Queen’s Speech

Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon (LD)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, representing as he does so powerfully the radical and reformist view of the Labour Party.

Europe has been the source and fountainhead of all the really great political ideas and philosophies that we observe: democracy, liberalism, socialism and communism. I was going to say “conservatism”, but somehow I stop short of calling conservatism a political philosophy. Maybe that is wrong and I mean no insult to my coalition friends. Over time, Europe has given birth to all these great ideas that dominate our time. Seventy years ago it gave birth to another one—arguably its greatest, or at least one of its greatest.

After a thousand years of soaking our continent in blood and, by the way, exporting by proxy those wars on to other people’s territory and spilling other people’s blood elsewhere, we decided that it was time to do things in a different way—that Europe would be characterised not by war but by co-operation between the nations of Europe; that we would pool our sovereignties to give us better protection in a hostile and difficult world; and that we would call time on the theory of great powers having the right to suppress the futures and democratic will of smaller nations if they happened to fall within their spheres of influence. And so the European Union and the concept of Europe was established.

At the very moment when each of these threats is no less and some are greater, it is curious and sad that Europe is in such disarray and the cause of Europe is threatened by those who wish to see us retreat towards European isolationism, not just in Britain but elsewhere. This country is now in danger of sleepwalking straight out of the European Union from which it can benefit so much. We should understand the reasons for that. The European Union institutions have not succeeded in taking that transcendental idea and converting it into institutions that work and are functional.

As we know, there are faults in Europe and the European Union. The Prime Minister is right that Brussels interferes far too much in our lives, but so does Westminster. That is a case for reform, not for abolition. The European Union is dysfunctional. I do not need to be told because I know: I was at the front end of the European foreign policy machine in Bosnia. I was told that trying to do things in Bosnia was like herding cats but it was not half as difficult as herding the cats behind me in Brussels. But this institution can be dysfunctional, too. That is a case for reform and not for abandonment.

The European Union is insufficiently democratic. We have failed to create a proper democratic polity, but are we in Britain able to lecture the European Union on the failure of democracy? Sometimes I find it very curious to listen to noble Lords castigating the European Union for a failure of democracy when they come from a Chamber that has no visible connection with democracy whatever. Indeed, that is a cause for reform, but it is not a cause for abolition.

There are two reasons why this idea cannot be allowed to die and why we must do whatever we can to make it functional and working. First, we live in a global world as never before. We separate domestic issues from international ones, but there is no separation: there is no longer any domestic issue that does not have an international quotient, which includes our jobs, our economy, our environment, crime on our streets and our defence. You will not achieve for the British people what you want in a globalised world unless you are prepared to have a sensible policy that gives you influence on the global world. The only way we can do that is by working with our European partners.

I am a passionate pro-European because I understand the European Union is the only way that I have any hope of delivering to the British people the things that I want them to have: that is, jobs, security and defence, and influence in the world that means that we will be able to shape the world’s institutions rather than be shaped by others. Defence, security, the environment and crime on our streets all require co-operation in the modern global world with our other partner nations.

However, there is another reason why we must set our hand to the task of reform, as the Government have done. I do not agree with the Prime Minister on everything that he says but I agree with the thrust. If we do not realise how much the terms of trade of our existence in Europe have changed in the past 10 years, we are bloody fools. We no longer have an Atlantic partner on which we can rely to be our friend in all circumstances and our defender of last resort. America is now looking west across the Pacific as much as east across the Atlantic. We have global economic powers which are bigger than any of the single powers of Europe. They will shape the new institutions and the trading institutions of the world for their advantage. We cannot hope to have an influence on that unless we combine with our European partners.

We now have on our eastern borders a Russian President who is prepared to use tanks and to resurrect the Brezhnev doctrine, and threatens to bring back the idea of great powers that are able to sublimate the will and freedoms of their people if they do not happen to agree with their concept of what their sphere of influence would be. We have to our south a chaotic, dangerous Maghreb and Arab world. If we do not understand that in these new changed circumstances the right reaction for Europe is to deepen the institutions of its foreign affairs, defence and political institutions, we are bloody fools.

If it is the case that we seriously believe that, in the face of these threats, the right response for our country is to retreat individually to the perfect sovereignty of corks floating around behind other people’s ocean liners, then help yourselves. But, in a very turbulent and difficult world, the decades ahead would be much more turbulent and difficult, and much less to the benefit of the people whom we are supposed to serve.