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

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

I rise to give a subjective view—an apolitical view—from the Cross Benches and, I hope, a slightly more emotionally continent view than some we have heard this afternoon.

I am a post-war baby boomer. I remember growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, in a slightly grey, post-imperial world. It was a period of industrial and political decline. I can remember the failure of the country to harness what Harold Wilson called the white heat of the technological revolution. It seemed to pass us by rather convincingly as our cars rusted and our aerospace industry became insolvent. But there were some good things. I remember some fantastic music, and swinging London had its upside. So I thought, “What can I do to help this country in its state of decline?”. I did the most helpful thing I could think of and emigrated. From 1971 to 1978 I had an interesting life in the city of Vancouver in Canada. I think I am one-32nd part Cree Indian, so it seemed a natural place to go. I missed a lot of fun: I missed the oil crash in Europe; I missed our entry into the EU; I missed the three-day week and candles left, right and centre; I missed the referendum; I missed the International Monetary Fund rescue. All in all, it was great timing.

In 1981, I made the second wisest decision of my life. The first was marrying Lady Russell, who is an extremely beautiful southern Italian academic. The second was going to a school in France known as l’Institut Europeen d’Administration des Affaires—apologies to Hansard—better known as INSEAD, where one of my colleagues was the wife of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford. At that time, it was a profoundly eccentric thing to do. The idea that one would actually study business instead of learning it by making a series of mistakes and probably losing rather a lot of money along the way, and the fact that one would do it in France and partly in French, was not fully comprehensible to many people. What did I learn there? I learned to look at the world through a global lens, as a joined-up entity. I had the extraordinary experience of standing in a semi-circle of about 18 different nationalities watching the Falkland conflict unfold, trying to explain to my non-British colleagues that this was not something straight out of Gilbert and Sullivan but was actually happening in front of our eyes. I can remember the outbreak of the hostilities in Lebanon, and I can remember watching and witnessing Israeli colleagues cutting short their stay at INSEAD to go back because they were called up, and Lebanese colleagues doing the same. So I left that school with a visceral sense of the interconnectivity of the world we live in.

I have since spent 30 years working as a head hunter. We work for a wide range of public and private companies in every single major economy in the world. I can tell you, my Lords, that the UK’s role as a leading member of the EU is fundamental to the way in which the rest of the world values our contribution. Is the EU perfect? In no way. But I would like to share four reflections with your Lordships and ask you to think about them.

First, have all the influential voices, most of whom are job and wealth creators, who have grave concerns about our leaving the EU, all been misled and misunderstood? Secondly, why is it that so many of Brexit’s most prominent political advocates in both Houses of Parliament appear to have had relatively little commercial experience but feel qualified to opine on issues with huge economic consequences for all of us? Thirdly, as I reflect on those leading political proponents of Brexit, does anyone share my unease at the prospect of being governed by individuals several of whom appear to still be unduly influenced by their nannies from early on in their life and still refer to them occasionally in public discourse? Fourthly, as one or two noble Lords have said, what is completely absent in this Chamber is the voice of the future—the 18 to 30 year-olds who will have a vote in June. They are the people who will be living with the consequences of the decision we take, not ourselves.

For those of you who have not seen or heard it, I commend the remarkable speech made in another place by Nicholas Soames. It said all there is to be said about why the EU was created. As I think you can guess, apolitical I may be, but I think that to leave the European Union would be a huge wasted opportunity.