European Union Bill

My Lords, now that we have had five or six sentences of clarification when I have managed to get only half a sentence out, the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, will now understand that I will not give way to him until I have finished my point. The noble Lord made it clear that he thought the broken promise of the last Labour Government, the alleged broken promise, was a matter of fact. He knows perfectly well that he does not have to take just the clear points of argument which were the prevailing view in this House during the ratification of the Lisbon treaty; he can take points of view from places like the Dutch constitutional court. Having looked at the matter carefully, in its judgment the court made it clear that the issue on which there had originally been discussion of a referendum, not only in this country but in countries like Holland as well, was about a referendum on a constitutional treaty. By the time Ministers had finished at the Council of Ministers, there was no constitutional treaty and a referendum was no longer necessary because what we got was a change in the existing treaty base. It was the Maastricht treaty and the Treaty of Nice being changed in a similar way to that in which all previous treaties have been changed, so it would not be a constitutional treaty. So the point was never quite necessary. My final point is that, again, the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, has attributed views to the former Prime Minister, my right honourable friend Tony Blair. When he checks his record about that which Mr Blair was alleged to have decided, he will see that it was not in fact true. It would be a hard task to show clearly where Mr Blair ever said that he was opposed to the role that was fulfilled by Javier Solana and subsequently is now being fulfilled by the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton.