European Union Referendum (Date of Referendum etc.) Regulations 2016

Lord Mawson Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mawson (CB)]

My Lords, I am one of the many millions of people in this country who remain undecided about our future in Europe. I do not claim to be an expert but I have enjoyed the many hours of meetings in your Lordships’ House on European Union committees debating the issues surrounding the attempts to bring 28 different countries together and get them to function as a family of nations.

As a family, we have a home in France and love going there and immersing ourselves in its very different culture, history and traditions. We welcome the fact that France is not like the UK and sees the world very differently from ourselves. That is a very good thing. There are 26 other countries besides ourselves and France that also enrich this diverse community that we call the European Union. Diversity, not uniformity, is the spice of life. We are told by scientists that biodiversity, not equality and fairness, is the very building block of life. Difference is the key to our very existence. The world is not and never has been equal and fair; it is gloriously diverse.

When we embraced this truth, many years ago now, in the middle of an international community in the East End of London in very challenging housing estates, our life and work began to grow, and jobs, skills, businesses and opportunities started to flourish around us in what was formerly a dependency culture. People came together in a shared enterprise. Maybe there is a clue in the micro as to what we must now do in the macro. Unity in real diversity is the name of the game, but can the agreement deliver that reality?

I come to this debate with an interest in business and social justice. I am an entrepreneur and a practical Yorkshireman. For me as an undecided who welcomes this referendum and this debate, the key issues are practical ones, not theoretical or emotional. I have sat on EU committees and listened to senior colleagues from across Europe being emotional about “the project”, with actually too little to say about how in practice you make all this governance machinery work. There needs to be a little more humility on all sides of the argument, and the British public know that. The electorate need practical examples of how the EU will work successfully, not large meaningless numbers and spin—they do not believe it.

The questions I am struggling with as a person who gets the point of deep quality trading relationships across Europe are as follows. First, it is all about delivery. Can the 28 countries, when they come together, actually deliver for those children who may well be drowning in the Mediterranean in June when this vote takes place? It may well be such images, or the lack of them, that define the outcome of this referendum. As a Member of this House I have had the privilege of listening to colleagues examining the numerous organisations that the EU has created to deal with the challenging issues of our time, but are they capable of working together, of putting a practical act together when it really counts, or is the EU a fair-weather organisation? Can it deliver on the euro, the security of our borders, migration and defence? Major General Julian Thompson’s arguments about ending the defence myth are a serious challenge. Are the EU organisations capable of working together, or is it all politics and hot air when it really counts? Have we invested in the relationship-building at a practical level to enable this machinery to work?

Secondly, while party politics is not my bag and I am not a great believer in the proposals of the late Tony Benn and what he had to say, I liked the man, and on the issue of democracy and being able to get rid of our rulers when they mess up he had an important point. If we sign up to yes, how do we get rid of these people if it does not work? I have engaged enough with EU funding systems at a practical level to know that they are a bureaucratic nightmare to deal with. Sometimes in the early days, as a small charity in east London, it felt as if we were carrying Europe for over eight months before it paid its bills. It certainly never seemed to be a learning organisation that was capable of learning from innovation and what was actually happening on the ground in some of our most challenging housing estates in multicultural communities.

Does the EU help us to share our knowledge and skills or is it a hindrance? Is the EU a learning organisation? I am not a purist when it comes to democracy, but there are real democratic questions here. How do we get rid of our rulers in this deal that we are about to do if they cannot actually rule us and deliver for our people and if they are indeed incapable of learning from real-life experience in other communities across Europe? By the way, have our Brexit colleagues any idea how many zeros will be on the lawyers’ fees if we leave? Nice work if you can get it.

Thirdly, are the changes that the Prime Minister says he has won for us real, or will some wily civil servants in Europe water them all down—I have seen this before—and find a hundred reasons why this is all so difficult legally? Yes, they are the right direction of travel. We do not want more Europe, we do not want no Europe, we do want less Europe, but can this be made legal? Is Europe really up for the radical changes some in this House are rightly asking for, or is it an institution incapable of the real reform it so desperately needs for a new generation that is increasingly defined by innovation and entrepreneurship?

Fourthly, I am not persuaded by the large numbers that are bandied about in this debate on all sides by politicians, most of whom have never tried to make any of this work in practice on the ground. They have not themselves tested the systems for real in trade and the rest; they have sat on committees talking about them. I have found in life that most numbers such as these are meaningless in practice. I long for some of our politicians to stop hiding behind numbers and to take us carefully through one or two small and real examples of how this will work in practice for a real SME or business struggling to trade in Europe. Let them show us the systems—top, middle and bottom, warts and all—and explain how they will change in practice to facilitate more trade and interaction. Let us get into these details.

The British public long to see real debate with real players on the ground. What will it be like for SMEs in practice if these changes happen? Will anything change in the real world? Come on politicians and media: give the British people the practical evidence—show us the micro. I have run out of time, but I long to hear practical examples of what all this means. We have four months; let us have the examples.