EU: UK Isolation

Lord Jay of Ewelme Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Jay of Ewelme]

My Lords, it is perhaps worth remembering that the EU has three great achievements to its credit: it brought cohesion to western Europe after World War 2; it provided east and central Europe with a democratic home after the collapse of the Soviet Union; and it has created an almost but not yet complete single market of some 500 million people. All those greatly benefit Britain and the rest of the EU. The second and third of those owe a great deal to the influence exerted by successive British Prime Ministers and Governments, including on enlargement, and here I differ slightly from the view of the noble Lord, Lord Dykes and of Lady Thatcher.

The EU now has no such great forward-looking project. Indeed, in creating the euro, it has created huge, although not—and I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine—insurmountable problems for itself, brought on and exacerbated by the financial crisis. I believe we were right not to join the euro, but we also benefit hugely from the single market of 27 member states. Therefore, our interest as a nation surely lies in the maintenance of a coherent European Union of 27 or 28, with the euro at its core and the single market intact. That is easy to say but it is not a straightforward goal to achieve. There are strains between the eurozone and the rest, and within the eurozone, not least at present between Germany and France. Achieving that goal, crucial to our interest, will require patience, determination, tough negotiations and compromise, because negotiations always do require that. It will, above all, require maximising our influence, which we should never underestimate.

I do not believe that the noble Lord, Lord Birt, and I can be alone in hearing from business colleagues and others in Paris and elsewhere in the EU that Britain’s traditions of a liberal market economy, an international outlook and democratic strength are really needed in the EU, and the more the EU is in difficulty, the more, frankly, those qualities are needed. I fear, however, that we are also not alone in sensing that some at least in the EU seem increasingly to have given up on us, sensing that there is no longer a commitment in Britain to the European Union at a time when our contribution in our own interest, as well as in the interest of the European Union, is so important. That conclusion is wrong but I understand why they have come to it.

I end by looking on the bright side. I was delighted to see the Prime Minister and family spending time with Chancellor Merkel. I am delighted to see too that the Chancellor of the Exchequer played down the rhetoric of his opposition to the financial transaction tax, focusing instead on the British interest in opposing it. That, surely, is the way to promote our influence and our interests: state clearly our commitment to an EU of 27; establish close links, including at a personal level, with the key member states; and in that framework fight hard for British interests. As it is sometimes said, if you are not at the table, you tend to be on the menu. I know which I would rather be.