European Union Referendum (Date of Referendum etc.) Regulations 2016

Lord Judd Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, in an awful lot of the debates that have gone before today’s debate in the House, I found it mystifying when people argued that they always saw the relationship with Europe and its institutions in terms of what we could get from it to strengthen our economy, and that they were completely against the concept of wider political activity and commitment within Europe. Why do I not understand that approach? It is because I was a young man in the post-war period and remember that the atmosphere, right from the beginning, was highly political. When the European Coal and Steel Community was established, it was not an end in itself. It was established because those who did so desperately wanted a peaceful, stable Europe—and with that, the opportunity to make a contribution to a peaceful, stable world.

When we moved into the Common Market, that was true, too. For many of the statesmen who brought it into existence, it was not an end in itself. It was a means of achieving the reality to which they all aspired. I say to those on the other side that, as a committed member of my own party, I was always inspired by Churchill on this. He had a vision that our future depended on working with the world, and that if we were to establish one that was peaceful and stable we would need the institutions with which to do it. I have always therefore seen this as a story of evolution but if that evolution was to be successful, it would depend above all on visionary leadership. What has been wrong with our participation in the European Union is that we have played the game badly. We have always put a sort of defensive position to the British public.

I was a Minister responsible for Europe, way back in the 1970s. When I was fulfilling that task, there was an attitude that what you really should do as a Minister was come out of your negotiations in committee saying, “My God, in spite of all the pressures, dangers and threats coming from Europe in this context, I have secured these safeguards for the British people”. I really believed in those days that we needed some Ministers who would come out of committee saying, “We’ve had a terrific tussle with this issue”, then explain what the issue was and say, “As a result of that tussle and argument, we have achieved this solution in the interests of the European people, and in their interests we are looking to the interests of the British people”. In the world in which we live, we cannot separate the well-being and security of the British people from those of the wider European community, so we need that kind of leadership. Our problem in persuading the public now is that we have played it that way and have not demonstrated consistently how effective and indispensable Europe is for achieving the very aspirations that are dear to their hearts. I make this point because, if those of us who believe that we should stay in succeed in the referendum, we cannot sweep under the carpet that task of leadership not only within the community but for the British public in terms of what it is all about and how it is relevant to those issues.

There is another issue—I know that I tread on some toes when I say this—but, because of the complexity of the task, a centre of expertise around Europe has built up, and with that has gone a culture of elitism that has alienated people. I have often thought that was unfortunate, because we have to enable that elite itself to understand how dependent it is on the good will and positive identification of the people of the countries that are members. We have to take that issue very seriously—as we should with our own committee system on Europe, in seeing how far we can make it more real for ordinary people in the kind of witnesses we call, and so on, so that it is not again seen as part of an elitist game that does not relate to them.

I conclude by saying how glad I was to hear the opening speech from our side by my noble friend Lady Morgan—and, indeed, the speeches by the noble Lords, Lord Howell and Lord Ashdown, who is not in his place at the moment. They spelled out which issues are facing the world and how we simply cannot face them without working together with others. We may not be doing it perfectly, but the challenge to leadership is how we get it right, not how we walk away from the collaboration and co-operation and bury our heads in the sand. The challenge is to say that we cannot have a peaceful world without co-operation and we must have the institutions within which we can co-operate. Our role is to provide leadership and moral inspiration, showing the importance of tolerance and human rights, not just as an end in themselves but as a manifestation of the tolerant and inclusive kind of civilisation that we not only want but is indispensable to humanity’s future.