My Lords, I am speaking for myself in this House. This is a Private Member’s Bill and all I can do is to urge the House on the basis of my experience of foreign affairs. As I think I said last week to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, the decisions taken at the other end will always be decisions with which I shall not even try to interfere, knowing the way that that would be responded to. I will try to tie this up quickly. I understand why the noble Lord makes his point but I think that everyone will know that, whether sitting on government Benches or on these Benches, I have essentially argued in this way the whole of the time that I have been in your Lordships’ House. I am making these points because I think that they are the right points to make.
If the result is a narrow one on a low turnout, the terms of disengagement will appear to Parliament to be potentially quite dangerous—or very dangerous—for the United Kingdom both in economics and politics, as I have said. In those circumstances, to decide to go ahead regardless—to recognise that it is an oncoming car crash and to do nothing about that—is hardly what the people of the United Kingdom will expect of their Parliament. Few will regard it in the decades that follow as having been a heroic moment. The bell-wether moments in geopolitics are probably not all that many but I suspect that, rather like the comment that this might be the most profound decision in 60 years, if we get it wrong in terms of geopolitics it may well rank with Suez and one or two other things which have been real disasters for us internationally.
Parliament is the best judge of this. It is sensible to say that the weight of the vote will show itself either to be compelling or not, and will show whether there is a settled will. Taking the right steps to be negotiated and assessed will be a matter for Parliament. It is not in any sense disrespectful to the people of the United Kingdom for their Parliament to give coherent thought to the real circumstances—what in some circles are called the ground truths.
The only objection to this is not to do with democracy or following democratic practice. The objection is that it would get in the way of a rush to exit the EU. That is why the Bill is in the form that it is and it is reckless—a word that was used earlier in the debate. It may be that Mr Cameron does not intend this to be the outcome, but it may also be that he can no longer manage the wish of much of his party to leave the EU.
Some may have reached that decision because they have a paralysed fear of UKIP and no desire to take on UKIP and its arguments. That would be a pity. However, I suspect that many simply want to leave the EU and that is all there is to it. They are entitled to that view but this House and the other place—Parliament as a whole—are entitled to ensure that we get the whole of this right, so that we know that the will of the people of the United Kingdom is a serious expression, not a marginal one leaving us with little to say in anything that follows.
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