EU: Prime Minister’s Speech

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness and to some extent, for reasons I should explain, the Prime Minister for getting us to this debate. The Prime Minister has presented us and our European partners with a false prospectus: a referendum in four or five years’ time, on terms as yet unclear, and in economic and political circumstances that are unknowable. In so far as his negotiating position prior to that referendum is discernible from his speech, it is self-contradictory. His main point is that he wants to strengthen the single market, but he is looking to opt out of key pillars of that single market. You cannot have a true single market without common labour standards—the Social Chapter. You cannot have a true single market without some degree of commonality on financial regulations, which he resists to the benefit of and on behalf of the City of London. You cannot have a true single market without common environmental standards. That agenda is not one that can be negotiated without European partners. He might have a bit more luck on the justice side, but even there, although there may be some prospective, minor, further derogations, there will be no retrospective opt-outs, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, has said.

The PM has created unnecessary irritation among our European partners and damaging uncertainty for global investors. However, he may politically have done us all a great favour, in that he has at last provoked the pro-European elements in all parties to come out of their shell and start arguing the pro-European case. I have long been a pro-European, since before 1975, when it was deeply unpopular in the Labour Party, particularly in the left wing of the party, of which I was otherwise a member. I have often been dismayed at the lack of effective engagement by British Governments with Europe—my own as well as this one. I have often also been dismayed at the occasional arrogance and ineptitude of European institutions in relating to the real concerns of the people. However, it remains the case for Britain that our prosperity, our influence in the world and our prospects of reaching global agreements on climate change, trade, and peace and development depend utterly on the UK being a leading, constructive and authoritative partner within Europe. I ask those who object to the whole concept of ever closer union what they think are the consequences of the opposite dynamic. They need look no further than the borders of the EU, at the former Yugoslavia.

Like my noble friend Lord Grenfell, whose speech I greatly admired, I am not afraid of a referendum. However, whether we have one or not, in what timescale and on whatever terms, the Prime Minister has now triggered a revival among those of us who wish to argue the pro-European case. We will do so with equal passion and, one hopes, more logic than I suspect the next speaker, who will make the opposite case. To that extent, I thank the Prime Minister.