EU: Prime Minister’s Speech

Marquess of Lothian Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Marquess of Lothian]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Noakes rightly emphasised the central importance of the Prime Minister’s five principles, but I hope that they are more than just words and aspirations. I believe that they should form the bottom line of our negotiations in the months ahead. We must start and finish with them, not drawing down or clawing back towards them but building up within them.

However, we should be under no illusion from past experience that when the referendum eventually arrives there may still be no progress in negotiation, and that without a positive alternative the choice might still, in the Prime Minister’s words, be false. We must therefore, at the same time, urgently explore alternatives.

We live today in a network world. Tomorrow’s relationships will not be between blocs but between peoples and interests and common values offering new trading opportunities and new markets. In this regard, a refreshed, refunded and re-empowered Commonwealth, bound together not by wealth or military might but by shared values in democracy, the rule of law and human rights, embracing significant economic players such as India, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and Singapore, could have enormous potential. We would be going with the flow of our island history and the choice at a referendum would at least then be a real one.

I wish the renegotiations well but, if the principles are not achieved, I will have no qualms in campaigning and voting no. Of course we could survive and prosper outside the EU; to argue otherwise is to stray into the wilder realms of EU propaganda. But that is not the real question. Whether it is in our national interest is what matters—and that is not just about wealth.

Europe is changing and so are we. The flood of the tide is with us. We must take it.