European Union (Implications of Withdrawal) Bill [HL]

My Lords, having had the pleasure of listening to the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, many times in this House, I retain a sense of wonder at the choice of words and the hyperbolic vocabulary. I noted just seven words in his speech, several of which appeared many times: shadowy, collaborationist, executed, jackboots, conspiracy, mega-state and totalitarian. As a Liberal, I know the cost of promoting causes when the times are not propitious. The proposers of the Bill, who clearly believe that the time is propitious for their cause, are in my view quite wrong, inquiry or no. If ever withdrawal was clearly against the British national interest, it is now. The Duke of Wellington is famously said to have remarked that interests never lie. Unless we are deceived by ideology and flattery—as, sadly, we appear to have been at a certain point over Iraq—historically the British have been pretty good at discerning where their best interests are. Now they are indeed to stay in the European Union and to increase our influence in it and our commitment to it. Of course, commitment and influence are important bedfellows in this sector. I will focus on three reasons why maintaining our membership of and increasing our commitment to and involvement in the European Union are so clearly in our national interest. First, as regards economics, perhaps noble Lords remember the description of the euro as an exotic rain dance, which had no possibility of success. The rain dance has turned into a veritable harvest festival, with the euro being the strongest of the existing currencies. For years we were told that the so-called failure of the German economy following the reunification of Germany and the fall of the wall in Berlin was evidence that Europe was not working. Anybody who has observed what has been going on in the largest economy in the European Union will be well aware that the German economy is doing very well: investment in it is increasing, productivity continuously improves and employment prospects are significantly enhanced. We have also been told many times that one of the reasons why Europe allegedly does not produce a good return for us is that productivity in the European Union is far outstripped by that in the United States. The latest figures make it quite clear that productivity increases in the European Union are beginning significantly to exceed those in the United States. I take no particular pleasure in that, because we all have a strong interest in the success of the United States economy. Enlargement is an enormous success story, not just for the European Union but for the whole free world. The growth rates in central and eastern Europe are one of the most important and interesting factors in the economic scene today. What has happened politically? There is a new president in France—Sarkozy—and the very successful Chancellor Merkel in Germany. Although there will, of course, be differences between Merkel and Sarkozy, one thing links them—they are both significantly pro-Atlanticist. I well remember attending an event in London at the beginning of the Iraq war before Angela Merkel became the Chancellor candidate and then Chancellor in Germany. She was asked where she would stand between Europe and the United States. I thought that that was a slightly odd question in the circumstances. She replied without any hesitation and without notes that she had been brought up in formerly communist eastern Germany and never had any doubt at all of the enormous debt that eastern Europe owed to the United States for its resolution and ultimate victory in the Cold War. There is no ambiguity there. Sarkozy has been equally clear about his pro-American attitudes. The days when people could pretend that there was some magical gulf between us with our Atlanticist instincts, which I certainly share, and the continentals, who are hell-bent on trying to create rivalry with the United States, frankly have expired. It is no longer a credible argument. In promoting their cause, those people must think of new arguments. Secondly, on the political side, enlargement has crafted a European Union that ideally suits the British national interest. The union that we originally joined—the European Community—was much smaller and was dominated for historical reasons by French-German agreements. There were economic agreements and, perhaps more significantly, there were political agreements. Our ambiguity and our delay meant that our influence was relatively restricted in comparison with that of that central alliance. The same is not true today. In the enlarged European Union of 27 countries, Britain has every opportunity to exert its influence and to create a Europe that is clearly in our national interest. In fact, our opportunity for influence and for real leverage in the European Union is the greatest for a generation. There is also in the political debate and argument in the European Union an interesting and important pragmatic tone. I do not want to go into details, because we do not know yet what is going to emerge in the constitutional treaty—or whatever title will be chosen for it—but the approach is pragmatic. The argument in favour of a treaty is practical. It is about making sure that the institutions and the way in which they work can adapt to a membership of 27. It does not make sense that the European Commission should include one member from every member state. It does not make sense that the presidency of the European Council should change every six months. I mention those two issues because they are essentially practical. The effectiveness of shared or pooled sovereignty is real and dramatic, particularly if you compare it with the ineffectiveness of our very unequal special relationship. There is now for Britain a real chance of building the special relationship that can really make a difference in this century—the special relationship between the United States and the European Union, from which Britain has everything to gain. The third factor, which may surprise your Lordships, is language. I declare an interest, as I have a long involvement with the English-Speaking Union. Last week, I was in Moldova, a land-locked and somewhat Russian-pressured piece of land in the centre of Europe, where we opened the 12th new English-Speaking Union in eastern Europe in the past 10 years and the 48th worldwide. Why are the Moldovans learning English? The young people to whom I spoke gave two reasons. First, they think that it will facilitate their membership of the global economy and that it is more useful to them in that regard than Russian or any other available language, although they do not wish to give up Romanian, of course. Secondly, they see their future eventually—they are not stupid about it; they are realistic—in joining the European Union and they see English as being a facilitator of that development. It is important to note that slightly more than70 per cent of all communication within and between the European institutions, and between them and the rest of the world, is conducted in English. As the working language of the global village, English has become the langue de travail of the European Union. It is an essential bridge. That is a huge advantage for us. I believe that many people in the last 20 years or so have been put off Europe simply by what they perceive to be the linguistic barrier, but that barrier no longer exists. The fact that our language has become the dominant language of the European institutions—I use the adjective advisedly—is a tremendous gift to us and a great enhancement of our influence. I share one sentiment with the proposers of this so-called inquiry. They dislike ambiguity; the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, and I have always shared that distrust of ambiguity. I mentioned that last week I was in Moldova. I went to a reception for the new branch of the ESU at our embassy in the capital, and what were the two flags that flew in front of the building? The Minister will not be in the least surprised to know, of course, that one was the European Union flag and the other was our union jack—yet we still have that reluctance, which we have debated in this Chamber a number of times, to display the European Union flag in this country. That sort of ambiguity—that double tonality on Europe between what we do here and what we do abroad—is an own goal. We should maximise our influence, and to do that we need to demonstrate our commitment; our commitment is overwhelmingly in our national interest. I shall conclude with a personal reminiscence. In the year before our entry into the European Community, as it then was, I was privileged as a BBC reporter to do an hour-long documentary on Jean Monnet. Incidentally, when I look back at that period, I have to contest the view so often expressed in this House by those opposed to the European Union that, when we joined the European Community, we were simply told that it was a common market and had no political implications. I can talk only from my own journalistic involvement at that time at the BBC, but that is completely untrue. We made the political dimension of membership absolutely clear in programme after programme. I personally did nine hours of broadcasting to that effect. When I was doing the documentary with Jean Monnet and staying at his house in Houjarray, I asked him to explain why he and others had not tried harder to persuade the British to become involved in the initial European Coal and Steel Community. He said that the reason was that they understood the roots of British ambiguity—that it was all to do with the fact that the outcome of the Second World War was a profoundly different experience for Britain and the British people from that of countries that had been occupied and defeated. That is clearly so. He said, ““The conclusion we drew was that only facts would persuade the British that involvement was in their interests””. With every month that goes by, the facts become more and more conclusive. The damage to the British national interest of withdrawal, or even the consideration of withdrawal, would be almost incalculable. We are looking a gift horse in the mouth. We face an open goal; let us not make it an own goal.