Queen’s Speech

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, in this poorly arranged debate, there is time to speak only in shorthand, so I begin simply by observing that it is a great pity that there was not a single mention of the Commonwealth in the gracious Speech. Not only is it a matter of supreme interest to Her Majesty but the Commonwealth network and our membership of it is a major asset for the power and influence of Britain in this very turbulent world. It is incomprehensible to me why it was missed out.

Secondly, on Ukraine and Crimea, I am glad that some of the hyperbole has begun to go out of the argument. There has been quite an excessive reaction to the difficulties of that whole situation. I believe that it has been the right approach to squeeze Mr Putin in various ways, by various sanctions. However, like Her Majesty’s Government, I have some faith in Mr Poroshenko and his ability to deal with Mr Putin and see the matter held in hand.

Thirdly, I make a brief reference to the grim news from Mosul this morning, which should alarm us all. It confirms finally that there was never an Arab spring; there was an Arab turmoil, which is now developing in even worse ways in many areas. Entirely new approaches are clearly needed, different from the original analysis of what was supposed to be happening in the Arab world and the Middle East.

I shall now confine my remarks to my main subject, European Union reform, on which everyone now seems to be agreed. It has become the all-party mantra, although there is of course little agreement on exactly what it means. The strategic task was stipulated in the Prime Minister’s celebrated Bloomberg speech of 23 January 2013, but there is widespread concern that the follow-up has been weak—even to the point of leaving a vacuum in the whole undertaking—and we all know how a vacuum in policy and debate tends to fill up with extremist and polarised viewpoints.

The reality is that a mere shopping list of UK demands for “concessions” and derogations from the EU treaties—or mere bilateral UK-Commission negotiations of the kind for which some of the more naive Members of the other place have been calling—cannot hope to meet the need for EU reform, or British strategic repositioning, on the scale or at the depth required. For that to go forward, a far more profound and comprehensive approach is required, challenging parts of the outdated, 20th-century philosophy of the old EU at their roots, and mobilising a powerful and sympathetic alliance across the whole EU—an alliance that certainly exists and is there to be aroused and led in sensible directions.

This is a task the formulation and foundations of which go well beyond the scope of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and, indeed, beyond the capacities of the Government as a whole. One has to remember, as many people do not, that the original ideas for European Community integration were conceived and devised almost deliberately outside Governments and often through private channels and meetings. Just as at that time the best brains were recruited from many sources and disciplines to meet the perceived geopolitical challenges of that era—more than 50 years ago—so the best brains and think-tank resources must be applied to shaping Europe in the utterly transformed world conditions that now prevail. This is obviously not a task suitable for Mr Juncker and his colleagues.

The essence of the new situation is that patterns of trade and international economic intercourse have completely changed their nature in this age of hyperconnectivity, meaning that old ideas about trade blocs, such as the concept of the EU single market, have been drained of their potency. Entirely new trade supply chains and global value chains have sprung up, almost like new rivers. Distinctions between manufactured goods, knowledge goods and services have become blurred. Tariffs have diminished and new protectionist devices have been deployed, particularly affecting services and knowledge industries. New patterns of economic and therefore political power have emerged, of which Europe is only a small part and in which the vaunted clout of the European Union, either as a trade bloc or as a political force, has a greatly reduced impact.

The starting point in change must be the excising of the centralising and integrationist mentality from the whole European project. This outlook—the wrong kind of federalism—belongs to a previous hierarchical age before the onset of the information revolution and the consequent empowerment of peoples. It is now rejected not just by politicians but by physicists, scientists, biologists, engineers, psychologists and others. Self-assembly, self-regulation and flexibility all now work organically; rigid and centralised command structures and top-down hierarchies—whether social, political or physical—do not. That is the new reality of our era.

For detail, I have no time, but in my files—and I suspect in the files of many others who have been involved with the Community since the UK first signed the treaty of Rome in 1972, and even before—there is copious documentation on these and other areas on which we have been working for well over 30 years, although to little effect, I am afraid. I must acknowledge, however, that the scene has totally changed, thanks to the microchip and the intensely connected digital world. Rethinking and new analysis must now be undertaken ab initio, within a clearly enunciated strategic reform framework for all Europe. That is an immense but essential task for our best minds in all parties and none, and for our best intellectual networks to undertake—although it is perilously late in the day.