I am grateful to the noble Lord. Although I endorse entirely the appeal made by my noble friend Lord Giddens and indeed others, I suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, that he could accept this amendment, and he could do it with the approval of the Prime Minister. My authority for claiming that comes from no less a source than the Bloomberg speech, which I am now quoting so frequently that I am beginning to think of it as the Bloomberg bible.
In that speech, the Prime Minister was very clear—indeed, commendably clear—that:
“If we left the European Union, it would be a one-way ticket, not a return”.
That is a very sobering thought and a very grave proposition. To his further credit, the Prime Minister was balanced in his treatment of the issues in much of that speech. He said, quite correctly, that:
“Britain could make her own way in the world, outside the EU”.
He then, in a very balanced way, went on to say:
“But the question we will have to ask ourselves is this: is that the very best future for our country?”.
He said that of course we,
“would be free to take our own decisions … But we don’t leave NATO because it is in our national interest to stay and benefit from its collective defence guarantee”.
The only question that I would pose to the Prime Minister and to the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, on this aspect is: how free would we be to take our own decisions?
In a further balancing item, the Prime Minister responded to such a rhetorical question by saying:
“If we leave the EU, we cannot of course leave Europe. It will remain for many years our biggest market, and forever our geographical neighbourhood. We are tied by a complex web of legal commitments”.
He continued:
“Even if we pulled out completely”—
and I do not see that there is any other option other than a complete pull-out, given what the Prime Minister said about it being a one-way ticket—
“decisions made in the EU would continue to have a profound effect on our country. But we would have lost all our remaining vetoes and our voice in those decisions”.
If the Prime Minister was willing to say that a year ago in the Bloomberg speech and to spell out the implications of our departure, what conceivable resistance could there be to accepting an amendment that would make it mandatory to provide an assessment of the United Kingdom’s intended relationship with the European Union in the event of withdrawal? In fact, on this occasion I am being as uncharacteristically helpful as I possibly can be to Mr Cameron. Maybe one day he will reciprocate that.
Of course, the question remains: how free would we be to make our own decisions? This House will know that if the search is for sovereignty, then the definition of sovereignty as the power to make effective decisions must be predominant in our minds. Outside the European Union in the world of the 21st century and beyond, we have to wonder how a medium-sized economy with a population of around 60 million, abutting the world’s biggest single market, would fare if we had to conduct our own relationships individually—dare I say unilaterally?—with emerging and emerged global powers. How would we fare in terms of resolving the crisis of the environment or in terms of combating international crime, were it not for the fact that inside the European Union we can exert substantial influence on the direction of affairs and on the nature of international relationships in an increasingly complex and interdependent world?
12.30 pm
Freedom and increased sovereignty do not offer themselves if we are outside the European Union. To do the Prime Minister credit, I think he was articulating that view in offering his balancing comments on what life might be like outside. Again I commend him on his balance when he further went on to speak about timing, because that is relevant to this amendment too. He said that he could not accept the call being made by people who want a vote now or in the immediate future because:
“A vote today between the status quo and leaving would be an entirely false choice. Now—while the EU is in flux, and when we don’t know what the future holds and what sort of EU will emerge from this crisis—is not the right time to make such a momentous decision about the future of our country”.
We would have to stretch credulity to come to the view that the EU is not going to be in flux somewhere around 31 December 2017. The idea that the problems relating to the eurozone will be resolved, that enlargement of the EU will have been completed by that time or that, by some magic, all the problems that forbid an immediate referendum would make it not a sensible possibility will have been resolved and will have become calm, rational and easy by that date is beyond any belief.
With that in mind therefore the Government have the cause, the opportunity and the time to ensure that an assessment is made and publicly provided of what the intended relationship of the UK would be with the European Union in the event of our departure. An “in or out” referendum is being proposed. Both possibilities have to be considered comprehensively and calmly. I agree with the noble Lord who said earlier that we should pay even more attention and give much more publicity to the detail dispassionately provided of what would occur and what we can reasonably anticipate by staying in. Since this is an “in or out” referendum, it is at least equally important for the British people to be fully acquainted with the implications of coming out, which is the other option being offered. Bearing those realities in mind, I hope that the noble Lord will reconsider what appeared to be his peremptory response to my noble friend Lord Giddens and extend his view so that he will give further consideration to accepting an amendment which is only asking for a realistic appraisal of a real possibility.
If such an assessment were to be provided about what the relationship probably would and could be in the event of our departure, it would have a certain additional attraction. In my view, it would comprehensively counter and destroy the deceit of the Euro-secessionists; those people to whom the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, earlier referred, who seek to give the impression—both outside and inside the Conservative Party, and I do not mind which label they have—that withdrawal from the European Union would bring with it only opportunity and virtually no penalty whatever.
We have had enough allusions to the cases of Norway and Switzerland. Again in a praiseworthy passage in the Bloomberg speech, the Prime Minister said why the so-called Swiss or Norwegian options were simply not rational possibilities for our country to consider. If more detail about the reasonability of the Prime Minister’s stance were to be made available in good time and as a precondition of holding the referendum for the British people to understand and digest, a considerable favour would be done. Even more importantly than that, a real duty would be performed.