Lords Brittan, Howe and Patten disagree with Conservative support for referendum on Lisbon

Yesterday evening the House of Lords defeated attempts to grant the British people a referendum on the EU Treaty.  Published below are extracts from the contributions that Tory peers made to the debate.

Lord Howe of Aberavon argues that the 1975 referendum damaged Britain's standing in Europe: "Although it went the right way, having the referendum in 1975 damaged the interests of the United Kingdom. First, it eroded our credibility, standing and influence within the Community. Happily, I am able to say that restoring our credibility and effectiveness in the Community thereafter was undertaken overwhelmingly under the leadership of my noble friend Lady Thatcher, but that was repairing damage done even by a referendum that had been won. Even then, it had a damaging effect on us, because it also distracted from other business that the UK should have been addressing and had a divisive impact on the Government of that time."

Lord Bruce-Lockhart says that the EU has changed since he voted for membership in 1975: "Unlike, I suspect, many in this House and across the country, I was brought up, until the age of 10 or 11, entirely in France—in Paris—Germany and Austria. I was brought up in a family which read Goethe in German, and played and sang Schubert in the evenings. They may today be described as Europhiles. They had a great regard for European culture, but that has nothing to do with desiring a political union across Europe. Secondly, in the 1975 referendum, I, like many people here, voted to stay in, but what I voted for was not a European Union but an EEC, as it was described. I voted for a European Economic Community and nothing more... My Lords, the vast number of people I speak to all say exactly the same thing: they voted for a European Economic Community. Since then, there has been huge change. Little by little, stealth by stealth, we have given away sovereign powers over many areas, including judicial, legal and environmental matters, fishing, employment, human rights and business. Sovereign powers have been given away, which we never thought would happen in 1972."

Lord Patten says EU hasn't changed much in 27 years: "I do not think that the European Union is changed fundamentally, except that it now has 27 members, which is why, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said, we have to have the institutional arrangements in this treaty. It will not be a terrible disaster if the Irish vote no, and I will make that point; but the European Union would work better if we had those arrangements in place. I have not changed my views. Some others have changed theirs. My strong prediction is that after the next election, they will find that they have to change their views back again as we come with a crashing and grinding of gears to face up to the fact that we are living in the real world and have responsibilities in it for the national interest."

We don't need Hercule Poirot to see the similarities between Lisbon and the EU Constitution, says Lord Howell of Guildford: "Lisbon is really the same as the Constitutional Treaty: "As we have argued and debated our way through the text of the treaty and the Bill, most of us can see—and it becomes clearer page by page—that the words are almost identical to those of the former constitutional treaty. In most places they are absolutely identical. The constitutional treaty met a sticky end when it was voted down in referenda in the Netherlands and France some years ago. The mystery is this: if our eyes can see the identical words, how is it that—while we see one thing—Ministers insist on seeing something quite different? Of course, the answer requires no detective work at all. We do not need Hercule Poirot to see exactly what has happened. The treaty drafters and this Government have rather cleverly achieved an illusion by using a methodological device to argue that the constitutional concept has been abandoned."

Lord Blackwell also notes the similarities between Lisbon and the Constitution: "I have asserted in previous debates—and the Government have not rebutted it—that there are only two articles in the constitutional treaty which have not been transferred, in whole or in part, to the consolidated treaty text following Lisbon. I believe three articles have been added to the Lisbon text. The vast majority of these 35 differences—some 30 in all—are simply changes to the wording of articles which appear in both texts and the rest of the articles are the same. The issue for the House is to judge whether those differences are significant."

Lord Brittan of Spennithorne argued against the Lords requiring the Government to implement its promises: "No reference has been made to the Salisbury convention in this debate, although it was discussed in previous debates. The Salisbury convention was a prudent, self-denying ordinance of the House not to use its legal power to frustrate the will clearly expressed by an incoming Government in their manifesto. It is quite a different matter for this House to say that it has the right not just to refrain from stopping a Government implementing their promises, but to force a Government to implement their promises. Whatever the considerable merits of your Lordships' House, which we all agree about, it is not an elected body, and it is peculiarly inappropriate to say, “Not only should the Government keep their promise but we, of all people, are insisting that they do so by a particular form of populous democracy—that is, a referendum”. There is something faintly ironic, and beyond, in this House arrogating to itself the intention or the right to do that. It is for those reasons that I cannot go along with the proposal that there should be a referendum."

Lord Lamont highlights confusion in Liberal Democrat ranks: "This is a sad day for politics. I make no criticism at all of those who, like my noble friend and my noble and learned friend sitting beside me, have always been against referenda and who have made clear in the past their opposition to referenda on this sort of issue. Maybe the arguments are not overwhelming and maybe there never should have been a promise to hold a referendum; maybe it was not wise and maybe the treaty is not as different from others as I profoundly believe that it is. The fact is that the Government made a promise and should stick to it. The Liberals also went along with it, but they have not just ratted—they have re-ratted and re-re-ratted. First, they were for a referendum, then they were for abstaining, adamant for drift—and now they are firmly against a referendum. Who knows where they will be tomorrow?"

MORE FROM HANSARD.

Lord (Geoffrey) Howe disputes Lord Howell's opposition to the EU Treaty

Lord Howell of Guildford: "The truth is that the international scene has metamorphosed into an amazing new network of states, and it is time for new platforms and coalitions. The idea of the EU as a bloc with a single foreign policy, whether intended to confront America or for any other purpose, is—to put it in the jargon—“yesterday”. Power has shifted from the bloc-builders, indeed from the whole Atlantic world, in two overarching ways: it has dispersed to billions of desktop computers via the worldwide web, a teeming and often dangerously empowered micro-world; and, of course, it has shifted to Asia’s millions and the unstoppable Asian enterprise, soaring economies and high technology which is flowing not west to east, but east to west.

The architects of the Lisbon treaty—to which we will have to give a lot of time—are taking the European Union in the wrong direction. They are trying to establish the legal and constitutional structure of a kind of western empire that belongs to history while the real need is not for another jammed-together regional bloc but for far more flexibility and a trelliswork of links and relationships between different nations. That is why the integrationist flavour of the latest treaty is so hopelessly inappropriate. It is trying to sew together a constitutional garment for the EU of the past. The EU of the future, which I hope will certainly include Turkey and maybe other countries, will look quite different and require different systems of governance.

Let there be no scintilla of doubt: this latest treaty is patently and obviously a document that embodies the old constitutional concept. We know from the candour of President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and the like that it was designed to be largely unintelligible, which is a far cry from the hopes of those at Laaken four years ago. They wanted a new treaty that would bring the EU closer to the people. I am afraid that it is more likely that it will be closer to the lawyers. Its DNA is identical to that of the rejected treaty. It is that treaty’s proven child. As the European Scrutiny Committee in the other place put it a few days ago:

“Taken as a whole, the Reform Treaty produces a general framework which is substantially equivalent to the Constitutional Treaty”.

In the words of the Economist magazine, which is no lackey of any party, this is,

“Sneaking a constitution through on the sly”.

The case for a referendum on such a transfer of Parliament’s powers to others and such a contracting out of our foreign policy is absolutely unanswerable, just as it was with the previous treaty."

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