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EU: UK Membership

My Lords, it is a privilege to speak in this debate among such an array of distinguished speakers. The relationship of the UK to the European Union and the wider relationships of the European Union itself have been regular subjects of debate in this House, for good reason. We are dealing with our common heritage and our common future, albeit in an ever more global context. The discussion moves on, of course. The current Union of 27 sovereign states is a very different entity both actually and potentially when compared with the Union which the UK first joined. One of the key questions in the future will be whether there is a natural limit to membership if contiguous states are able to meet the underlying criteria for membership, based on respect for human rights, a properly functioning democracy and the rule of law. I do not personally think that any limits can be set on the future expansion of the EU, although it will continue to change in new ways by dint of that expansion. In a historical sense, the natural boundaries were set by the very word ““Europe””. As a schoolboy, I was taught that Europe was one of the continents of the world, and it was only later that I realised that, from a purely geographical point of view, this did not quite make sense. Indeed, when we look at a map, it is quickly clear that what we call ““Europe”” is really just one end of a very large Asian land mass into which the surplus populations of Asia have in fact regularly migrated. So why did we come to speak of Europe as a distinct continent? One clue lies in the maps themselves, because before the 18th century where we would now put the word ““Europe”” we would usually have found the word ““Christendom””. In many ways, the term ““Europe”” denotes that part of the pan-Asian land mass where a broad and diverse Christian civilisation took root over many centuries. Modern Europe largely bears the contours of older Christendom, butwith other powerful forces shaping its current life—overtly secular currents of thought deriving mainly fromthe Enlightenment and also now significant communities formed by other religious traditions, especiallyIslam. In my contribution to today’s important debate, I want to suggest that while there can be no dreams of putting the clock back to the older Christendom, and indeed the EU is now in prospect of actually expanding beyond it, there are aspects of our Christian heritage which can help us to face and embrace the challenges before us. By challenges I refer both to the relationship of this country with the EU itself and, perhaps even more importantly, to the relationship of the EU with the global village which the world increasingly presents to us. Two aspects of Christian thought have been especially important historically. The first is the basic belief that the world is created and therefore has its own freedom and independence in relation to God, even amid its dependence upon him. In Christian thought, this was sharpened by the central motif of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which imported into Christian thought a strong dissatisfaction with the way the world is today and a sense of the limitation of what Governments can achieve in the circumstances of a fallen world. There was the belief that all human structures and institutions are at best incomplete and point to a different and better future in God’s time. This was classically set out by St Augustine in his work City of God, and this bequeathed to European civilisation, admittedly in a patchy and lengthy way, a sense of the relativity of all political systems, and with it the accompanying values of tolerance and openness to others which perhaps are the key European values in our heritage. Good government always has to recognise the limits of its governance. The 20th century saw political life in Europe captured by intolerant, totalitarian ideologies which caused havoc both in the societies concerned and beyond, and we are still recovering from that. Indeed, the early vision of the EU in the post-war years was to prevent this happening again, a noble and right vision but one which does not so much require an abandonment of the religious roots of European civilisation as their proper acknowledgment; whether that is specifically set out in treaties is a secondary matter. It is simply a historical fact that these links exist. It requires a dialogue between the now fundamentally secular states of Europe, amid the varieties of church-state relationships they still embody, and of religious communities old and new which form part of the actual reality of contemporary European life. The key word here is ““tolerance””. A European Union of 27 sovereign states negotiating to expand further cannot look to a monochrome future. Its peoples want to maintain their local identities, customs and traditions, supported by the core European values which they hold in common. I sense that a change of perspective is already happening. Indeed, we hear far less today of the 27 and rising number of states in the EU moving towards what used to be called the ““ever closer Union””. That language has been quietly sidelined or has evolved into something a bit more fluid and open. The unity will inevitably be more pluriform than many once envisaged. We have often heard of the need to harmonise European regulations and laws, and questions about this harmonisation process are regularly asked in the House. This is true up to a point, but a harmony, properly understood, results from different notes which contribute to the harmony precisely because of their difference and distinctiveness. Perhaps an even better image would be the co-ordination of laws and regulations and not their automatic harmonisation, so allowing, respecting, tolerating and, beyond that, welcoming difference and distinctiveness in the communities which form the individual states and between the states themselves. There is a sensitive balance here, no doubt, but the integration of the new communities in this country requires an explicit welcome for their difference and distinctiveness, held within the basic values of the rule of law, participation and human rights, which cannot be negotiable in the context of our civilisation. In fact, tolerance and inclusion are two sides of the same coin. Understood in these terms, I cannot but see huge benefits to this country from its continued membership of the EU and, indeed, from the continued expansion of the EU. If a country such as Turkey can successfully be included in the EU, it can only be good both for the EU and what the EU will offer to the wider world. Beyond that, the major and most important gift the EU can offer a wider world is an example of tolerance and acceptance in a world where intolerance and antagonism between different ethnic and religious groups and communities is a persistent and ever-renewing problem. There are many countries where there is far less tolerance of political association and religious freedom than for many centuries; it is a very curious feature of the world in which we live. The need, I believe, is for the increasingly diverse EU—an EU in which the eventual succession of Turkey is a goal to be warmly welcomed—to offer to the world an example of a society where religious and cultural tolerance, amid quite wide-ranging diversity, can truly flourish. There is a danger, I believe, in arguments that that can be achieved on purely secular grounds. A purely secular state will always risk drifting towards asserting its own monopoly on truth, which is just as dangerous as a monopoly asserted by any religious group, be they Christian, Islamic or whatever. Indeed, we need Governments who acknowledge the limits of government and make space for, and have dialogue with, the whole range of intermediate institutions and communities in their midst which they cannot hope to control in detail. These include the various religious communities—both the historic communities of Europe and the new religious communities—which exist within their borders. In this context, we need an EU which recognises the limits to its own political, social and legislative competence to shape too many details in the lives of its citizens. That is intrinsically the whole ethos of Europe, where freedom, tolerance and welcome are the keynotes of the past and, I believe, of the future.