Britain in the World

Richard Graham Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Today, the sub-theme has been maiden speeches in Parliament, and it gives me enormous confidence in the future of Britain in the world that we have representatives of our constituents who will speak up fearlessly and with great clarity.

For me, the concept of Britain in the world is a conundrum today. On the one hand, capitalism is priced for peace and confidence; on the other hand, never have our global structures seemed so ineffective in coping with the challenges we face today. Organisations that coped well with the cold war, the iron curtain and the transition from colonialism to independence seem much less able when faced with rogue states and organisations that control vast swathes of territory with arms greater than those of the nation states around them. That presents us with huge challenges.

In his speech today, the Foreign Secretary laid out the ambitions that were summarised in the Queen’s Speech. Surely all of us would want us to be ambitious about our role in the world and would want our nation to be able to play its part, as it has done for so long. However, the challenges that we face are considerable, and my belief is that first of all we need to revisit those global structures and question whether they are still entirely fit for purpose and whether in this age—one in which Governments feel more fragile, less in control of our future and less sure about the value of our different unions—the world needs to change our organisations.

The specific challenges that were outlined today obviously include our future in the European Union, the future of Ukraine and the eastern border with Russia, and the whole of the middle east. Let me touch briefly on those issues.

On the EU, it has always seemed clear to me that we are at our most successful when we find allies who share our values and long-term goals, build our interests together and maintain the balance of power by overcoming the different threats, whether from sun kings, emperors, führers or Russian bears. That is what we must surely do if we are to win in our quest for reform of Europe in a renegotiation and present our constituents with a real option as to what future is best for us in Europe. As part of that, surely the Foreign Affairs Committee must play a role, alongside the Treasury Committee and the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, in analysing the pros and cons—a real cost-benefit analysis—to our country of being a member, without interfering on each other’s patch, but building a strategic diplomatic analysis of what EU membership offers us. That would include, for example, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with America being negotiated at the moment.

On the middle east, the Foreign Secretary rightly said that President Assad was at the heart of the problem, but we have been better at analysing the rulers, organisations and terrorists at the heart of the problem, but not so good at winning the peace after we have removed them. That remains a great challenge for us, and the confidence of our constituents will not be great on action in the middle east until we can reassure them that we have real plans and ways of building nations after we have conquered them.

In summary, I believe that we can have a great future in the world—there is a great role for Britain to play—but we must refresh the international organisations, analyse carefully the pros and cons of being in the EU and play our part in the middle east in winning the peace.