This is the speech Ed should have made on the EU
Hats off to Ed Davey for calling for an EU/UK customs union. Last month’s call rightly attracted media attention, and amounts to the first step towards the Lib Dems re-establishing ourselves as Britain’s most pro-European party.
As a signatory to the Guardian letter in November 2023 which called on the party leadership to make a clearer statement about what the Lib Dems stand for, I give credit to Ed for his EU speech. But he should have gone much further, and framed our party’s position differently. That may sound like an extreme position – after all, leaders have to tread cautiously and take people with them – but let me explain why last month’s stance was too tentative.
All political parties are trying to carve out an identity for themselves against a backdrop of disenchantment that is fuelling populism. In particular, the 18-35 age cohort, which strongly voted Remain, feels no-one speaks for it. It therefore needs an inspiring message, one that is relayed in human, not technocratic, terms.
The case against Brexit is so clear that there are only one-and-a-half reasons not to call for the process of Britain to rejoining the EU to start right now. The main reason is that there was so much divisiveness around the referendum campaign (and afterwards) that everyone is understandably keen to avoid reopening old wounds. But old wounds that have not healed only fester, so the rapprochement with Europe must include an acknowledgement that people are still sore. More importantly, in pursuing that rapprochement we must try to take Leave voters with us – whether they wish they had voted differently or not, they must feel respected, not feel they have lost face.
The half-reason is the fear that going back into the single market will stoke immigration. It’s a valid reason because immigration is high on voters’ concerns, so anything that looks like increasing the number of people entering the UK has the potential to boost support for the populists. But it’s only half a reason because immigration has gone up since we left the EU, not down.
Even though it’s party policy to seek to rejoin the EU at some point, it would be going too far beyond the Overton Window to call for that now. But re-entering the single market will do far more for the British economy than joining just a customs union, which is why Ed’s speech was didn’t go far enough. At some stage, the political wind will be blowing so strongly that someone prominent will be the first to say “Folks, Brexit was an undisputed mistake, and we need to start the process of rejoining the EU” – if the Lib Dem leader isn’t the first one to say that, the party will lose all its pro-Europe credibility.
This, therefore, is a précis of the speech Ed should have made:
“We opposed Brexit in 2016, because we’re not just outward-looking, cooperative Europeans, but we felt Brexit would be disastrous for Britain. We then felt the referendum had been won by Leave dishonestly – not just because of mendacious slogans on buses, but because the Leave campaign breached the spending limits designed to create a level playing field – so we pushed for a second referendum.
But when the 2019 general election clearly indicated confirmation of the 2016 result, as good democrats we went along with it. It doesn’t change our view that Brexit is bad for Britain, and we’ve been proved right on that. But we have respected the will of the people.
And yet there’s only so long we can deny the elephant in the room: Brexit isn’t working! More than that, it’s holding back our country and keeping people poor – many of them people who were encouraged to believe Brexit would be good for them.
So we must set about repairing the damage and becoming a fully fledged member of the continent of Europe again. But we must do so respecting every single person who voted Leave. In fact it is only due to Leave voters that have we seen clearly, once and for all, that we do need the EU. And now even more so with Donald Trump in the White House. Even with all its faults (and the EU certainly has its faults), we are still massively better off inside than outside. There are still wounds from the divisive battle between Leave and Remain – as we rebuild our relationship with the EU, we must take Leave voters with us, as we are all in this together.
So let us reclaim our place as a European country, respecting everyone’s doubts about the EU, and go forward without rancour as proud Brits and constructive Europeans!”
* Chris Bowers is a two-term district councillor and four-time parliamentary candidate. He writes on cross-party cooperation, was the lead author of the New Liberal Manifesto, and is unofficial coordinator of the Yorkists.
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10 Comments
I share Chris Bowers’s sentiments, but not his political analysis.
In my opinion, Ed Davey has positioned the Liberal Democrats correctly. It paces us as being clearly the most pro-EU party, without making us look like pro-EU obsessives. In the circumstances of February 2025, that is the right political position for us to be in, with important local elections coming up where we want lots of former Leave voters to support us, as well as former Remain voters.
The politics of Britain’s relationship with the EU will continue to evolve. The Lib Dem’s need to remain (sorry, I could not resist the pun) the most pro-EU party, without coming over as pro-EU fanatics.
I write this as someone who is a die-hard European federalist who would like to see a United States of Europe with Britain inside it.
‘it’s holding back our country and keeping people poor’
Plenty of poverty around in 2016, as there is now. The UK has significant regional divides, none of which EU membership made a difference. The talk of turbo charging the economy, whilst on the continent EU countries growth is stagnating , just like ours , just doesn’t add up. Labour have categorically ruled out SM , CU, etc. & I don’t think the public are that enthused about the EU – not now, and certainly not when we were in it.
I also share the sentiments of Chris Bowers.
I would like to see a more conciliatory approach which speaks to those who now think that it would have been better to vote to remain in the EU.
We can highlight that the LibDems were the largest party that actually made a collective decision at all on the issue. The two biggest parties were incapable of leading on this important topic.
So if you want Leadership toward better relations with Europe, support the LibDem Leaders.
Steve Nash is clearly right to call for a conciliatory tone in any EU advocacy, anything elae would simply stir up all the bitterness of 2016 to 2020 for nothing. And would also make the Party putting it forward unpopular.
But this does not go far enough. IWhat I would like to hear is an acknowledgement of the mistakes the pro EU side made long before the referendum was called. For example if Gordon Brown had held a referendum on the EU tree in the 2010s then I think the 2016 referendum could have been avoid. Either because if the EU Treaty had passed more people would have accepted it and if it didn’t pass we could have negotiated a deal which better satisfied a majority of people.
It was obvious to all but those wearing EU coloured spectacles that the EU was deeply unpopular. The success of UKIP proved that. Too many people on thr remain side were unable or unwilling to accept that many peiople either disagreed with them on the merits of the EU or did not benefit ffrom it.
Consider my home town of Lowestoft. In 1970 it had 2 shipyards, a fishing industry, 2 canneries and a factory making bodies for buses. All closed before the 2016 referendum. Maybe the EU weren’t responsible for these closures. But EU membership did nothing to prevent them. The fishing industry could have been saved had the UK Government negotiated a better deal through the CFP. If it had then at least one of the shipyards would probably have survived.
In that case perhaps the former fishing ports on the east coast would not have voted to leave.
I also agree with Chris Bowers’ sentiments but I don’t agree with his proposed messaging. Andrew is right to point out how unpopular the EU had become, and many of us were in denial of this now obvious fact.
I had argued throughout the early 2010s that we needed to speak more about the EU and what our MEPs were doing in Brussels to improve what is certainly not a perfect organisation, but the party seemed to think this was an issue on which we would lose votes and preferred to keep quiet. To his credit I recall Vince Cable speaking to a constituency dinner in 2011 or 2012 warning that there was a real risk of the UK ‘sleep walking out of the EU’.
So whilst I totally agree that we should be calling for a customs union (the stupidest decision of Theresa May was to leave this), I don’t think the time is right to demand the single market (and free movement) yet, and I feel we should be open in admitting that we were wrong to assume that it was obvious that the UK was better in the EU than out.
@ Nigel Quinton “Andrew is right to point out how unpopular the EU had become,”
That may or may not have been true in some parts of England, Nigel, but it was certainly not the case in Scotland.
The EU has been pretty clear that we could join the customs union – not sure they would be so keen to have us in the single market. Baby steps to rebuild trust seems appropriate – that is why I think Ed is right in what he has said.
Remember Regional Government in a Federal UK? When Prescott’s pilot Referendum in the NE of England got a ‘No’, we backed off the whole idea. The reason given was that it was rejected as another tier of local government that would add to bureaucracy and cost for no perceived benefit in real terms to the people of that region.
The Labour Party is now dismantling District Councils without a referendum, and planning to increase the number of mayoralties in different areas, leaving some without equivalent representation. These much larger areas than counties tend in their direction towards the Regional Government concept, which is still our Lib Dem policy.
Perhaps the solution we should support, with local elections coming up in May (where some have already been cancelled), is to suggest a fairer solution would have been to support Regional Government which would include everybody, abolish all the county councils rather than District Councils and bring democracy back closer to the people.
The Region would become the strategic authority, but the implementation decisions would be determined locally, with all appropriate funding devolved down to them.
As with the EU, we have to sell benefits to people, not statistics. Will you be better off?
David Murray, you are right to suggest keeping district councils because they are closer to the people. I would add a change in their responsibilities especially on day to day operational matters like highway maintenance and social care, keep small scale planning applications such as house extensions but remove strategic planning. We could also remove some of their back office roles such as legal advice to the higher tier.
I also think the details should be allowed to vary from area to area and government’s tendency to want uniformity across the country is mistaken.
Unfortunately this government is opposed to two tiers and that is also a mistake; the cost could be paid for by cutting down on Whitehall, this making it proper devolution.