European Union Constitutional Treaty

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 5:57 pm on 11 May 2004.

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Photo of Lord Pearson of Rannoch Lord Pearson of Rannoch Conservative 5:57, 11 May 2004

My Lords, over the past few years there has been quite a lot of national debate as to whether or not we should join the European single currency and now the proposed new constitution is swimming into public consciousness. But there has been very little discussion about our present relationship with the European Union, which most people in this country do not really understand at all, although they rightly do not like what they do understand.

Yet the Government's main line of argument in support of the constitution—and we heard it this afternoon from the Minister—goes roughly as follows: "This is nothing new. The Conservatives gave away much more of our sovereignty when they signed up in 1972 to what has become the EU, and when they later passed the Single European Act and the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties. So the proposed constitution is really only a tidying-up exercise, and we cannot see what the fuss is about".

One cannot really judge the truth of this statement unless one understands what has already been given away, and set that against the proposed constitution. So I thought I would put the briefest of summaries on the record in your Lordships' House this evening. It is some years since that has been done.

Before I do so, I really must expose the fallacy of the Government and Europhile claim that because some aspects—indeed, many aspects—of the proposed constitution are not new, since they are already in the existing treaties, that means we do not have to worry about them: they must be acceptable to the British people. This argument does not wash, because hardly any aspect of our present relationship has been explained to the people. As the debate on the constitution proceeds, they are therefore free to say "We do not care if some theft of our sovereignty is already in the treaties. We still do not like it, and we want it back".

I very much hope that this growing awareness on the part of the people will extend to a knowledge of just how far their sovereignty has indeed already been betrayed by their political masters over the past 32 years. I say this because there are at least two fundamental principles which underpin our constitution, our sovereignty, our democracy. The first is the hard-won right of the British people to elect and dismiss those who make their laws. The second is that the people have given Parliament the power to make all their laws for them, but they have not given Parliament the permission to give that power away.

I submit that both those principles, for which over the centuries millions have willingly given up their lives, already stand deeply betrayed by our present membership of the European Union. It is essential to remember that the people's pact is with Parliament; it is not with the executive or government of the day. The people elect and dismiss Members of Parliament once every four or five years, and our government are, of course, formed out of a majority of elected MPs. But only some 60 per cent of the electorate now bother to vote in general elections, and modern governments are supported by only some 40 per cent of those who vote, or 24 per cent of the electorate. I submit, therefore, that these temporary governments, always empowered by a minority of the people, do not have the right to break the great pacts upon which our sovereignty rests. Yet that is just what they have been doing for the past 32 years.

So just how bad is the present situation? To what extent could the proposed constitution be fairly described as a "tidying-up exercise"? The detailed process of how huge areas of our national life have already been gradually handed over to control from Brussels in the various treaty amendments, and for which this Parliament has already become a rubber stamp, is to be found in Written Answers in your Lordships' Hansard for 10 July 2003, at cols. 50–51, and for 26 April 2004, at cols. 72–73. Put very broadly, these areas include all of our commerce and industry; all our social and labour policy; our environment, including our agriculture and fish; and our foreign aid.

By "control from Brussels" I mean of course the system whereby our Government, with 11.5 per cent of the votes, can be outvoted in the Council of Ministers. If they agree or are outvoted on a new law in all those areas, then we in this Parliament must put it into British law on pain of unlimited fines in the Luxembourg so-called Court. That is what is described in Euro-speak as the "democratic deficit", and that is why I say we have become a rubber stamp.

Our foreign trade relations are in an even worse category because the Commission itself negotiates those on our behalf. So in this area the EU could already be said to have its own legal personality, to which I shall return. In addition, laws affecting our justice and home affairs and our foreign and security policy, if they are agreed by the executive in Brussels, must also be rubber-stamped by Parliament here. If we do not enact new laws in these areas, such as the recent and infamous EU arrest warrant, we would not be subject to unlimited fines, but we would be in breach of our treaty obligations. This, of course, is a far more horrifying prospect than a fine to our political classes in their diplomatic cocktail parties and so on; a fine, after all, is paid by the people. It is not surprising that no law agreed or passed in Brussels has ever been successfully overturned by Parliament. Indeed, the 1972 Act made it clear that that was to be the case.

So that is a very brief summary of where we are without the proposed constitution. I suppose that you can call it a "tidying-up exercise" if you admit that it sweeps the rest of our sovereignty under the Brussels carpet, which of course it does.