EU Withdrawal

Lord Judd Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, it is always good to follow the noble Lord, Lord Howell, because I have known him for many years and he brings a great deal of wisdom and food for thought to our deliberations.

The UK is the prototype of a nation utterly dependent on its relationship with the world. This calls for statesmanship, vision and imagination to meet the challenges involved. Traditional experienced diplomacy is at a premium. This contrasts with petulant, arrogant, defiantly confrontational language, of which we hear too much. We have been repeatedly told that Britain will want to have a positive, warm relationship with Europe, whatever the outcome of our present negotiations. I fail to see how the language being used at the moment can possibly be preparing the way for that kind of positive relationship. It is not the way to win friends and influence.

We need a bit of perspective. The UK joined the Common Market of its own volition at the time of the Heath Government. It confirmed its membership of the European Community in the referendum under the Wilson Government. We must face the reality that, whatever the emphasis on economic policy and the economic implications, the whole drive for Europe has been political right from its inception at the time of the European Coal and Steel Community. Economic integration is vital, but it is not an end in itself and it has never been seen as an end in itself. It has always been seen as the means to build security, peace and certainty for the future of the European continent.

The challenges facing the world at the moment are immense: the new aggressive foreign policy of Russia; the uncertainty and volatility caused by the Trump Administration; the sinister extremist development of European ultra-nationalism in Poland and, sadly, in Italy, not to mention the reflections of them from time to time in elements of our society; the faltering Chinese economy; the Gulf; climate change; and migration, to which climate change is closely related. We are constantly debating immigration here, but we very seldom face up to the issue of how the scale of migration can be met effectively.

I say to my friends on the left that I also believe there is a tremendous challenge to Europe to develop a social agenda, rather than just economic discipline. Britain could play a major role in that. Above all, we should be in the midst of it all, fighting the battle and carrying the banner of unyielding commitment to social justice.

This past weekend, I have been rereading—not for the first time—the very absorbing biography of Sir Brian Urquhart, who will be 100 next month. He has served the UN with outstanding skill and commitment since its earliest days at Church House across the road. His memoirs are worth reading: indeed, one Under-Secretary at the UN has suggested that every new member of UN staff should be given a copy of this book and read it before starting their work.

I do not want to dwell on his UN record but on the earlier parts of his biography. He was clearly a very brilliant and able young man. In the Second World War, he found himself serving in the airborne division as chief intelligence officer. He became increasingly disturbed by the effort going into preparing for the Arnhem operation. He felt that this was becoming very dangerous. He used his authority and powers of persuasion to have some Spitfires from the RAF fly at tree-top level, taking photographs of the area where the parachute regiment was due to land. The photographs were very vivid: they completely upheld his analysis that the regiment was about to parachute into the arms of the Panzer division. The tanks and armoured vehicles were under the trees, exactly in the landing area.

He insisted on seeing General Browning, who was in charge of the operation, to show him this evidence. He had already been arguing his case for a long time, not always to his senior officers’ pleasure. Browning looked at it and the conversation came to an end. Sir Brian got back to his office and was rather surprised when the regiment’s chief medical officer came to see him. He said, “Urquhart, we all admire your professional skills, but you have been working too hard. You are under acute psychological strain at the moment. You are to go on sick leave”. Urquhart replied, “Sick leave at this moment?”—it was two days before the planned operation. He asked, “What if I refuse to go on sick leave?” The chief medical officer said, “Be careful or you’ll be court-martialled”. In utter dismay, he went to his home in Sussex, and one can imagine what he suffered there as over the next two or three days he watched unfold exactly what he had predicted.

I want to conclude with what Sir Brian says in his book about that powerful episode. He says that as a young man he had persuaded himself that logical argument and rational discussion, backed by irrefutable fact, could prevail, whatever the situation. However, he became totally disillusioned about that, saying that it was “utter nonsense”. When a group of people with dedication and single-mindedness are determined to do something, they will not listen. They will not look at the evidence in front of them, and this becomes increasingly true when personal ambition is involved. I find that story very powerful, because at Arnhem 17,000 allied soldiers died, were wounded or went missing. Instead of the end of the war being speeded up, as was the rationale for the operation, it was delayed.

There comes a point in human affairs when you have to say, “Stop”. I do not think that we have been saying “Stop” loudly enough. We have allowed ourselves to get tangled up in all sorts of legal arguments, when more or less all the evidence indicates that coming out of Europe is a disaster. I find it absolutely unacceptable that we, as a responsible Assembly, can contemplate that as the way forward and are not prepared to say that we cannot possibly go ahead with this operation without the specific endorsement of the British people. Another referendum is therefore indispensable—one in which the facts and the knowledge which we have acquired and which is now much more available are put before the people. We are going to carry a heavy responsibility into the future. Now is the time to start talking straight.