the British people in the institutions of the EU and in the way that the Government deal with EU matters and directives which have, so far, gone through without any influence by the people of this country. The amendment really should be there to reassure those people that if they vote in a referendum under this Bill, it will not be interfered with again by a Government, who may be more manipulative than this one, for at least three years. That is helpful to the Government and I hope that they will take it in that spirit. I beg to move.

[Lord Deben]

My Lords, I find this a fascinating amendment because those of us who are opposed to referenda in any case are now presented with somebody who is in favour of a referendum but does not want to have it when it is inconvenient. This is a most peculiar amendment. I think that referenda are always wrong in a parliamentary democracy and I have always stood by that. I have never changed my view from that and I am not changing it now, but if we are to have a referendum, the concept that we must not have one except in three years’ time, irrespective of what the public think, seems a most peculiar argument. To complain about the fact that in a second referendum people made a different choice seems an odd thing. After all, that was the choice the people made. I think that this is proof of why referenda are not an acceptable way forward, because the truth is that a referendum analyses what people think at a particular moment.

I became opposed to referenda at my father’s knee. I remember just after the war he was explaining to his infant son about politics. He said that he remembered the peace pledge. Eleven million people signed the peace pledge and two years later one could not find any of them. Once we got near to the war, they all disappeared. That is the problem with a referendum, because it is an irresponsible act—one is not responsible for the vote that one makes because it is secret and private. Surprisingly enough, I found a number of my constituents who voted one way in the referendum we had about remaining in the European Union and who within two or three years decided they had really voted the other way. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and felt that they had mistaken themselves, but if one is going to have a referendum, one has to have it without strings.

The noble Lord is presenting something that gives the lie to the whole referendum argument. People who want referenda want referenda because they want a particular response. That is why they want them. They want it because they think it will produce a particular answer of which they approve. When they find that there is a possibility that it might not produce that, they want rules to make sure that the public cannot have another go. I beg your Lordships’ House to accept that if we are going to have referenda, we had better have them on a fair deal and not on the basis that we restrict them in case the public possibly take a different view the second time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Deben, made his position on referendums perfectly clear, so I do not think there is any point in pursuing that. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, for his support. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said that a new treaty might possibly have some advantages for Britain and therefore the Government should not have their hands tied on another referendum. But the whole reason for the Bill—I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, will concede this—is that, so far, all the new treaties have given power away from Parliament and the British people to the European Union. That is the nature of treaties and it is what has happened. That is also why we have the Bill in front of us right now. It is to stop this constant, undemocratic transfer of power from Parliament and the British people to the European Union. It has been one-way traffic all the way, and while this Bill is not perfect, at least it is a step in the right direction.

I am sorry that the Government do not feel that the amendment is helpful. I think it would be helpful because it would persuade the British people that in spite of the protestations of Ministers—no one believes any longer what they have to say—they will not be double dealt yet again. But, having heard the opinion of all those who have spoken and from the Government, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 30 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, I have heard my noble friend Lord Dykes say on previous occasions that the only cause of Euroscepticism in this country is the Murdoch press, but I find that very difficult to go along with. I always reckon that to some degree the press has to reflect the national mood and, if it does not, it does not sell any newspapers. I also have a slight problem with the fact that Euroscepticism is growing at a pace in Germany, where I am not aware of the Murdoch press owning any newspapers. Therefore, I think that it is a little too simple to blame the whole thing on the Murdoch press.

However, let us get to the basis of the amendment and, for the sake of argument, start at the beginning, which seems to be a useful place to start. The Government will bring forward a measure to be put to a referendum of the people of this country only if they think they will win it. I do not accept the view of my noble friend Lord Trenchard that the Government might put something forward to be addressed by the country in a referendum if they want to lose, as I think that they can only possibly want to win it. If they do want to win it and if, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, said, this is an opportunity for UKIP to say, “Ah, we don’t want anything to do with the European Union at all. We must pull out”, then of course the Government will be compelled to argue the virtues of remaining in the European Union, and all his problems will be answered by the referendum. For that reason, the amendment is completely otiose and I shall not support it.

[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

My Lords, I think that this is rather a sad amendment. It demonstrates the Europhiles’ lack of confidence in their case in trying to put into the Bill a requirement for Ministers, frankly, to propagandise. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Radice, says that it is not propaganda but let us look at the words of the amendment. It says,

“must have regard to the desirability of promoting the United Kingdom’s membership of the EU”.

That sounds exactly like a recipe for propaganda to me. There is no balance there whatever—it requires Ministers to promote our membership of the EU. Like the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, I find it extraordinary that the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, should keep saying that the only reason for Euroscepticism is the Murdoch press or the Barclay press or whatever. They have absolutely nothing to do with the rise of the new Finn party, for example, or of Euroscepticism in France, Germany or Hungary. I am afraid that there is a growing realisation that Europe is going the wrong way and that the desire for more and more integration is not what people in member states want. To put this amendment in the Bill would be absolutely contrary to what people in this country think is right.

The noble Lord, Lord Dykes, said that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, had encouraged him in some of the things that he had said. I have listened to many speeches by the noble Lord, Lord Howell. He is extremely balanced in his view of the EU. He takes a critical but on the whole positive approach, which is right; Ministers in the Government will always do that. There is absolutely no need to put this sort of demand for propaganda in the Bill, and I hope that the Government will reject the amendment.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

The noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, has perhaps underestimated some of the forces out there that make it difficult to explain what the European Union is doing. I shall speak briefly. Despite the fact that we have been, as my noble friend Lord Trenchard said, citizens of the European Union for 50 years, we have never spoken about it or taught it in our schools in any adequate way. We are almost unique in Europe in the fact that our syllabuses carry very little information about the common market and very little understanding of this additional citizenship, which is part of the law of the land.

This is an issue now with a new Education Bill that is considering what should be in the syllabus for English children. Ministers should encourage the idea that if we are part of the European Union—and we still are—there should be at least a limited level of education about Europe in our schools so that our children know what we are talking about and are capable of making critical judgments about statements made in the press and deciding whether or not they agree with them.

I will give a second example. There was a good deal of discussion in the House today and on previous occasions about the level of distrust in the European Union. The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, made powerful points about the level of distrust in Parliament and in the whole democratic process. The distrust is part of the atmosphere of the present time; it is not specific to the European Union but much wider and in many ways more disturbing.

My final point is that we have some of the responsibility in this Parliament for the level of distrust. I will give just one example; I will not go into the expenditure crisis and so on. We heard much earlier in the debate about the number of occasions on which the scrutiny reserve imposed by Members of this House in the European Scrutiny Committee on the mandate given to Ministers in the European institutions has simply been brushed aside and disregarded. That has not been the act of the Commission or even of the Council of Ministers; it has been the act of our own Government in our own Parliament, despite the efforts of Parliament to persuade them to show caution or not to go ahead with a particular measure in Brussels.

We have to accept that our own Governments—I am not pointing at any particular one—have been part of the level of distrust created by a consistent disregard of Parliament expressing doubts and concerns about pieces of European policy pursued by those Governments. We have many times disregarded Parliament's doubts. That is not a way to build trust or to build a sense that Parliament has real power over what happens in Brussels, because often we have let that power disappear by failing to recognise what Parliament has urged us to take very seriously.

This is an important amendment. I do not terribly like some of its drafting; it should be much wider and, rather than referring simply to a referendum campaign, should concern the whole attitude of British citizens toward Europe. However, I commend the noble Lord for moving it.