Brexit: Peace and Stability

Lord Judd Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on her courageous and challenging speech, and thank my noble friend for his opening remarks and for the clarity with which he presented the issues which now face us.

I start from the premise that, from the moment we are born, we are inescapably locked into a highly interdependent global community. I firmly believe that history will judge us by the contribution we make to the successful governance of the global community. Therefore, this change in our status in Europe can be seen only as a backwards step because, together with our friends in Europe, we were beginning to explore and discover ways in which we could work together on the truly global issues that confront us.

My noble friend talked about our responsibilities to Gibraltar, which are real, and about the border problems. If we are talking about stability in Europe, the challenge comes much nearer home. What will be the consequence for peace and stability in Ireland? There is very little doubt that the Good Friday agreement related very closely to our membership of the European Union. How are we going to meet the new situation? We need to hear that very specifically and clearly, and the Irish people and the people of Northern Ireland need to hear that.

What of the acute instability, which not many years ago not many of us envisaged as likely, that has developed in eastern Europe with the new aggressive foreign policy of what was the Soviet Union and is now Russia? How are we going to handle that? Do we really think we can handle it effectively on our own? Surely we shall have to work together very closely with our European colleagues. How are we going to do that?

We have to remember that it is not just a matter of how we see we are going to do it but also of how they think we are going to do it. Therefore, perhaps the greatest blow to meeting the global challenges of insecurity that I have mentioned is the psychological impact on the European Community and the wider world of our having so aggressively, almost, expressed our lack of confidence in a future based on co-operation with Europe. That is going to undermine the possibilities of finding pragmatic solutions to the issues.

Of course, in the time available, I can mention only a couple of those. When I was serving on the EU Home Affairs Sub-Committee, we looked at the possible implications of withdrawal from Europe, and what struck me was that so many of those carrying front-line responsibility in the sphere of security in this age of global terrorism said that it could be nothing but harmful no longer to be part of the European Community because that co-operation was so necessary. If we are going to be in a jingoistic mood, and say that the strength of our security services is so much better than anybody else’s, that is not always totally demonstrable, but that is not the point. The point is that, if there are weaker elements in Europe, we need to be working to strengthen them because in the end security is only as strong as its weakest links.

In the sphere of overseas development, in which I have a certain amount of direct experience, not least ministerial, it is crucial that we do not have a fragmented approach to the third world. It does not help development if people are operating to different agendas. The important thing is to get as much co-ordination as possible so that we are working towards common objectives.

To conclude, we have a huge job in this country to continue and strengthen our drive to enable people in this country to face the reality of inescapable global interdependence. We shall therefore have to have some practical, convincing arrangements in place that will enable us to do that.