Brexit: Foreign and Security Policy Co-operation

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, it is very good that we are having this debate and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, certainly knows a very great deal about this subject, as he has just demonstrated. I will not unfairly describe him as an expert—we have to be rather careful with that phrase at the moment, but his knowledge is very extensive, as he has demonstrated. In slight contrast to the tone he has taken and what he has said, I have no hesitation in saying that we should regard the Brexit event, in the area of security and defence, as a golden opportunity for reform of our own and—just as important, of course—Europe’s security strategy in an age of entirely new threats and challenges. Europe’s stability and strategy has always been, remains and will always be our stability and our strategy as well.

I say that we should so regard it, but in practice we actually have no other choice. Some may look back and say that things should not have happened the way they have, but I believe that reform of the European Union as a whole is coming anyway, driven by enormous global forces and the immense power of the transforming digital age. Things could have been better handled on the British side, and possibly from within the EU, which I voted to remain in—although we lost, of course. But the decision is made and we can and certainly must make the very best of it. I see this all as part of the new European policy for which the Prime Minister has called, which we can get on and develop. I see no point at all in simply discarding it as vacuous. This is where we are going. This is the new European policy, which we now must build.

I liken this situation to the struggle we face in the wider Brexit debate against, for instance, the stupid polarisation of the argument between tighter immigration controls and trading in the single market, as though this was an either/or choice. I know this makes good copy for journalists and commentators but in the real world we have moved into, these facile absolutes do not apply. Free movement of labour, which was said to be a fundamental EU principle, turns out, in the age of vast migration into and across Europe, not to be fundamental at all, while the single market of yesterday has long been perforated and reshaped by new trade patterns and supply chains, which I fear a number of policymakers still do not understand.

To come to security, first we have what might be termed the American view—and, slightly, the view of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace. I am afraid many Americans have never fully understood the European integration movement. Their view is that the UK stepping out of the EU means some vast detraction from European military and defensive strength. The contention is that since the UK contributes 24% of the EU’s total military spending—not just CSDP stuff—and 50% to 60% of its airborne, heavy transport, early warning and electronic capabilities, as well as having the fifth-largest defence budget in the world at $56.2 billion, and being one of its two nuclear powers, cutting out of the CSDP will somehow lead to European security loss all round, if indeed that is what we are going to do.

I take the opposite view. The common security and defence policy, from which the UK has anyway been walking away—rightly—for some years, is badly in need of shake-up. Transatlantic commentators never seem to grasp just how plain dysfunctional and in need of reform the whole European model is. With the euro currency in unending chaos, with Spain without a Government, with Italy going the same way, with Hungary linking up with Russia, with Brussels disliked in Poland and in Prague, and in every country a growing political discontent with the old doctrines of centralism, standardisation and uniformity, this is certainly a region that needs to pull together with a new defence approach. We are just as well placed to work for that outside the EU as inside—some might argue, probably better.

I will say a brief word on energy security, which was not mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace; he was concentrating on other things. But after all, our daily oxygen is really the key security requirement for this nation. Leaving the EU ought to enable us to tie up our physical links and interconnectors with the continent more quickly, to head off the prospect of future blackouts—so brilliantly imposed on us by previous energy and climate Secretaries of State—and to go for a cheaper low-carbon strategy. I confess that I am not hopeful, since the Government’s Committee on Climate Change seems to be pushing us fast in the opposite direction. However, if we have the nous we could combine much cheaper energy, more reliability and better and much less costly low-carbon progress, now that we can stand aside from the EU strategy. We shall see. Frankly, the Hinkley Point decision—the most costly and risky low-carbon project of all—hardly bodes well in this respect.

We can start building an effective and efficient security policy for Europe, based on a stronger NATO and close relationships with France and Germany but also leaving flexibility for developing our defences outside Europe, where our security is just as much at risk. With the Indian and Pacific Oceans lying at the centre of global affairs and dangers, some new thought should be given to Commonwealth military alliances, such as we had in the past, especially links with Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and India—all members of the Commonwealth family.

Finally, the surprising and maybe counterintuitive prospect flowing from Brexit is that we are going to find ourselves not less close but closer to our European neighbours in many respects, particularly those we are discussing. There is no need for this to be encased in a labyrinth of overarching treaty patterns. We will have to deal in all sorts of areas—policing, intelligence or many aspects of specific industrial sectors—where we will again and again come back to the point that the vast network elaborated in the European treaties, as amended and finalised in the Lisbon treaty, is not a necessary adjunct to the way in which we have to work.

If anyone doubts my proposition that there are forces which will draw us closer to Europe regardless of whether or not we are in the EU, they should note that our neighbours the French are busy vigorously buying up vineyards in southern England. Depending on your point of view, this could be regarded as an intolerable invasion by foreigners, or a chance to have still better wines and some nice imbibing at low prices. This, I agree, has nothing to do with Brexit or defence but it has everything to do with market forces—and larger forces than markets—which anyway usually operate about a year ahead of Governments and the political and media debate, the bubble in which most of us in our innocence and ignorance still reside.