1
00:00:01,240 --> 00:00:06,610
[Auto-generated transcript. Edits may have been applied for clarity.]
So I said say.

2
00:00:22,430 --> 00:00:31,549
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the 2016 time of the lecture at Lincoln College and Oxford University.

3
00:00:31,550 --> 00:00:37,460
It's a pleasure to see so many of you here this afternoon, and an even greater pleasure to welcome.

4
00:00:37,790 --> 00:00:48,350
Baroness Williams of Crosby, Baroness Williams started her distinguished career when she was elected in 1964 as the Labour MP for Hitchin.

5
00:00:48,830 --> 00:00:57,620
Prior to that, she had studied here at Somerville College, and then went on a Fulbright Scholarship to the US to postgraduate study.

6
00:00:58,490 --> 00:01:04,340
As she rose very rapidly through the ranks of the Labour Party to become Shadow Home Secretary,

7
00:01:04,670 --> 00:01:14,030
and in Harold Wilson's government assumed a ministerial position, first as the minister for, I think, prices and consumer protection.

8
00:01:15,200 --> 00:01:19,430
Um, and then secondly, as Secretary of State for education.

9
00:01:20,750 --> 00:01:29,180
And in 1981, unhappy with the women's anti Europe anti European sentiment in parts of the Labour Party,

10
00:01:29,480 --> 00:01:35,630
Baroness Williams formed uh was a founder and the first MP for the SDP,

11
00:01:35,690 --> 00:01:45,380
the Social Democratic Party, um and was elected as its first female MP to Parliament um in uh 87.

12
00:01:45,560 --> 00:01:51,530
She uh, left Parliament and went off to become an academic in uh, beneath uh, um,

13
00:01:51,530 --> 00:01:59,450
the Kennedy School of Government in Harvard University, um, where she, uh, um, lectured on elective politics.

14
00:02:00,290 --> 00:02:10,610
Um, she was elected as a sent to the House of Lords as a life here, uh, in the 1990s and has only recently stepped down from that position.

15
00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:16,690
Um, most people retire from their, their full time job in order to, uh, put their feet up.

16
00:02:16,700 --> 00:02:24,350
But I understand that Baroness Williams has done so in order to devote herself more single mindedly to, uh, the Brexit debate.

17
00:02:25,190 --> 00:02:35,420
Uh, The Guardian said recently that that one unbroken thread runs throughout the whole of Williams political life, and that is Europe.

18
00:02:36,560 --> 00:02:47,270
In 1971, Williams voted with 68 rebel Labour MPs, uh, with Edward Heath's government to take Britain into the European Union,

19
00:02:48,110 --> 00:02:56,510
and in 1975 she was a leader of the campaign for Britain to remain in Europe, uh, in the first European referendum.

20
00:02:57,950 --> 00:03:05,029
Uh, I think no one has fought harder and longer for Britain's membership of the European Union.

21
00:03:05,030 --> 00:03:07,610
And we look forward very much to hearing your lecture.

22
00:03:08,060 --> 00:03:14,870
And so afternoon, Baroness Williams, on the subject of European values and the value of being part of Europe.

23
00:03:15,590 --> 00:03:28,350
Thank you. Thank you very much indeed.

24
00:03:28,370 --> 00:03:32,390
Prince of all, how nice of you to say what you said. And thank you all for coming.

25
00:03:32,960 --> 00:03:38,930
Um, let me say, what I'm going to do is to talk, um, a little bit, first of all,

26
00:03:39,590 --> 00:03:46,010
about European values and how they have been shaped and formed in the recent, probably a century.

27
00:03:46,820 --> 00:03:49,580
Then I'm going to talk about the Grisha links,

28
00:03:49,580 --> 00:03:58,490
about the the various forces that have played together to create what one might begin to call a corpus of European values.

29
00:03:59,150 --> 00:04:08,930
And then, given the situation we're all in. I'm going to turn over to the last ten days of the European referendum, uh, arguments,

30
00:04:09,500 --> 00:04:14,510
and say something about the situation in which we find ourselves and talk a bit

31
00:04:14,510 --> 00:04:20,900
about what we may now try to deal with among the choices that confront us.

32
00:04:21,440 --> 00:04:30,980
But let me say two things. First of all. The first thing I want to say, first of all, is that there has been in my mind a tragedy in this referendum.

33
00:04:31,940 --> 00:04:40,040
What was meant to be and should have been a referendum about the pros and cons of this country's relationship to Europe,

34
00:04:41,120 --> 00:04:47,990
where we could have talked a bit about foreign affairs, about our relationships with Russia and other countries in the Eurasian continent,

35
00:04:48,560 --> 00:04:56,240
where we could have talked to some extent about the huge challenges that confront us in the new post-industrial age.

36
00:04:56,870 --> 00:05:06,379
We have, in fact, spent almost all the time in what one might describe as a lively and very bad tempered conversation about who should be the former,

37
00:05:06,380 --> 00:05:12,500
the thought, the next leader of the Conservative Party. And I believe that to be deeply sad,

38
00:05:13,280 --> 00:05:21,409
not because I don't agree that there should be a discussion about who should be the leader of the Conservative Party, but because, frankly,

39
00:05:21,410 --> 00:05:26,270
we are facing some of the most serious existential questions this country's ever going

40
00:05:26,270 --> 00:05:32,480
to face in this year and in the years to come that we have entered into this debate,

41
00:05:33,260 --> 00:05:41,210
often with very opinionated positions, sometimes quarrelling and arguing about whether what we're hearing are factually correct or not.

42
00:05:42,200 --> 00:05:50,540
What we haven't done as a country with a remarkable past and potentially a remarkable future,

43
00:05:51,260 --> 00:05:55,490
is to discuss what that future might look like and what we should do with it.

44
00:05:56,180 --> 00:05:59,870
And so I'm going to talk about that as well, because in this half an hour,

45
00:06:00,350 --> 00:06:03,860
we have those things to look at as well as the things we've already looked at.

46
00:06:04,490 --> 00:06:12,590
Let me begin by by saying something that all of you know, but it's worth remembering the week after next I should go to sleep.

47
00:06:12,590 --> 00:06:20,780
Fall. Where is Thiepval? See it fall is the memorial to the people who lost their lives at the battle of the Somme.

48
00:06:21,860 --> 00:06:26,810
And some of you who are historians will know that those losses were on a colossal scale.

49
00:06:27,860 --> 00:06:33,740
Something like 32,000 men was killed on the very first day of the Somme, but it didn't end there.

50
00:06:34,340 --> 00:06:43,550
It went on and on. Week after week after week, for something like nine weeks, leaving behind the blood soaked fields of France.

51
00:06:44,840 --> 00:06:55,069
And that experience, that piece of history had a colossal influence on those who began to build the European Community,

52
00:06:55,070 --> 00:06:59,300
as it then was not the European Union, but the European Community.

53
00:07:00,200 --> 00:07:02,210
It had two great insights.

54
00:07:03,020 --> 00:07:12,050
One was the sense of loss, which was shared throughout the continent of Europe and is still at the back of many people's minds even today.

55
00:07:13,280 --> 00:07:22,430
But the second, and it's important to emphasise this, was a remarkable and absolute determination that this would never be allowed to happen again.

56
00:07:23,740 --> 00:07:33,040
The men who drew up, and they were all men. European treaty documents shortly after the Second World War.

57
00:07:33,850 --> 00:07:39,670
Having seen in the course of less than half a century two major world wars.

58
00:07:40,240 --> 00:07:45,850
With thousands upon thousands of dead men and women as testimony to it.

59
00:07:47,080 --> 00:07:53,410
Has this extraordinary political determination, this commitment that they should never let this happen again.

60
00:07:54,340 --> 00:07:56,710
It was quite remarkable when one thinks about it.

61
00:07:57,520 --> 00:08:07,000
The leading figures in Britain, in France and in Germany, which is very important, were part of this dedication and this commitment.

62
00:08:07,900 --> 00:08:19,150
And so the very first thing to say about the European Union and the earlier European Community is that this is one of the driving factors in it all.

63
00:08:20,230 --> 00:08:27,760
People wonder why there was something called the Coal and Steel community, which is where it all began back in 1951.

64
00:08:28,780 --> 00:08:31,120
They sometimes forget that, of course, in those years.

65
00:08:31,120 --> 00:08:41,770
We're now talking about 1939, the two great resources of war, the resources that fed war and sustained it were coal and steel.

66
00:08:42,760 --> 00:08:46,450
When we look back at it from now, it all seems a long time ago,

67
00:08:47,320 --> 00:08:54,100
but without control of coal and steel, you could not fight a war, and certainly not a world war.

68
00:08:55,270 --> 00:09:00,670
And what mattered about that was that what happened was that they were, in effect, super nationalised.

69
00:09:01,390 --> 00:09:07,270
They came under the control of all the countries that were part of the coal and steel community,

70
00:09:08,020 --> 00:09:18,040
and that meant that they were governed, controlled and directed with an international goal rather than a national goal in mind.

71
00:09:19,510 --> 00:09:29,680
They developed, as you probably know, on to what became the beginning of the European Community not only coal and steel, but trade in goods.

72
00:09:30,730 --> 00:09:39,010
Not at that time a single market, but the beginning of the breaking down of the various restraints and restrictions that govern trade.

73
00:09:39,850 --> 00:09:45,400
And they moved on through the 1960s to gradually developing political,

74
00:09:45,970 --> 00:09:53,110
economic and cultural elements in themselves, but always, always to all this time.

75
00:09:53,260 --> 00:10:03,940
There's 30 years from 1945 through to 1975, there was this passionate sense of what the direction of all this was going to be.

76
00:10:05,700 --> 00:10:13,350
If we then step a bit further forward by the time we get to the mid 1970s, as most of you will know,

77
00:10:14,090 --> 00:10:18,270
and Mrs. Thatcher was on her way to power become leader of the Conservative Party,

78
00:10:19,200 --> 00:10:27,900
she was asked by that great, uh, community servant, Jack the Lord, what the way forward might be to greater integration.

79
00:10:28,680 --> 00:10:34,170
But in a way, somebody accepted to Mrs. Thatcher, who was not an enthusiast for political integration,

80
00:10:35,370 --> 00:10:42,930
and it was Mrs. Thatcher who essentially offered Jack to law the choice between if he wished to go ahead to greater integration,

81
00:10:43,740 --> 00:10:48,300
doing it by the economic roots and particular by the roots of the single market.

82
00:10:49,260 --> 00:10:55,530
We have today got a single market, one which many businesses rate very highly.

83
00:10:56,400 --> 00:11:02,970
But where it's worth saying that many people still don't realise that the single market is only halfway through its development.

84
00:11:04,080 --> 00:11:13,830
If we were to move on to a single market in services, there would be probably a substantial increase in the prospects,

85
00:11:14,760 --> 00:11:22,470
not least in terms of the profits to be made from having a single market which covers services as well as goods.

86
00:11:23,160 --> 00:11:28,260
And the United Kingdom, of course, more than most, is a country which itself, as you will all know,

87
00:11:28,260 --> 00:11:34,950
has switched steadily away from goods to services over the last 2030 years and

88
00:11:34,950 --> 00:11:40,109
nowadays has a much stronger position in services than it does in goods somewhere,

89
00:11:40,110 --> 00:11:51,419
it seems. The pity. The second thing that I want to talk about in respect of the development of the European Community, is that it has inevitably,

90
00:11:51,420 --> 00:12:01,860
unnecessarily become more involved in international politics, more involved in international perceptions of how to live with other countries.

91
00:12:02,340 --> 00:12:06,420
That was true earlier on, and I want to make the point very strongly.

92
00:12:07,520 --> 00:12:14,450
Put made by long ago by Winston Churchill that the United Kingdom is in the extraordinarily fortunate position.

93
00:12:15,490 --> 00:12:19,180
Of belonging to almost all his so-called concentric circles.

94
00:12:19,960 --> 00:12:28,930
Winston Churchill pointed out that the extraordinary thing about the United Kingdom was it it belonged to the Commonwealth.

95
00:12:29,800 --> 00:12:36,790
Belong to the European Community. Belong to the special relationship with the United States and most, in effect,

96
00:12:36,790 --> 00:12:44,649
the only European country that had a presence in all these concentric circles and these concentric circles, Churchill said.

97
00:12:44,650 --> 00:12:53,110
Long ago, back in the 1960s, not long before his death, where the centre of our unexpectedly great influence,

98
00:12:53,650 --> 00:12:59,559
because we were a bridging country which was to be found involved in the creation of many

99
00:12:59,560 --> 00:13:04,780
of these international organisations and in the relationship one had with the other.

100
00:13:05,710 --> 00:13:15,520
And that's important because of course, some like the Commonwealth, interracial and Inter Geographic and others like the European Union itself,

101
00:13:16,090 --> 00:13:19,960
would have a much more specific nature with very specific purposes in mind.

102
00:13:21,430 --> 00:13:25,060
Let me then pause for a minute and say that to my mind.

103
00:13:25,660 --> 00:13:34,450
One of the saddest things about this debate we have just been having is how little attention has been paid to our role in the concentric circles,

104
00:13:35,320 --> 00:13:43,930
how little notice we take of the endless references to the fact that Commonwealth leaders, United States,

105
00:13:44,620 --> 00:13:51,220
and of course, other European leaders keep spelling out their belief that we have an essential role to play.

106
00:13:52,480 --> 00:13:59,230
There is quite a strong will or wish in some parts of this nation to abdicate from all that,

107
00:14:00,010 --> 00:14:08,800
to pull out and not be any longer involved in the extraordinarily difficult questions that now confront us from the flow of refugees,

108
00:14:09,580 --> 00:14:19,900
by way of the growing concern and indeed restlessness of Russia by way of the relations that we have with the Far East.

109
00:14:21,340 --> 00:14:26,590
Let me turn from that to say a few words more about the European Union itself.

110
00:14:27,880 --> 00:14:34,060
The values of Europe stem from two great intellectual flows, in my view.

111
00:14:34,600 --> 00:14:40,600
Uh, and they are responsive to both. One of those flows is familiar to all of us.

112
00:14:41,140 --> 00:14:47,170
It is what I might call the great liberal values that flow from the French Revolution on,

113
00:14:47,980 --> 00:14:56,620
and are above all about individual liberty and to some extent, of course, the case of France references also to equality and fraternity.

114
00:14:57,670 --> 00:15:07,840
But those values are also very clear from the American Constitution and from, in Britain, the gradual emergence of a philosophy of human rights,

115
00:15:08,590 --> 00:15:17,920
which is what in part this lecture is about, where essentially based upon this concept of the individual and his or her significance.

116
00:15:19,070 --> 00:15:32,150
Human rights must not be for one moment devalued in this the great strengths in D.the magic, if you like, of the European Covenant of Human Rights,

117
00:15:32,900 --> 00:15:44,510
is that it is the only structure in the world where an individual can take his or her own state to the court for a decision throughout the world.

118
00:15:44,510 --> 00:15:54,950
Structure of. International law. The position has almost always been that an individual can have a case with another individual.

119
00:15:55,700 --> 00:16:02,210
He or she may have a case with a person in a community, or a trade union, or something of that kind.

120
00:16:03,080 --> 00:16:11,060
But the ability to take your own states to a court, to decide whether your rights have been upheld or have been infringed,

121
00:16:11,780 --> 00:16:24,260
is a crucial element in the whole flow of legal sense of the rule of law, of the survival of democratic protection for individuals.

122
00:16:24,950 --> 00:16:30,110
And that was one of the two great flows that produced the situation with which we live today.

123
00:16:31,220 --> 00:16:39,710
I will not for a moment hide from you my huge fear that we are now seeing our own covenant of human rights.

124
00:16:40,250 --> 00:16:50,300
Originally signed in 1950 under considerable threat, with a growing move to say that the time has come for a specifically British Bill of rights.

125
00:16:51,050 --> 00:16:56,680
And the time has come to abandon the European Covenant. Let us be very direct about that.

126
00:16:57,780 --> 00:17:03,080
A British Bill of rights by the nature of its title. Could not be global.

127
00:17:04,340 --> 00:17:05,660
Could not even be continent.

128
00:17:06,740 --> 00:17:14,990
A British Bill of rights would be a strange, in my view, hangover from the Imperial age and wholly inappropriate to the modern world.

129
00:17:16,670 --> 00:17:25,340
Let me next say a word or two, if I can, about some of the issues that the young generation is now confronting,

130
00:17:26,150 --> 00:17:29,120
and they really swing around the whole concept of sovereignty.

131
00:17:30,080 --> 00:17:38,120
It has become very popular, particularly for those in the leave group of of people to talk about the importance of sovereignty.

132
00:17:39,290 --> 00:17:43,790
We'll pause for a minute and ask yourself what the sovereignty is all about.

133
00:17:47,110 --> 00:17:53,920
How can you have a sovereign response to, for example, the problem of climate change?

134
00:17:55,160 --> 00:18:01,190
I've recently come back from India. The temperature there at the time was 38.

135
00:18:02,000 --> 00:18:07,990
Rising towards 40. Terrifying with each month that passed.

136
00:18:08,000 --> 00:18:15,050
And the same is true of April in England. An increase in the average temperature month by month.

137
00:18:15,890 --> 00:18:19,340
It is all happening much more quickly than we realise.

138
00:18:20,210 --> 00:18:29,240
But you cannot have a sovereign response to the issue of climate change or the issue of resource running out.

139
00:18:30,080 --> 00:18:34,819
These are not sovereign issues. These are global issues where it is.

140
00:18:34,820 --> 00:18:41,090
The interrelationship between countries is crucial to what we do in January.

141
00:18:41,090 --> 00:18:44,960
As many of you will know, particularly those of you who are involved in science.

142
00:18:45,860 --> 00:18:53,930
There was a rather remarkable breakthrough in Paris at the famous climate conference that was chaired by the government of France,

143
00:18:54,530 --> 00:18:57,980
chaired, if I may say so, brilliantly about the government of France.

144
00:18:58,850 --> 00:19:07,850
The previous major conference on climate change was the one that was held in Copenhagen a year and a half ago.

145
00:19:08,600 --> 00:19:13,430
It was a failure. Many people signed, many people made commitments.

146
00:19:13,970 --> 00:19:22,190
Nobody did anything very much. And the Danes, who had committed themselves passionately to the climate change conference,

147
00:19:22,850 --> 00:19:28,670
had to admit that they had got less than half of what they had hoped to get at Paris, thank God.

148
00:19:29,330 --> 00:19:44,180
Much of that failure was saved. There were people signing into law various restrictions on the amount of of a kind of high carbon gas.

149
00:19:44,870 --> 00:19:48,230
There is restrictions on the level of energy creation.

150
00:19:48,860 --> 00:19:55,040
Various restrictions on individual need to conserve energy in individual houses in individual countries.

151
00:19:55,760 --> 00:19:59,780
And it came out therefore as at least a reasonable compromise.

152
00:19:59,780 --> 00:20:03,140
Not a perfect answer, no, but a reasonable compromise.

153
00:20:03,830 --> 00:20:09,650
It was one that would not have been achieved if we tried to achieve a single sovereign outcome.

154
00:20:10,310 --> 00:20:21,710
Because you cannot restrict pollution or the movement of climate one way or another across borders by a sovereign decision, the nature of nature,

155
00:20:22,460 --> 00:20:27,980
or you have goals up to which you prefer to say is not to recognise restrictions

156
00:20:28,310 --> 00:20:33,560
on borders that themselves cannot restrict pollution or changes in the climate.

157
00:20:34,850 --> 00:20:36,530
That's how you one example of many.

158
00:20:37,310 --> 00:20:46,790
I think what we're going to see in the next few decades is tremendous challenges, not just on climate, but on a whole range of other things.

159
00:20:47,240 --> 00:20:49,940
I'll give you just two examples to be going on.

160
00:20:51,080 --> 00:21:02,990
One is the astonishing courage and determination taken by the Commission or Commissioner for competition at the present time.

161
00:21:04,250 --> 00:21:15,350
She is a Danish lady, and she has taken off after the great companies that laugh in the face of those who try to restrict evasion from taxation,

162
00:21:16,130 --> 00:21:21,170
and said that they must live like other citizens and do what a citizens is demanded of them.

163
00:21:22,280 --> 00:21:32,479
She has told us all in the last few days that she is going to insist that the Googles of this world and the various equivalents,

164
00:21:32,480 --> 00:21:38,570
the Amazons and so on, by the by, Amazon is just about to spread into the whole of the retail industry very soon now.

165
00:21:39,320 --> 00:21:44,690
She's made it quite clear that if they wish to operate as competitive companies,

166
00:21:45,500 --> 00:21:54,230
she will expect them and the Commission will expect to pay a will same basis as every other company, including small and medium sized companies.

167
00:21:54,740 --> 00:21:57,740
The taxation that is duly to be paid by them.

168
00:21:58,880 --> 00:22:03,920
Now if you read the Financial Times, you will see this in article after article.

169
00:22:03,920 --> 00:22:11,090
They point out that most nation states do not have the courage or the capacity to bring

170
00:22:11,090 --> 00:22:15,230
the Googles and the Amazons of this world to the point where they have to obey the law,

171
00:22:15,260 --> 00:22:16,400
just like you and I do.

172
00:22:17,690 --> 00:22:27,170
And that's a very substantial step forward, because it means that what we're doing is bringing back into law and the rule of law.

173
00:22:27,920 --> 00:22:31,670
Companies so large they consider these things don't apply to them.

174
00:22:32,750 --> 00:22:36,170
Sovereignty is no longer only a national characteristic.

175
00:22:36,890 --> 00:22:44,150
It's also very often nowadays, an economic characteristic, and one we have to consider in that light.

176
00:22:45,590 --> 00:22:51,590
Let me then go on for just a moment more to talk a bit about foreign affairs.

177
00:22:52,520 --> 00:22:59,110
I hope you will have that I have not made. Any personal attacks on anybody, and I do not intend to do so.

178
00:23:00,160 --> 00:23:05,229
One of the things that most frightens me about this whole referendum campaign is that

179
00:23:05,230 --> 00:23:11,049
the considerable cynicism in which elected politicians are held by the public and,

180
00:23:11,050 --> 00:23:19,270
in my view, has had a lot to do with the awfulness of this campaign, grows out of the fact that the Queensberry Rules don't seem to apply anymore.

181
00:23:20,020 --> 00:23:26,800
And that in turn, of course, leads to a deep cynicism on the part of the public towards those that they elect.

182
00:23:27,730 --> 00:23:34,270
That deep cynicism, and it is very deep indeed, could destroy democracy relatively easily.

183
00:23:35,080 --> 00:23:41,410
It is not a game for everyone to play, for the media to point out that politicians are a bunch of crooks.

184
00:23:42,280 --> 00:23:46,540
And if you think that politicians are a bunch of crooks, you get a bunch of crooks to be all politicians.

185
00:23:46,870 --> 00:23:55,570
It's as simple as that. So going back for a moment, then to what I was trying to say about the nature of all this in terms of democracy,

186
00:23:56,890 --> 00:24:00,070
it is that we have to do take this very seriously.

187
00:24:00,640 --> 00:24:02,860
We have, in my view, to address this country.

188
00:24:03,580 --> 00:24:11,680
If we stay in and I'll come back to if we go out, we have to address how we make the European Community Marathon,

189
00:24:11,890 --> 00:24:15,730
as it now is a more democratic place and it currently is.

190
00:24:16,570 --> 00:24:23,020
Now, the funny thing is, if you believe in making the European Union more democratic than it currently is.

191
00:24:24,180 --> 00:24:27,480
A very large part of the solution lies in the hands of guess what?

192
00:24:28,460 --> 00:24:34,190
This country, which has refused to move in the direction of making it more democratic.

193
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:44,660
What do I mean? Give you an example. Why don't we agree that when we appoint a commissioner, he or she should appear before Parliament,

194
00:24:45,590 --> 00:24:51,320
should answer questions from parliamentarians, what's known as advise and consent in American Senate?

195
00:24:52,550 --> 00:24:58,400
Should then be chosen and selected only when he or she is able to carry a majority

196
00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:02,750
of the Members of Parliament in the House of Commons for their appointment,

197
00:25:03,620 --> 00:25:05,840
and should then be given in turn by Parliament.

198
00:25:06,620 --> 00:25:14,929
In my view, at least one day a month where they answer questions about what's happening in the Commission and in the European Parliament,

199
00:25:14,930 --> 00:25:15,650
in other words,

200
00:25:16,040 --> 00:25:25,460
where they become accountable to MPs and suggests that every other country in the European Union that has got a commissioner, they all have.

201
00:25:26,060 --> 00:25:32,480
Should we go through exactly the same process? Imagine how much more we, the country,

202
00:25:32,480 --> 00:25:41,420
which knows less about the European Union than any other member who isn't in the very recent group of people who are joined from Eastern Europe,

203
00:25:42,170 --> 00:25:47,780
but who have got very little knowledge of the European Union, would find that we had a great deal more.

204
00:25:48,470 --> 00:25:55,280
Imagine if you turned on the BBC to listen to today in Parliament, and one day in every fortnight.

205
00:25:55,730 --> 00:25:58,400
It was about today in the European Parliament.

206
00:25:59,210 --> 00:26:08,510
We would all be very much wiser than we are, because it does actually suit governments, including our own, to not do too much about it.

207
00:26:08,510 --> 00:26:13,040
So they can always blame the European Union. If something happens, it's unpopular.

208
00:26:14,000 --> 00:26:23,480
You will know the famous example when it emerged that the decision not to charge any tariff on Chinese dumped steel

209
00:26:24,320 --> 00:26:29,990
was the one that had been stopped by the United Kingdom government and had been proposed by the French government.

210
00:26:31,070 --> 00:26:39,950
Not one Britain in ten knows that. They all assume that somehow the weakened European Union came along and stopped Port Talbot.

211
00:26:39,950 --> 00:26:45,470
Being saved is rubbish and it's untrue, and I hope to God Port Talbot will be saved.

212
00:26:46,340 --> 00:26:55,130
But we lived for day after day in the false impression that this was the case, and very few people, even today, know what the truth was.

213
00:26:57,080 --> 00:27:08,640
Last of all, and let me turn to foreign affairs. This is one [INAUDIBLE] of a dangerous time to be destabilising the contents of Europe.

214
00:27:09,270 --> 00:27:17,940
And that's exactly what is likely to happen. The Russians are still in part of Ukraine occupying it.

215
00:27:19,010 --> 00:27:30,710
Occupying it because they haven't been told to leave. There is still great unease and great difficulty in the relationship between Russia and Ukraine,

216
00:27:31,460 --> 00:27:34,650
and it's high time that the European Union got involved.

217
00:27:34,680 --> 00:27:39,050
The extent of starting new talks to try to bring about a peaceful settlement,

218
00:27:39,740 --> 00:27:47,060
which might involve the presence of a United Nations peacekeeping force between eastern Ukraine and the border of Russia.

219
00:27:47,360 --> 00:27:56,870
That's the kind of thing we ought to be able to do. Second example, the European Union, not militarily but in terms of civic peace,

220
00:27:57,650 --> 00:28:02,030
should pick up responsibility of some of the big issues that confront us,

221
00:28:02,030 --> 00:28:08,900
which can only be dealt with by an outcome of long, careful patient negotiation.

222
00:28:09,650 --> 00:28:19,190
Two examples. One. Some of you may have come across as I've done, and that has been extremely efficient dealing with the problem of privacy.

223
00:28:19,970 --> 00:28:25,160
Sorry. Piracy in the Indian Ocean conducted by a group.

224
00:28:25,640 --> 00:28:27,800
Not in this case of the United States, NATO,

225
00:28:28,700 --> 00:28:37,340
but a group of European navies ensuring that ships have a peaceful passage around the very dangerous coast of Somalia.

226
00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:42,530
And today, you can go back and take that route with relative safety.

227
00:28:43,370 --> 00:28:47,420
A few months ago, it was very close to having to be closed down altogether.

228
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:53,960
That's a good example and another example, which to my mind is absolutely brilliant.

229
00:28:54,860 --> 00:28:59,690
But that's partly because I spent a lot of my life looking into issues of nuclear proliferation.

230
00:29:00,820 --> 00:29:06,340
Most what many of you will remember that astonishing divergence between what the United States

231
00:29:06,340 --> 00:29:11,260
thought we should do about Iran and what the European Union thought it should do about Iran.

232
00:29:12,370 --> 00:29:15,550
And the person who went out and talked and talked and talked.

233
00:29:16,570 --> 00:29:23,620
Cathy Ashton, a Briton who was the Commissioner for Foreign affairs and eventually led to a

234
00:29:23,620 --> 00:29:30,610
decision by Iran to cease the refinement at least for 15 years of nuclear weapons,

235
00:29:31,540 --> 00:29:43,090
was a staggering contrast to the way that we dealt much earlier with the Iraq situation, with all the terrible, terrible events that have followed.

236
00:29:44,110 --> 00:29:52,090
So don't underestimate the capacity of the European Union to deal with some of the key international matters of the time,

237
00:29:52,870 --> 00:30:01,540
but to do so without carrying with them a legacy of empire or oppression, which makes them suspect among those they're trying to negotiate with.

238
00:30:02,680 --> 00:30:07,720
I don't want to talk too long because I you have questions to ask, and I'll try to answer them as best I may.

239
00:30:08,470 --> 00:30:18,760
But let me conclude with what I'm going to say about now, the two immediate crises that confront us, and they confront us next week.

240
00:30:19,720 --> 00:30:24,610
The first of those is the possibility of a complete breakdown of the United Kingdom.

241
00:30:25,630 --> 00:30:29,770
I do not know whether those who are in the leave campaign,

242
00:30:30,460 --> 00:30:36,250
and some of them are highly intelligent men, think all men, but highly intelligent nonetheless.

243
00:30:39,060 --> 00:30:42,870
I've never. I think it's fair to say, correct me if you think I'm wrong.

244
00:30:43,530 --> 00:30:49,200
There has never been serious consideration given to the possibility of the end of the United Kingdom.

245
00:30:50,190 --> 00:30:55,650
When you think about it, it's an extraordinary irony that a government that felt it had to hold a referendum.

246
00:30:56,610 --> 00:31:01,830
Maybe the government presides over the end of the government of the country which it governs.

247
00:31:02,280 --> 00:31:08,130
But it's more impossible. Why? Well, first, we all know the position on Scotland.

248
00:31:09,030 --> 00:31:14,550
It may be delayed because once again, the oil price is conveniently fallen yet further,

249
00:31:15,390 --> 00:31:23,310
and Scotland will find it very hard to keep together if there's no Barnett formula to assist it through hard economic times.

250
00:31:23,880 --> 00:31:29,430
And I certainly don't wish that on my Scottish friends, the Scottish family, but it is a real possibility.

251
00:31:30,390 --> 00:31:41,010
And that would mean, if it happens, that the Scottish National Party will be driven to some extent, certainly to demand a new referendum in Scotland.

252
00:31:41,460 --> 00:31:46,680
If not immediately, then within a year or two, and even if not towards in a year or two.

253
00:31:47,790 --> 00:31:56,970
Think for a moment about the investment consequences of simply not knowing whether the country into which you may invest is going to be independent,

254
00:31:57,540 --> 00:32:07,619
or continue to be part of the United Kingdom. Those of you who are economists or financiers or bankers will be very much aware how damning that is,

255
00:32:07,620 --> 00:32:14,460
how blighting it is to any long term attempt to try to invest in Scotland or any other country.

256
00:32:15,630 --> 00:32:16,890
The second example,

257
00:32:17,490 --> 00:32:26,010
which also is part of the possible Break-Up of the United Kingdom and in some ways an even more ironic and tragic one, is, of course,

258
00:32:26,580 --> 00:32:31,020
what might happen to the Good Friday Agreement, for example,

259
00:32:31,020 --> 00:32:41,400
which is famous worldwide of how to end an ancient historic battle which has involved many deaths and has blighted many lives.

260
00:32:42,210 --> 00:32:48,990
There is today no border, as you probably know, between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

261
00:32:49,140 --> 00:32:54,000
None at all. People are waved through by the police on both sides.

262
00:32:55,060 --> 00:33:01,300
If the day after next week, we leave the United, the European Union.

263
00:33:02,230 --> 00:33:06,010
One of the first things that has to happen is the reconstruction of a border.

264
00:33:06,730 --> 00:33:12,490
It cannot be avoided because Britain is not a member of the Schengen borderless agreement.

265
00:33:13,180 --> 00:33:22,780
And Ireland is. If you then have the end of that border free relationship between Ireland and the United Kingdom.

266
00:33:23,800 --> 00:33:27,130
One of the things that might happen, I hope to God it doesn't predict political,

267
00:33:27,970 --> 00:33:34,630
would be the slow reawakening of the Talibans that are part of the terrorist movement on both sides.

268
00:33:35,560 --> 00:33:41,050
There will be some who will say, now that we're no longer part of the same European Union,

269
00:33:41,740 --> 00:33:49,960
it's time to set up once again our basic demands and our basic expectations as nationalist countries.

270
00:33:50,770 --> 00:33:55,270
That would be not only a tragedy for Ireland, the Republic and the North.

271
00:33:55,930 --> 00:34:04,000
It would be an absolute tragedy for Britain's huge achievement in managing to get those two countries not only to work together,

272
00:34:04,630 --> 00:34:08,020
but to have a partnership in government of another remarkable kind.

273
00:34:08,860 --> 00:34:18,129
Those of you who go to Ireland will know that the relationship that now exists is an altogether different kind than the one that was there 20,

274
00:34:18,130 --> 00:34:25,480
30 years ago, when people like me or John Major or whoever you like to name walked in risk of their lives,

275
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:28,450
because at any moment they might be the targets of terrorism.

276
00:34:29,950 --> 00:34:39,099
So bringing that in the possibility of the breakdown of the United Kingdom has led people like Prime Minister John Major to,

277
00:34:39,100 --> 00:34:46,120
in a sense, cry out in agony for there to be a more thoughtful consideration that's given to what we should do now.

278
00:34:47,380 --> 00:34:57,070
And the other thing I will leave you with is this if you close your eyes and think that tomorrow it's all over and we're out of the European Union.

279
00:34:58,240 --> 00:35:01,690
Ask yourself the question, what is this going to look like?

280
00:35:02,590 --> 00:35:05,770
What we do. How we start training again.

281
00:35:06,460 --> 00:35:11,290
How we negotiate the whole structure on which all this is dependent.

282
00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:18,910
And ask yourself most of all whether the inheritance from our grandparents and our parents.

283
00:35:19,540 --> 00:35:27,160
Because like many of you, both my parents generation and the one before it lost many of their closest and dearest relatives.

284
00:35:27,880 --> 00:35:31,330
Ask yourself whether and where we think they're going now.

285
00:35:31,690 --> 00:35:32,620
And thank you for listening.