European Union (Referendum) Bill

Lord Giddens Excerpts

Friday 10th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Giddens (Lab)]

My Lords, I am a strong and committed pro-European, and if noble Lords will forgive me, I shall describe the reasons for that as three Ps and an S. First, I am a pro-European because of peace. Many people say that dealing with conflict in Europe is a thing of the past. That is manifestly not so. There was a bloody and horrible war in the Balkans some two decades ago. It is highly important for Serbia, Kosovo, Albania and the Balkan countries to enter the European Union. Secondly, I am a pro-European because of prosperity. It sounds an odd thing to say given the travails of the eurozone, but the single market adds something like 2.6% to the GDP of its member nations, and the eurozone is in the process of basically positive reform.

Thirdly, I am a pro-European because of power. In our globally interdependent world, if Europe cannot collectively exert an influence over the rest of the world, we will live in a kind of G2 world in which we will be a backwater and will simply be subject to the decisions of others. Fourthly, and this is important in this debate, I am a pro-European because of what I call “sovereignty plus”—that is, because, contrary to what many people seem to imagine, each nation gets more sovereignty from being part of the European Union than it has outside it. This was recognised in the Prime Minister’s Bloomberg speech where he said that in foreign policy we get much more clout from being a member of the European Union than we would otherwise. This can be generalised to most aspects of EU membership.

I am a committed pro-European, but I am not one of those who hold that it would be economic and political suicide for the UK to leave. I think that the UK could at some point leave the European Union and could survive outside it, but the conditions of doing so would be extremely damaging indeed. Like most other noble Lords who have spoken, I think that at some point the people should decide. I am therefore in favour of a referendum, which would be sensible and democratic to hold at some point.

However, no one should doubt that if Britain were to exit the EU, there would be a wrenching and protracted process of readjustment. Other noble Lords have drawn attention to this. The idea that the country would magically retrieve lost sovereignty is superficial and foolish. What matters in the contemporary world is not paper sovereignty but real sovereignty in a world that has been transformed out of all recognition over the past two or so decades. For example, the European economies and the American economy are likely to be transformed by the transatlantic free trade agreement. This is very much on the books; it is likely to happen within the next two years. There is very strong support from the Obama Administration. You cannot tell me that if the UK were outside the EU and had to negotiate individually it would have more sovereignty than it would inside the EU.

This is not a trivial thing; a tremendous process of transformation is envisaged here. Essentially, the country would have to reinvent itself and the reinvention that would have to follow would be the opposite of UKIP’s “beer and cigarettes, back to 1950s” version of Britain. It would have to reinvent itself not like Switzerland or Norway but, if you want a really positive model, like Canada—as a kind of open, small economy, heavily dependent on a much larger one to which it is adjacent and to which it must orient its actions, with far less influence in the world than the UK has at the moment, but nevertheless a society that survives well. That could be a model for the future but it would be a dramatic process of transformation. The country would have to be anti-UKIP because it would have to be much more cosmopolitan and open-looking. There would have to be more immigration, rather than less, just as Canada has.

I think a referendum should be held but only if certain conditions are satisfied. Since these have been widely discussed in the debate, I shall zoom through them fairly quickly. First, as many noble Lords have noted, it should not be driven by short-term political concerns but by the long-term interests of the country. As I have just stressed, it would be the biggest transformation that the country has faced for more than 60 years. It would be quite different from the 1975 referendum, which was held when Europe was in the process of being formed. We would be leaving an entity of 520 million people, which is still moving forward. It would be a very dramatic and consequential step to take, and the whole country should realise that.

Secondly, a referendum should not be held until it is clear what shape the EU, and specifically the eurozone, will assume. This point has also been made previously by noble Lords. Europe is in flux and in movement; we do not know what the outcome will be. What we can be sure of is that there will be treaty change; I think that is inevitable. That treaty change is likely to happen within the next five or six years. That is the process to be monitored at the time when people should be asked to decide in an “in or out” referendum in this country.

Thirdly—I feel this very strongly as I am very worried about it and I do not like the impact of the Bill on it—there must be a full and fair open public debate. It takes a long time for such a debate to be set in motion. What really worries me is that the UK could drift out of the EU without most citizens fully understanding the consequences and implications. I think a great deal of attention needs to be given to this because it would be the very worst outcome for anyone.

In conclusion, I am strongly against the Bill because not one of the three conditions is realised. It deserves, at the minimum, to be substantially overhauled in this House and I am strongly persuaded that it will be.