European Union (Implications of Withdrawal) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I have always been a Euro-phile, if that term means someone who loves Europe and European culture. There was even a time long ago when I was a Euro-phile meaning one who thought that the European Union was a good thing to be in. Indeed my wife and I joined with the then Lord Gladwyn in hosting a conference called ““Europe—after Britain joins””. Later, after we had joined, my wife and I were among the guests of honour at a dinner given by the European Commission for those who had worked for the Union at a time when the two major parties in this country—at that time there were only two major parties—were opposed. Now I cannot wait until we are free, and I have no doubt that we will be free, although it almost certainly will not be in my lifetime. I should make it clear that in this speech I do not speak for my party, the Green Party. As a party we want to see many reforms to the European Union, none of which, in my view, we are likely ever to see. Therefore, I have been forced to conclude that, since we are not going to see those reforms, the sooner we get out the better. I cannot bear it that our Anglo-Saxon heritage is being whittled away and that the Napoleonic system of constitution and statute is dealing a mortal blow to our system of law and precedent. We are now seeing a takeover by Germany and France of the United—or perhaps disunited—Kingdom, similar to those attempted previously by Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler. That splendid woman Dr Dorothy L Sayers—and doomed be anyone who omits the ““L””—got it right in her great patriotic poem printed in the Times immediately following Dunkirk: "““Praise God now for an English war""““This is the war that England knows When all the world holds but one man— King Philip of the galleons Louis, whose light outshone the sun The conquering Corsican ““This is the war that we have known And fought in every hundred years, Our sword upon the last, steep path Forged by the hammer of our wrath On the anvil of our fears””." The threat this time is due not to one man but to a creeping bureaucracy, which that other great nationalist and internationalist poet Chesterton would have best known how to describe. We are not yet, thank God, called to draw our swords but to fight with reason and determination for our values and customs. We have resisted the euro; for that, I breathe a deep sigh of gratitude to our next Prime Minister. Although we still may not deal in pounds and ounces or, for that matter, bushels and pecks, at last we are now allowed, I gather, to talk about them. But we in this Parliament are probably shortly to be called upon to resist the imposition of a constitution, which not just we, but the peoples of mainland Europe, do not want imposed by the back door. The time has come not just to resist further encroachments but to take the offensive. All honour to the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, who is leading the charge, claymore in hand. We must be given the chance to examine the details of this Bill and its implications most carefully so that we may devise our route of escape from this prison in which, mea culpa, we have immured ourselves. Every Government should have a plan B for every policy that they put forward. All that this modest Bill does is attempt to set up a framework for such a plan. Therefore, it is essential that we pass the Bill and examine it more deeply in Committee and on Report.