European Union (Referendum) Bill

Lord Mandelson Excerpts

Friday 10th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mandelson (Lab)]

My Lords, we have heard some excellent speeches in this debate so far, including, charmingly, from the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, in a very good five-minute contribution.

Having been a member of the European Commission, I think that I can talk with some experience about the need for change in the European Union. My experience has made me decidedly pro-reform of the EU, but not in favour of a pig-in-a-poke referendum in this country designed to bridge the divisions within the Conservative Party. Of course, at a time when people across Europe are worried about their jobs, borne down by the cost of living and nervous about whether or when the fast-rising economic powers in the world are going to eat Europe’s collective lunch, it is hardly surprising that public hostility is directed at the EU. However, it is instructive that opinion polls, including recent ones, indicate that while the public are in favour of a referendum they are by a bigger majority in favour of Britain showing leadership in the EU, exerting its influence and not walking away from its responsibilities within it. That is why I am very confident that in any public debate we will win the argument that breaking up the EU is not the answer and Britain leaving it will not help our own economic future, which is completely intertwined with that of Europe.

That is why collectively our primary purpose should be to raise Europe’s performance and game globally, and why Britain is an essential component in changing Europe and bringing about that rise in Europe’s performance. We therefore need to concentrate all our efforts and energy on building up Britain’s influence in Europe, not driving Britain out of it. I am co-president with Kenneth Clarke and Danny Alexander of British Influence, the organisation dedicated to making our EU membership more effective. We want above all to see a confident Britain at the heart of a reforming Europe. My opposition to the Bill is based on the fact that it will scupper that objective.

The Bill is not about changing or improving the EU; indeed, it is stage 1 in raising impossible demands of the EU in order to create a pretext for leaving it. It will create huge uncertainty among investors when we need confidence to build our economic recovery, and it will put the Government into a straitjacket, binding them to a rigid timetable regardless of what is happening in the rest of Europe and indeed in our own country. It certainly will not increase the Government’s negotiating authority in Europe, at a time when we need to be reaching out and building coalitions so as to safeguard our national interests as a member of the EU and in the single market but not in the core eurozone.

My message to the Government is: stop grandstanding to the UKIP gallery. If they are really serious about European reform, they have to go out and work for it and join others in achieving it. If the need or cause for a referendum arises in the future—if a new treaty involving fresh European integration or transfer of powers requires it—that will be the time to consider the proposition of holding a referendum.

In conclusion, while we should be out there in Europe banging the drum for British interests, making sure that our people fill the right posts and that our policies are uppermost in the minds of the European Commission or others, we should recall the words of William Hague, who originally got it right before he and the Prime Minister were taken hostage by the militant tendency within their party, when he said about a referendum:

“It would not help anyone looking for a job. It would not help any business trying to expand. It would mean that for a time, we, the leading advocates of removing barriers to trade in Europe and the rest of the world, would lack the authority to do so”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/10/11; col. 55.]

He was absolutely right. We would simply create more alienation and public disillusion in Britain and on the continent and sacrifice yet more of our authority if we were to accept this Bill and if, instead of leading the charge for reform, we devoted the next three years to a referendum that presents a choice between standing on the periphery of an unreformed Europe or leaving it altogether. That, in essence, is what the backers of this Bill are inviting us to do, and we should resoundingly reject that choice.