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Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 6:45 pm on 21 November 2000.

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Photo of Lord Shore of Stepney Lord Shore of Stepney Labour 6:45, 21 November 2000

My Lords, I shall be brief because I have spoken at some length. I am grateful to those who have supplemented, added and contradicted. It has made an interesting debate.

One of the most memorable contributions was the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Barnett. He advanced the doctrine of what I would call unlimited European sovereignty based upon common citizenship of the European Union. So it no longer matters whether you enter into a specific agreement, as we do with 101 international treaties which we honour and accept. That no longer applies. You hand over great areas of decision making to institutions, in particular the European Court of Justice, which then make the decisions which were previously made by your own Parliament. That is the real issue here.

To my noble friends I say again that this is a clear, unequivocal commitment of the Labour Party's manifesto and the clear, unanimous recommendation of the Neill committee. The Government do not want it. They would like to do without it but they are fearful of Europe and European rulings. The Government are anxious not to offend. Depending on how the House votes today, and on the outcome of this issue, we shall or shall not continue to proclaim that we have a sovereign Parliament and a sovereign electorate. If this goes, we shall have surrendered the very bulwark of our state, our nation and our society.

I say to those who are thinking of betraying this Parliament that I should not like to be them when looking in the glass when shaving tomorrow. I commend the amendment.