Party leader Nick Clegg made his first speech on foreign affairs today at Chatham House.
The highlights are given in the press release on the party site, and his words are covered by the BBC here.
We’ll bring you the full text when the technology permits, and when the bulk of the Voice team aren’t on trains. The speech focussed on Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq, but for now, here’s Clegg’s views on the Lisbon Treaty
Like the French and Dutch voters who rejected the draft EU Constitution in 2005, Irish voters have given few pointers to the EU leaders on how to decipher their grievances – they are disparate, and point in several directions at once.
But this is no excuse for carrying on regardless.
That would only confirm in the minds of millions that the EU is ploughing ahead without any concern for the reservations of European citizens. Pro-Europeans – above all others – must not take this path.
Of course I am disappointed that Lisbon was rejected by the Irish people.
The provisions of the Lisbon Treaty were the right prescription for making an enlarged EU fit for purpose to tackle cross-border crime, climate change and security.
But if you ask me, what is more important at this stage: a strong sense of support and legitimacy for Europe, or the minor reforms of the Lisbon Treaty, I have to come down in favour of the former.
If that means we have to lose Lisbon and return to essential reforms further down the line, then so be it.
Of coursre the dilemmas which the treat sought to address will not disappear, no matter how much the Conservatives and others would wish it away. […]
But at some point, the incessant focus on how the EU makes decisions must give way to a focus on what decisions are taken, and why. Perpetual wrangling about the means by which the EU decides things has obscured the ends for which the EU was created in the first place.
The European Union is too important to get lost in its own internal battles and debates for several more months on end.
I seem to recall Clegg’s Orange Book chapter talked about changing what Europe should be responsible for.
We’ll bring you the speech in full later this evening.
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20 Comments
Very interesting, but does the House of Lords team voting to approve the Lisbon Treaty, really convey that we are serious with the “no excuse for carrying on regardless” message?
David, of course it doesn’t. He is trying to have his cake and eat it.
Anyone read the Guardian today on what LD member Lester Holloway is saying about Nick Clegg’s views on what is to be done?
About Zimbabwe of course. I forgot this is a general foreign affairs thread.
Here’s a link.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/23/zimbabwe2
I must say I find it surprising to hear Clegg talking so casually about cutting off remittances and (with Peter Hain) electricity to Zimbabwe. Surely if one thing is obvious, it’s that Mugabe is completely oblivious to the suffering of his people.
The article is right and Clegg is wrong. Cutting off remittances will only make things worse.
It is time we left the EU. It is naive to think that it can be reformed to suit our country. It can’t. We should become Associate Members, with Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein and any others who feel the same way, including probably Turkey in due course, and maybe Russia.
In Newbury in 1974 (Con 24,000, Lib 23,000, Lab 10,000) I clearly distinguished us (party discipline being looser in those days!) from the Conservatives by being in favour of greater equality of opportunity in education, health and the inheritance of wealth and from Labour by being in favour of the privatisation of all activities other than those which cannot or ought not (education and health) to be rationed by price.
If the Liberal Democratic Party could substitute for privatisation – as the distinguishing feature vis a vis New Labour – PROTEST at our full membership of the EU, CAP, CFP, etc, it would start with good reason to climb up the opinion polls again.
Internationalism need not mean little European protectionism. Are Liberals and/or Social Democrats really in favour of taxing ordinary people so that we can pay the Duke of Westminster £330,000 a year, every year, and the Duke of Cornwall £500,000 a year, every year, through the CAP, for the privilege of owning vast amounts of land that they have inherited tax free thanks to the outrageous asset and gift linked exemptions from the 40% Inheritance Tax that ordinary home owners pay on anything above £300,000 including the value of their homes?
The EU is causing our country to be extrememly badly governed at present, and has caused New Labour and the LibDems to be shown as deceitful rascals under their present leaderships, pretending the Lisbon Treaty is not effectively the same, even for Britain, as the Constitution for Europe, and particularly the LibDems with their offering of another referendum they think they might win instead of the referendum they promised but reneged upon because they know they would lose it. At what stage will it be worth re-joining the Liberal Democrats and fighting the EU-sceptic corner? Not till someone has taken the blame for the disgraceful Lisbon referendum deceit, I guess. Let’s see what the voters in Henley say about that.
Change the record, Dane Clouston. There isn’t some massive anti-EU constituency in the party, just waiting for you to give them a lead so they can speak out. It’s time to give up 🙂
After the Constitutional Treaty (Lisbon verson) betrayal, the LDs have zero credibility on foreign affairs.
How can you talk about democracy in Zimbabwe whilst opposing a referendum in the UK?
And give me that nonsense about an in/out referendum on the EU. If it became a serious possibility you’d all soil your underwear and do a 360.
‘Asquith’:
I am glad to see that the EU is still foreign affairs, even for LibDems!
Of course there isn’t a massive anti-EU constituency in the party at present! To be opposed to the EU has been a kind of heresy in the LibDems for years. We would have to rejoin. You have driven EU-sceptic Liberals away. Now look where it’s got you – struggling to reconcile your dated EU-fanatic orthodoxy with contrary public opinion! And after the EU-fanatic-inspired referendum fiasco, no one believes any more that you will do what you say you will do.
Time to give up? Maybe, if what you say is correct! But I have only just started! And there are glimmers of hope in posts by anonymous dissenters, but no doubt nothing of the kind on the members’ forum for the EU-faithful.
When I looked at the Home Page this morning there was an anti-EU breath of fresh air in a longer comment by David Evans on another thread. I was about to post a comment when the thread disappeared from sight, so far as I can see. Censored, perhaps – or maybe transferred to the members’ forum where he could be given a proper wigging by the EU-faithful members!
Are you sure that Holloway is a LibDem? He has come very close to calling us racist in the past
Global power is shifting from the West to the East, and as it does so it is not in the interests for Europe to be divided.
China and Russia are now capitalist countries in their different ways, and they show no signs of becoming democratic, which rather knocks on the head the theory that capitalism inevitably leads to democracy.
I find it odd that Nick Clegg refers to “minor reforms of the Lisbon treaty”. These “minor reforms” led to a serious division within the Liberal Democrats, as it did the other parties.
I detect an anti-political mood in the European countries, a willingness to say no and be sceptical.
Yet what are the alternatives? Become a junior partner of the USA, or become an annonymous little country for whom most care lttle?
Dane, the subject of Europe or the world should not be considered foreign affairs because they are inter- and intra- national questions. Britain is a constituent of both Europe and the World so you are failing in your imagination to exclude us from one or other in your conceptual framework.
You try to present a false dichotomy by asking the irrelevant question of whether we should be a member or not, rather than asking the interesting question of exactly what we should do with our membership. Similarly, I wonder what service your attendance here provides the continuity Liberal party – so, may I offer you some suggestions about what you can do with your membership?
I do not think it is necessary to be frightened into another huge Orwellian 1984-type bureaucratic empire, just because China, India, Russia, etc are large economies and are going to get larger.
We have the UN. We must strengthen that and also find a way of combining more powerfully with other democracies. We used to keep the balance of power on Continental Europe. There is something to be said for being free to take sides in a global world as an independent democratic country, while cooperating with others in many different appropriate ways.
There is something, too, to be said for maintaining an evolutionary diversity of national development. If the whole of China with its unindented coastline, had not been ruled by one emperor and if Europe had not been a collection of independent countries fitting into its jigsaw geography, America would be speaking Chinese nowadays instead of English.
Our friends in Britain are scattered round the country, not all concentrated in our local area. Why should our country’s friends not be scattered round the global world instead of just being European countries huddling together in a ‘little Europe’ mentality?
I do hope the Liberal Democrats will respond to the anti-EU mood in the country, and start reflecting political reality instead of a quasi-religious devotion to all things EU, right or wrong. Then I and others can rejoin them.
‘Oranjepan’
My last post was in response to Geoffrey Payne, whom I am sorry I forgot to mention.
I had not realised that you would pop up out of the woodwork – metaphorically speaking – while I was writing it.
I am afraid I must leave you to your definition of foreign affairs and other elliptical comments, without further comment from me.
Dane, it’s easy to want to disassociate onesself from things what disagrees with, but the act of disagreement presupposes participation: just as I disagree with this government on their policy towards detention without trial, for example, I’m not about to rip up my voting entitlement to absolve myself of any responsibility for trying to change it.
I’m glad you recognise the role of the UN, yet I’m disappointed over your reluctance to prefer to view the EU’s stepping-stone role as both subsidiary and complementary instead of competing.
The fear you refer to is a manifestation of confusion and disorganisation; the solution is reform in the search for order.
Surely continental integration IS evolutionary development and growth of national diversity – within a constrained geography – and one which prevents and mitigates beligerent expansionist tendencies you decry. Just look at the work done by EU regional policy in providing a legal and practical framework to defend and promote minority languages as part of our rich cultural tapesty. Look too at the groundwork EU processes provided for helping to form the basis for peace between the different communities in Northern Ireland.
It simply isn’t possible to deny our shared connections and histories. And if there is any negative sentiment toward the EU anywhere across the community, it is against aspects of this EU not against the IDEA of Europe.
‘Orangepan’
I repeat that “I am glad to see that the EU is still foreign affairs, even for LibDems!” That is the remark with which you chose to disagree. Distinctions are important. There are also domestic affairs. As I said, I leave you to your definition of foreign affairs, which would presumably lead you to combine the Foreign Office with the Home Office.
But of course, I forgot. You and fellow EU-fanatics would like there to be no UK Foreign Office, but just an EU Foreign Office, representing all EU former countries in the UN and elsewhere! And eventually, no doubt, an EU Home Office, ruling all former EU countries! Brussels rules! Count me – and most British people including I suspect many former LibDem voters – out!
In the meantime, we want democracy! We want the referendum we were promised. The other one – the one Nick Clegg and his EU-fanatic LibDem activists sneakily thought would do instead of the promise they have broken – can wait till later.
Dane, I’m rather glad you didn’t win your by-election in Newbury as you have a habit of misrepresenting others for your own benefit.
Some advice: stick to what you know best. In your case, just talk about yourself.
‘Oranjepan’
Check your facts. I stood in Newbury in the June 1970 and February 1974 and October 1974 General Elections. Wikipedia may help you.
You may keep your advice to yourself in future, thank you.
You seem to be descending the scale of politeness – a sign of being on weak ground. I leave you to the level you choose.
Dane, I’m at least happy that you took the advice, even if it sticks a little in your craw. And I think you’re confusing politeness with obequiousness. Thank you.