Queen’s Speech

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I put on record my appreciation of the wonderful valedictory speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Liddle]

I am so sorry—of the noble Baroness, Lady Perry. Hers has been a wonderful life of public service. I also express my appreciation of the maiden speech of my noble friend Lady Jowell, which I thought was inspirational.

This debate is about Britain’s role in the world. There is a real question mark about what that would be in the event of a Brexit vote. It is a question that the Brexiteers are extremely reluctant to address, for a very good reason. Since the 1960s there has been a remarkable consensus among the political leadership in Britain that our national strategy—not any party strategy but our national strategy—is based on our membership of the European Union. Every Prime Minister since Harold Macmillan has thought that. Every Chancellor of the Exchequer has thought that while they held the office, as has every Foreign Secretary. Certainly the noble Lord, Lord Owen, used to think that when he was Foreign Secretary—although he is entitled now to what I regard as his very idiosyncratic opinions.

There has been this remarkable consensus, which has rested on two pillars: first, the economic judgment that it was right to put Europe at the centre of our trading and economic relationships, and, secondly, that Europe is an essential foundation of our security and political influence. On the economy, we have benefited enormously in the past half century from our membership of the EU. The City has become the financial centre of the European single market. That is a huge achievement. Also, the inward investment that we have obtained as a result of being in the single market has done so much to revive Britain’s moribund and badly managed industrial sector—as it was 40 or 50 years ago. I know from my part of the world how important foreign inward-investing firms are to decent jobs and wages in our country.

On political influence, while it is true that NATO won the Cold War, it is equally true that the process of European union secured peace and reconciliation in Europe—reconciliation first between France and Germany and now between Germany and Poland, uniting the once-fascist dictatorships and the once-communist autocracies in a union of democracies. It is a wonderful achievement. It must also be the case that Churchill’s vision in the 1940s at the end of the war of Britain at the centre of three circles—the empire and the Commonwealth, the Atlantic alliance, and Europe—has effectively collapsed into one central role in the European Union. It is significant that no Commonwealth Prime Minister, as far as I know, supports our exit—and, as for the Americans, it is only Donald Trump. So Europe is at the centre of our national strategy and we should not allow the Brexiteers to destroy that.

I worry that the Brexiteers’ real ambition is not just to take Britain out of the EU but to see the break-up of the EU. I thought that that theme was very strong in Michael Gove’s speech. He seemed to think that Brexit would be a signal for a kind of disintegration of the EU—a return to the 19th century Concert of Europe of independent nations. Of course, what underpinned that was vicious nationalism within countries, which led directly to the Battle of the Somme, the anniversary of which we will celebrate the weekend after our referendum vote. So let us have the confidence to reject the pessimists. Europe is at the centre of our economic and political security—and, I believe, of a decent quality of life in this country. I very much hope that we will vote to remain.