Council of Europe: House of Lords Members’ Contribution

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, for making this evening’s discussion possible.

I have had the pleasure and privilege of being a member of PACE since January 2018. This has been my first experience in my working life of working in cohabitation with professional politicians, and I would describe it as very educational. I am the only member of the UK delegation who is politically unaffiliated—I am the only representative of the 180-odd Cross-Benchers. I sit with the European Conservatives Group because that happens to be the political grouping of the Government of today. Should there be a general election and our new Prime Minister gets it wrong, as he is quite capable of doing, I will move across to whichever political grouping the next Government of the day happen to belong to. All I would say about sitting with the European Conservatives is that it is even more educational.

The UK, as has been said, was a founding member of the Council, and its work over the years has been and is highly regarded. However, it would be fair to say—and the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, referred to this—that Brexit has caused a considerable amount of baffled and rather genuine concern about our current democratic well-being. I now introduce myself in Strasbourg as Simon Russell from the “Dis-United Kingdom”, which breaks the ice diplomatically; people then feel free to ask the questions they are dying to ask, such as, “What on earth is really going on in your country?” I tend to respond, “How long have you got?”

I have the privilege of being a member of the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Displaced Persons, where it is an enormous privilege to work alongside other colleagues of very diverse political hues, ranging from extreme internationalist left to hard-line, and frankly slightly unpleasant, anti-immigrant nationalist right. The committee was able to visit Jordan in March last year, together with the noble Earl, Lord Dundee—or, as he is known in the Council of Europe, Mr Dundee, since our international colleagues find dealing with our titles somewhat challenging. We went to the largest refugee camp in Jordan, which contains no less than 80,000 Syrians. We also had an interesting experience when we met His Majesty the King of Jordan and our slightly overwrought and overcome chair kept addressing him as “Her Majesty”. The benefits of a British boarding school education followed by Sandhurst meant that he kept a completely stiff upper lip.

Helping emerging democracies evolve and mature, as the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, has mentioned, is a key element in our work, particularly since the break-up of the USSR. I had the privilege, along with the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, of being part of the PACE monitoring team for the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election. They elected a comedian. Our Conservative Party has followed suit. In both cases, it is too early to tell whether this will be a successful strategy.

To return to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, about what the Council of Europe is for and what we get out of it, I was reminded when he was speaking of John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s famous phrase, “ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country”. With our long traditions in this country of democracy, human rights, freedom and habeas corpus, one of the gifts we try to give to countries which have been less privileged in their history is the insight and benefit of the ups and downs of our journey in trying to establish that sort of democracy.

It is vital to maintain a focus and international dialogue which are above and beyond the mindlessness and sheer ill will which seem to feature in our often-intemperate political discourse. The Council reminds us of a higher purpose and enduring values and is a salutary antidote to the atomisation of the international order and the raucous sounds of testosterone-rich nation states. Standing up for and seeking to reinforce and extend human rights provides a moral compass and a universal theme which our continent and—goodness knows—our country, in its current rather febrile state, sorely need.