'The European Community will not retain legitimacy unless it can mobilise popular consent. If its leaders try to build Europe against the wishes of their people, they will fail.....Thus the House of Lords has not only the right but also the duty to require Maastricht to be put to the voters. In allowing the electorate to decide, the Lords would be striking a blow not only for democracy in Britain, but also for a new Europe, a people's Europe'
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/why-the-people-should-have-a-vote-on-maastricht-the-house-of-lords-must-uphold-democracy-and-insist-1490346.html
'In the United Kingdom, an opt-out from the treaty's social provisions was opposed in Parliament by the opposition Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs and the treaty itself by the Maastricht Rebels within the governing Conservative Party. The number of rebels exceeded the Conservative majority in the House of Commons, and thus the government of John Major came close to losing the confidence of the House.[8] In accordance with British constitutional convention, specifically that of parliamentary sovereignty, ratification in the UK was not subject to approval by referendum. Despite this, the British constitutional historian Vernon Bogdanor suggests that there was “a clear constitutional rationale for requiring a referendum” based on the allocation of legislative power'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastricht_Treaty
