Outcome of the European Union Referendum

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, we are a proud island people. Traditionally, we been the envy of less happy lands. Historically, we have intervened on the continent only to restore the balance of power against a Napoleon, a Kaiser or a Hitler. Yet, after the Second World War, we began to realise that we had missed the European bus. We tried, after the 1957 treaty of Rome, to find an alternative. I was in the Foreign Office when we built up EFTA but soon realised we were in a cul-de-sac that led absolutely nowhere. We had the two Gaullist vetoes, sought entry on our own terms, and then, eventually, had the referendum of 1975, which confirmed our membership of the European Economic Community. Alas, on 23 June, we went against that. We chose the exit door. Analysis shows that it was the oldies—the key dividing line was those aged above 44—who did it.

The experts so derided by Mr Gove have been proved right thus far. I shall not mention all that the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, has said, but we have seen the abandonment of the Chancellor’s fiscal target, the revision of investment decisions and the anxieties of our nationals on the continent and of EU nationals here. Those same experts will now be called on to build a new relationship with the European Union. The question arises of whether we have the experts we need to conduct the new trade negotiations, or whether we shall have to call upon the new world—New Zealand, for example—to redress the balance of what we do not have. Perhaps redundant city bankers and New Zealanders will help us out.

In June 2012, the Prime Minister argued strongly against an in/out referendum as,

“not the right thing to do”,

as it offered only two choices. He changed his position. Can anyone doubt that, essentially, it was changed, not for the national interest but for party reasons—just as he left the European People’s Party when he wanted to be selected as party leader? He who had blown on the flames of anti-Europeanism for much of the last five years has now been consumed by them.

Yet the Prime Minister was right to draw attention to the problem of a referendum offering only two choices—in or out. On 23 June, the people spoke, or at least, 36% of the eligible voters voted to leave. The dilemma we now face is: what did they say when they spoke? Did they speak clearly, apart from indicating that they wanted to get out? The spectrum of possibilities ranges from pulling up the drawbridge to seeking the closest possible relationship with our former partners. You cannot negotiate with public opinion. Some argue for a second referendum at the end of the negotiating process. But there is a problem. What happens if the new package is rejected by the people? Do we have to form another package and another, until a particular package is acceptable to a public opinion that may change over time?

The question we face is rather a Leninist one: what is to be done? How do we limit the damage? The front door is closed; let us see if we can find other ways round. Clearly there will have to be some trade-off between access to what the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, and others referred to as the so-called single market—certainly, industrialists and others know that it is a real single market—and free movement. We will have reduced bargaining power with third countries. Clearly we should try to preserve our beneficial relationships with European institutions, such as universities and collaborative research projects. The European Medicines Agency is probably doomed in its place in London, but Erasmus, surely, is so important that we should seek to preserve it. We will have to leave the European Council; therefore we will have to boost our bilateral relationships with European countries. Our own embassies in EU countries will become more important. The Foreign Office will need more funds.

I was in the Foreign Office on a European desk in the early 1960s, when we had a similar predicament. We were outside the European Union. We wanted to build a relationship, so what did we do? I was on the western European desk. We thought, “Here is an institution that brings together the existing members of the EEC and ourselves”. We sought to build it up and it lasted for a while. There is a still a western European union, but its parliamentary component has gone. Surely we need to try to find some institution—existing or developed—that brings us together with our former partners in the European Union. We will no longer be in the European Parliament. Inter-parliamentary relationships need to be increased. The IPU should be given additional funds, specifically to provide opportunities for UK parliamentarians to meet their EU colleagues.

However, surely the best opportunity for working together is in the field of military, security and intelligence policies. We need to continue the intelligence relationship in gathering and analysing material, and we need a close relationship with the common foreign and security policy, the CFSP, without which both the EU and the UK would be diplomatically diminished. For example, the United Kingdom was part of the EU3 in negotiations with Iran. If outside the EU, there is no reason why, given our weight, we should not be part of similar future initiatives.

On the military side, we should remain associated with the European Defence Agency. We should build on the excellent bilateral relationship we have with the French after the St Malo and Lancaster House agreements, and our experience of working together in the Balkans and Libya. We should seek to expand that excellent bilateral relationship with France to Germany and other countries. Should not our NATO allies also be encouraged to develop niche capabilities?

We shall have to live with the referendum decision and salvage what we can to protect the interests of our country. We should be forced to ask basic questions about ourselves and our role in the world until, I believe, eventually a new generation will seek a closer relationship with the European Union, which, by then, will probably have changed in the direction that we now favour.