THE GOVERNMENT could pay a heavy political price for its refusal to have a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, the Bishop of Chester has warned.He told the House of Lords in a debate on the Treaty on Tuesday, May 20 that he suspected the matter will be “thrown back in their face for a long time to come”.
All three main political parties promised a referendum on the European constitution before the last election, but that document has since been replaced by the Treaty and the Government argues a referendum is no longer necessary.
The Rt Rev Peter Forster said: “Opinion polls and other ways of determining popular opinion show quite a strong undercurrent against membership of the European Union or, at least, against certain consequences of our membership.
“In the months and years to come that should be addressed very seriously otherwise the fact that we have not had a referendum will be a running sore.”
He said the underlying problem was a “lack of confidence in politicians” which was partly due to the way politics in the House of Commons was reported.
But he added that, in his five or six years as a member of the Lords, he had observed a “slight deterioration” in standards.
He told peers: “In the years to come, although we may not have a referendum on this question, there are profound questions about how our democracy works and, unless they are attended to, there will be further calls for a referendum.”
Bishop Forster said that it was his impression the European Union is going less in the direction of being a super-state than it used to be, partly because of expanded membership.
He said: “The treaty of Lisbon seems to be largely a response to the fact that the Union has grown so large. In many ways it has a more intrinsic recognition of the nation states within than previously might have been assumed to be the case.”
But he said he would not support calls for referendum on the treaty, because it “would be deeply damaging and in practice it would be a very difficult process to see through”.
He added: “There are, however, profound issues that underlie the reason why the Prime Minister [Tony Blair] and other party leaders gave that assurance foolishly at the last election.
“If we do not attend to these issues in the years to come we will find that this question will come back to us again.”
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