I am getting on with it. My question stands. I remind noble Lords that I am David Cameron at the moment and I shall continue with my speech.
“It is healthy to ask why we are in the EU. To be geographically precise, are we in Europe as seen from Peking? Of course we are. Are we in Europe as seen from Washington? Of course we are. If we were not, would Washington still look at a place called Europe as a great power in the world? Of course it would. The only thing is that we would not be there and we would be diminished. Therefore, this is the right place to be, but we have not been doing a very good job in answering that question recently, with the honourable exception of the speech given a month ago by Ed Miliband.
“People have suggested recently that Europe was somehow part of the cause of the financial crisis in 2008. That crisis has certainly spread around the world, including throughout Europe. It started off with Lehman Brothers in New York and London, but it is not the reason for the current crisis. We want the eurozone to succeed. If it does not, the penalties for Britain will be very heavy. We want to ensure that there is greater accountability in relation to EU spending, although I have to point out that the UK economy as a whole is a net beneficiary.
“I take this opportunity to remind some of my young Turks in smart City suits who have rural seats that I do not hear much talk of repatriating the common agricultural policy; nor do I hear much talk about which of the 10 measures under the Social Chapter are going to be candidates for repeal, because I now realise that they are there to stay. One of the central reasons for this and other questions is based on the proposition that we cannot cherry-pick the acquis. This is the fallacy of many of the speeches that people have attempted to put into the Conservatives newspapers to keep some sort of coherence in Conservative policy when coherence there is none.
“Why has Angela Merkel put so much political capital into the euro? She has done so because it is in Germany’s national interest but it is also in Europe’s interest. None of the existential doubt in Britain”—and I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, about the two overlapping existential doubts—“is based on anything other than two different types of mirage. If we are not careful, we will be back to the economic nationalism of the 1930s. We have, today, a worse recession than we had in the 1930s if one looks at the statistics”—my noble friend Lord Eatwell pointed this out in this House only a few days ago. “Speaking of the 1930s, I ask where exactly we want to see German military strength fitting into the European picture over the next 30 to 50 years. The answer is, surely, what one might call Foreign Office rule number 1 as applies to the EU: ‘If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em’; or, to use the vernacular, ‘It’s better to be inside the tent looking out than outside the tent looking in’.
“Nevertheless, to read the Telegraph, the Express, the Daily Mail and the Murdoch press, anyone would think that we had more influence in the world and played a more leading economic role outside than we do. However, these are simply the dying flailings of the
dinosaur’s tail of the insular world of the British press, which simply thinks that those beyond Calais cannot speak English and are therefore not for consideration.
“This leads to my final point about the problem of public opinion. Public opinion must be reached by intermediation—the media is short for intermediation. The media are 100% Anglo-American, English-speaking-only publishers. They do not have commercial interest in the success of the continent, and they do not want Europe to succeed. They are vitriolic towards Europe and want to keep the special relationship with the United States. However, if they think that, in the case of a Europe of a successful 28 without Britain in it, the United States would have a special relationship with Britain, all I can say is, ‘Your name must be Rip Van Winkle’. That, I say to my fellow friends in the Conservative Party, is the truth, and I ask you to reflect upon it.”
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