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Christmas Adjournment

I totally agree. I think that Mexico is now considering joining, along with Venezuela, which is an associate member. Returning to east Asia, there is ASEAN, and south Asia has the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation. The Pacific has APEC—the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation group—while Africa has the African Union, and there is now talk of changing the Arab League into an Arab Union. All these, originally inspired by the European Union, are essentially concentrating on issues involving security, trade and, in many cases, democracy. The world is breaking up into regional blocs based on continents. That indicates the clear necessity for a medium-sized European country of our kind to be involved in its bloc—in our case, the European Union. Without that, we would simply be diminished, and would have much greater difficulty in making our voice heard in the world. That puts into context the backward-looking nature of a party like the UK Independence party, for example, which wants us to pull out of the European Union. Thank God all three major parties in this Parliament want us to stay in the EU; there may be differing emphases from different parts of the spectrum, but none the less, that is a common wish. I certainly hope that we will never, ever think about pulling out of the EU. I notice that someone—the Foreign Secretary, no less—quoted Baroness Thatcher giving a clear indication of what it meant to a country to be part of the European Union. He quoted her as saying:""The Community opens windows on the world for us that since the war have been closing"." The Foreign Secretary's response was:""I never thought I would say this but Mrs Thatcher was prescient and right."" Many of us believe that Mrs. Thatcher was prescient and right in many respects, so it was interesting to find that particular quotation in praise of her. We all know that there are many detailed things wrong with the EU, and things go particularly wrong when it tries to get into what Douglas Hurd, now Lord Hurd, described as the "nooks and crannies" of British life. That is part of the problem, as it becomes unpopular in dealing with all those detailed matters in a rather ham-fisted way—and the Government then apply gold plating. I trust that when a Conservative Government eventually—I hope—take office next year, they will be able to deal with those issues. I am sure that my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench will do their best to bring some common sense to those controversial areas. The European Union is at its best when it is dealing with larger global matters, whether those be trade or, as the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn) mentioned, climate change and the environment, and it is making a sensible fist of trying to take the lead globally on such issues. In some ways—although on energy, despite many efforts, it is has not yet got its act together—the EU is way ahead of China and America on those issues, particularly in dealing with civil and military actions all around the world by backing up its actions with European resources and in dealing with foreign policy issues. In that area, Europe has a role and it is important that it play to its full strength. To do that properly, it must first of all get its act together. It was apparent to me during a Foreign Affairs Committee visit to Washington this year that President Obama was not visibly impressed by what he found in Prague when the European nations met together and discussed issues in a rather squabbling and disagreeable sort of way. He was not impressed, and I gather he said that he would not come back until Europe was more united on some of the issues that he was concerned about. I thought that that was a reasonable comment from an incoming President. Equally, we must be less subservient to the United States. A stronger voice from a Europe that is less subservient to America helps both America and ourselves. Still on the subject of the relatively new President Obama, nothing was more embarrassing than seeing all those European Prime Ministers scrabbling to be the first through the door to the oval office to speak to the President or Secretary of State or whatever. It is embarrassing: it embarrasses America and it does us no good either. It will be much better if Europe can get its act together and present a clear and distinctive point of view, to which America will listen. On trade, for example, Europe has a point of view—a united point of view—and America is forced to listen, at least much more so than with some of the foreign policy initiatives of recent times. On Iraq, for example, Europe was not united, and there was a visible divide between countries such as Britain and Spain on the one hand and Germany and France on the other. America still went ahead. We hoped that we would exert some influence on the decision of America, but we had no influence whatever. I personally voted against the war in Iraq, because at the time I did not see that the weapons of mass destruction were any threat to this country, even if they existed; I knew no more than anyone else, but I thought they posed no threat to this country. It seems to me that if a country presents no threat to the UK, we should not invade it; it is as simple as that. We are now seeing what is coming out of the Chilcot inquiry, and it is astonishing to me that that fundamental mistake was made, way back in the early part of this century. We are paying the price for that now, and the Government are paying a price for the diversion of the time and effort of the Prime Minister and the people from the legitimate concerns about reforming public services and similar matters in this country. The Government paid a heavy price for that elementary foreign policy mistake, and the truth is that we gained no extra pressure or influence as a result of what we did. There was a point at which the Americans called the French "cheese-eating surrender monkeys", but they are now back in favour. The Germans voted against approving the Iraq war, and they are back in favour, while Britain has no greater standing with America than before. That is something that this country has to get right strategically: we must understand the role of Europe in maximising the power and influence we can have in the world, while at the same time distancing ourselves and being less subservient to America, which, fundamentally, pursues its own interests. There are areas where Europe can play—and indeed already is playing—some sort of role. At the recent Council, for example, Europe produced a statement on east Jerusalem that was prodding America, which in my view has been rather tame on this subject, into taking some sort of further action, adopting a tougher line with Israel. Secondly, on Iran, the European E3 plus 3 has proposed a series of sanctions over timing, and it is now clear that a sanctions regime is necessary to try to get the Iranian regime to see any sense, to abide by its obligations under the non-proliferation treaty and more generally to abide by international law, which it is breaking. If we can get some support from China and Russia in this instance, we will have an effect, and Europe is playing a role in achieving that. Things are clearly much more difficult with Afghanistan. Whatever we do, America has taken the lead and there is very little we can do to influence American policy. However, as a wide coalition is now dealing with the situation in Afghanistan, the sense of the policy, now coming through more strongly from European public opinion than from American public opinion, is that in the end there will have to be some sort of negotiation or political deal. It is not possible to achieve a military victory alone, and it is not possible to rely on military progress alone, although I support the current surge as a necessary part of a long and difficult process of securing something more stable in that country. Europe is clearly beginning to play a role, even though I accept that America is in the lead on this matter. Europe must pay more attention to its immediate neighbours, particularly Russia, which, after all, is partly a European nation. I do not know whether Members saw a wonderful television programme called "The Art of Russia", broadcast recently, in which Russians said, "We are neither European nor Asian: we are simply Russian." That is true. Russia, plus the countries that surround it—Belarus, Ukraine and the "stans", for instance—is an enormously important part of our geopolitical sphere. If Britain and Europe together could help to bring it more into the context of European policy, they would play a huge part in stabilising the world, enabling America, Europe and Russia to act together. Of course that would be difficult; of course there would be all sorts of drawbacks. Not every initiative prompts a response. None the less, I think that we should try. Let me end by saying that we need a strong Britain and a strong Europe, despite all the disadvantages that that may involve.