European Council

Edward Miliband Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)]

With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on recent developments in Libya and yesterday’s European Council.

Yesterday in Libya, after 42 years of tyranny and seven months of fighting, the national transitional council declared the formal liberation of their country. Everyone will have been moved by the pictures of joy and relief that we saw on our television screens last night. From Tripoli to Benghazi, from Misrata to Zawiyah, Libyans now dare to look forward, safe in the knowledge that the Gaddafi era is truly behind them.

This was Libya’s revolution, but Britain can be proud of the role that we played. Our aim throughout has been to fulfil the terms of the UN Security Council resolution, to protect civilians, and to give the Libyan people the chance to determine their own political future. With the death of Gaddafi, they now really do have that chance. The whole House will join me in paying tribute to our armed forces for the role that they have played—over 3,000 missions flown and some 2,000 strike sorties, one fifth of the total strike sorties flown by NATO. As the Chief of the Defence Staff has written this morning, it has been

“one of the most successful operations NATO has conducted in its 62-year history”.

I believe it is something the whole country can take pride in.

The decision to intervene militarily, to place our brave servicemen and women in the line of fire, is never an easy one. We were determined from the outset to conduct this campaign in the right way, and to learn the lessons of recent interventions, so we made sure the House was provided immediately with a summary of the legal advice authorising the action. We held a debate and a vote in Parliament at the earliest opportunity. We made sure that decisions were taken properly throughout the campaign, with the right people present, and in an orderly way. The National Security Council on Libya met 68 times, formulated our policy, and drove forward the military and the diplomatic campaign. We took great care to ensure that targeting decisions minimised the number of civilian casualties. I want to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) for his hard work on this issue.

It is a mark of the skill of RAF, British Army and other coalition pilots that the number of civilian casualties of the air attacks has been so low. The military mission is now coming to an end, and in the next few days, NATO’s Operation Unified Protector will formally be concluded. It will now be for Libyans to chart their own destiny and this country will stand ready to support them as they do so.

Many learned commentators have written about the lessons that can be learned from the past seven months. For our part, the Government are conducting a rapid exercise, while memories are still fresh, and we will publish its key findings. For my part, I am wary of drawing some grand, over-arching lesson—still less to claim that Libya offers some new template that we can apply the world over. I believe it has shown the importance of weighing each situation on its merits and thinking through carefully any decision to intervene in advance. But I hope it has also shown that this country has learned not only the lessons of Iraq, but the lessons of Bosnia too. When it is necessary, legal and right to act, we should be ready to do so.

Let me turn to yesterday’s European Council. This Council was about three things: sorting out the problems of the eurozone, promoting growth in the European Union, and ensuring that as the eurozone develops new arrangements for governance, the interests of those outside the eurozone are protected. This latter point touches directly on the debate in the House later today, and I will say a word on this later in my statement. Resolving the problems in the eurozone is the urgent and overriding priority facing not only the eurozone members, but the EU as a whole and indeed the rest of the world economy.

Britain is playing a positive role proposing the three vital steps needed to deal with the crisis: the establishment of a financial firewall big enough to contain any contagion; the credible recapitalisation of European banks; and a decisive solution to the problems in Greece. We pushed this in the letter we co-ordinated to the G20 and in the video conference between me, Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and President Obama last week. We did so again at the European Council this weekend and will continue to do so on Wednesday at an extra European Council meeting.

Ultimately, however, the way to make the whole of the EU, including the eurozone, work better is to promote open markets, flexible economies and enterprise. That is an agenda that Britain has promoted, under successive Governments and successive Prime Ministers, but it is now an agenda that the European Commission is promoting, too. We have many differences with the European Commission, but the presentation made by the Commission at yesterday’s Council about economic growth was exactly what we have been pushing for, driving home the importance of creating a single market in services, opening up our energy markets and scrapping the rules and bureaucracy that make it take so long to start a new business. Both coalition parties are pushing hard for these objectives.

This may sound dry, but if we want to get Europe’s economies moving and to succeed in a competitive world, these are the steps that are absolutely necessary. These are arguments that Margaret Thatcher made to drive through the single market in the first place, and which every Prime Minister since has tried to push. If the countries of the EU were as productive as the United States, if we had the same proportion of women participating in our economy, and if we were as fast and flexible at setting up new businesses, we would have the same GDP per capita as the United States. That is an aim we should adopt.

The remainder of the Council was spent on the safeguards needed to protect the interests of all 27 members of the European Union. The Council agreed that all matters relating to the single market must remain decisions for all 27 member states and that the European Commission must

“safeguard a level playing field among all Member States including those not participating in the Euro.”

That leads me directly to the debate we will have in the House later today. Members of my party fought the last election committed to three things: stopping the passage of further powers to the EU; instituting a referendum lock to require a referendum, by law, for any such transfer of powers from this House; and bringing back powers from Brussels to Westminster. All three remain party policy. All three, in my view, are in the national interest. In 17 months in government, we have already achieved two of the three. No more powers have gone to Brussels. Indeed, the bail-out power has actually been returned and, of course, the referendum lock is in place. I remain firmly committed to achieving the third: bringing back more powers from Brussels.

The question tonight is whether to add to that by passing legislation in the next Session of this Parliament to provide for a referendum that would include a question on whether Britain should leave the EU altogether. Let me say why I continue to believe that this approach would not be right, why the timing is wrong and how Britain can now best advance our national interests in Europe.

First, it is not right because our national interest is to be in the EU, helping to determine the rules governing the single market, our biggest export market, which consumes more than 50% of our exports and drives so much investment in the UK. That is not an abstract, theoretical argument; it matters for millions of jobs and millions of families and businesses in our country. That is why successive Prime Ministers have advocated our membership of the EU.

Secondly, it is not the right time, at this moment of economic crisis, to launch legislation that includes an in/out referendum. When your neighbour’s house is on fire, your first impulse should be to help put out the flames, not least to stop them reaching your own house. This is not the time to argue about walking away, not just for their sakes, but for ours.

Thirdly, and crucially, there is a danger that by raising the prospect of a referendum, including an in/out option, we will miss the real opportunity to further our national interest. Fundamental questions are being asked about the future of the eurozone and, therefore, the shape of the EU itself. Opportunities to advance our national interest are clearly becoming apparent. We should focus on how to make the most of this, rather than pursuing a parliamentary process for a multiple-choice referendum. As yesterday’s Council conclusions made clear, changes to the EU treaties need the agreement of all 27 member states. Every country can wield a veto until its needs are met. I share the yearning for fundamental reform and am determined to deliver it.

To those who support today’s motion but do not actually want to leave the EU, I say this: I respect your views. We disagree not about ends, but about means. I support your aims. Like you, I want to see fundamental reform. Like you, I want to re-fashion our membership of the EU so that it better serves our nation’s interests. The time for reform is coming. That is the prize. Let us not be distracted from seizing it. I commend this statement to the House.

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

I thank the Prime Minister for his statement. On Libya, I join him in expressing deep and abiding gratitude to members of the British armed forces. Over the past seven months, once again, our servicemen and women have been a credit to our nation, exercising our responsibility to the Libyan people and to uphold the will of the United Nations. That is why I have supported the Government in their actions, and I commend the Prime Minister on the role that he has played in taking the right and principled decisions on the issue.

There are difficult days ahead, and it is for the Libyan people to determine their future, but I agree with the Prime Minister that, alongside the responsibility to protect, which we exercised, is the responsibility to help rebuild—in particular, to help provide the expertise that the new Libya will require.

Let me now turn to Europe, and here my opening remarks reflect some of the things that the Prime Minister said. We are clear, and have been consistently, that getting out of the European Union is not in our national interest. Cutting ourselves off from our biggest export market makes no sense for Britain, and the overwhelming majority of British businesses, however unhappy they are with aspects of the EU, know that, too.

What is more, at this moment of all moments, the uncertainty that would ensue from Britain turning inwards over the next two years to debate an in/out referendum is something our country cannot afford. The best answer to the concerns of the British people about the European Union is to reform the way it works, not to leave it. We should make the completion of the single market, common agricultural policy reform, budget reform and reform of state aids the issue. That is why we will vote against the motion tonight.

This is the context for the European Council that the Prime Minister went to this weekend: growth stalled in Britain since the autumn; growth now stalling in Europe; unemployment rising; and the threat of a new banking crisis. That is why yesterday’s summit was so important.

I listened carefully to the Prime Minister’s statement, and it sounds like he now believes that Britain should play an active role in solving this crisis, but the truth is that month after month the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have chosen to grandstand on the sidelines, not to help sort out the issue. The Chancellor even refused to go to the initial meetings that he was invited to on the issue. They have shown no will to try to find the solutions.

Let me ask where the Prime Minister now stands. On banking, does he believe that the amount of recapitalisation being discussed is sufficient to ensure financial stability throughout the European banking system, particularly in the light of the International Monetary Fund’s larger estimates of capital required? On Greece, does he believe that the lessons of previously announced Greek bail-outs are being learned and will provide a genuinely sustainable solution? On growth, does he now understand that Europe will not get to grips with its debt problems until it gets to grips with a crisis of growth and the immediate lack of demand in the European economy?

I suppose we should be pleased that the Government have moved from the Chancellor being empty-chaired at the meetings to the Prime Minister at least wanting to get into them, but he will have to do better than yesterday, because he was surprisingly coy about his one real achievement at the summit. In a few short hours, he managed to write the euro version of “How to Lose Friends & Alienate People”. He went into the summit lecturing the Germans; he came out of it being shouted at by the French. Apparently, President Sarkozy, until recently his new best friend, had had enough of the posturing, the hectoring, the know-it-all ways. Mr President, yesterday you spoke not just for France but for Britain as well.

The Prime Minister was in Brussels, but his mind was elsewhere. The Tory party on Europe is suffering another nervous breakdown, with a Prime Minister making frantic phone calls home, Parliamentary Private Secretaries threatening to resign, and it is not just the Stone Roses on a comeback tour, because the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) is back among us, touring the television studios.

All the Prime Minister’s present difficulties are of his own making. What did he say in 2006? He said that instead of talking about the things that most people care about, we were banging on about Europe. However, he spent the last five years telling his Back Benchers that he may not be banging on about Europe but that, deep down, he is really one of them. He was warned that he might start by dabbling with Euroscepticism, but that it was a slippery slope. That is exactly what happened.

Does the Prime Minister regret getting out of the European People’s Party in favour of the right-wing fringe—[Interruption.] He says no, but I do not know whether he was aware that there was a dinner for EPP leaders on Saturday night. The German Chancellor was there, the French President was there, and the President of the Commission was there—mainstream centre right Europe—but the Prime Minister was not invited. He is the person who kept telling us that he was a Eurosceptic, who at the election promised renegotiation of the terms of Britain’s membership of the EU. His party is paying the price because it believed what he told them. The country is paying the price because we are losing influence.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister was at it again, and we heard it again today. He is locked in a row with his Back Benchers, and what do we see? We see the resurrection of the old classic to get out of the social chapter, and withdraw employment rights. The coalition agreement is clear. That option is off the table. The Deputy Prime Minister is nodding from a sedentary position. That option—the third option in the Prime Minister’s statement—is off the table, and the Foreign Secretary confirmed that again this morning. Let the Prime Minister answer this question. At the December summit, what position will he take? Will he be for renegotiation or against? The coalition agreement says that that option is off the table. He said in his statement that it is on the table. The position is totally unclear.

This goes to the heart of the Prime Minister’s ability to fight in Europe on behalf of this country. Like his predecessors, he is caught between the party interest and the national interest. We see a rerun of the old movie—an out-of-touch Tory party tearing itself apart over Europe—and all the time the British people are left to worry about their jobs and livelihoods. The Prime Minister should stop negotiating with his Back Benchers, and start fighting for the national interest.

[The Prime Minister]

First, I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind words on Libya. I agree that, as well as the responsibility to protect, we have a responsibility to help rebuild, and we will certainly do that.

What he said about Europe started well with praise for the importance of completing the single market, something he is in favour of and I am in favour of. He did not tell us about all his views on Europe. Yesterday, he was asked repeatedly whether Labour would join the euro, and the answer was instructive. He said:

“It depends how long I’m prime minister for.”

I am not sure which prospect is more terrifying.

The right hon. Gentleman accused the Government of not going to meetings in Europe. We have been going to meetings in Europe to get us out of the bail-out mechanism that Labour put us into. He asked what we are doing to make sure that bank recapitalisation is credible. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor spent 10 hours in an ECOFIN meeting on Saturday ensuring that that happened. It would not have done without his intervention.

On Greece, we certainly want decisive action. Let me be clear about that. The right hon. Gentleman then said an extraordinary thing about the French President—that he thought the French President spoke for Britain—[Interruption.] That is what he said. It is difficult from opposition to sell out your country, but he has just done it.

I struggled to look for a question to answer—there were not very many. The right hon. Gentleman talked about the importance of global leadership. Let me just remind him that one of the absolute keys is going to be the role of the IMF. Let us remember that he led his Back Benchers and all his Front Benchers through the Division Lobby to vote against the IMF deal that his own former Prime Minister had negotiated in London. That was a complete absence of leadership, like so much we see from the right hon. Gentleman.