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European Council

My Lords, we are perhaps six months from an election in which the Official Opposition hope to become the Government. It is therefore rather sad that the spokesman for the Opposition, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, could not bring himself to say anything positive—not a scintilla—about the European Union, an attitude that will not go unnoticed by centre-right Governments in Europe, particularly in France and in Germany. Clearly, there was a welcome agreement on climate change that shows what can be done when we work together as Europeans. At long last there appears now to be closure to the institutional debate, yet the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, talked about the declining influence of this country. Does he not recall that in the years before 1997 we were surly, on the sidelines and isolated, wholly contrary to our own national interests? Is there a danger of that recurring unless the Official Opposition are willing to look objectively at how best we can pursue our national interests within the European Union? Are we going to have the latter-day Bourbons who have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing about that period, when it was so contrary to our national interest to be so isolated? Is there not a danger, if they were to be in the unwelcome position of succeeding in six months’ time, of not letting matters rest? There is also a danger of gestures for the benefit of the Europhobe Back-Benchers, which would again be wholly contrary to our national interest.