Tag: Speeches

Below is the text of the speech made by Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister, at an EPP Meeting in Wicklow, Ireland on 12 May 2017.

There is a consensus, fortunately, within British politics that the consequences of Brexit on the border between the Republic of Ireland and the UK and on the peace process should be minimised as far as possible.

Such a consensus will be crucial.

Brexit uniquely impacts both the Republic and Northern Ireland. There has never been a situation where the UK, including Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland, had a different status in respect of Europe. We have either both been out or both been in.

The Common Travel Area has meant ease of going back and forth across the border, vital for work and family connection has been in place for almost 100 years. And the absence of customs controls – both countries being in the Single Market and Customs Union – have meant a huge boost to UK-Irish trade.

Some disruption is inevitable and indeed is already happening. However, it is essential that we do all we possibly can to preserve arrangements which have served both countries well and which command near universal support.

A hard border between the countries would be a disaster and I am sure everyone will and must do all they can to avoid it.

In addition, the Good Friday or Belfast Agreement was formulated on the assumption that both countries were part of the EU. This was not only for economic but also for political reasons, to take account particularly of nationalist aspirations. Some of the language will therefore require amendment because of Brexit. Again, with goodwill, including from our European partners, this should be achievable with the minimum of difficulty.

If the UK and the Republic were able to agree a way forward on the border, then we would have the best chance of limiting the damage. It is in the interests of us all, including our European partners, for this to happen.”

The truth is that the sentiments and anxieties which gave rise to the Brexit vote are not and never were limited to the Britain.

I am delighted that there will be President Macron and not President Le Pen. But the doubling of the far right vote compared to over a decade ago, plus the surge of support for anti-European parties across Europe should make us all think. Back in 2005 I gave a speech to the European Parliament in which I warned specifically that Europe was moving further away from the concerns of its citizens, all the time whilst proclaiming that it was moving closer. This was in the aftermath of the referendums on the Lisbon Treaty in France and the Netherlands.

Since then, following the global financial crisis and then the Euro zone crisis, this challenge has only deepened.

The world is changing fast through technology and globalisation. This poses an economic challenge.

Large scale migration from Africa and the Middle East poses cultural challenges, particularly with the refugee crisis. People see their communities change around them with bewildering speed, they worry about their identity and they’re anxious also over security.

Now the reality is that none of these challenges are more easily dealt with by nations alone or by a Europe which is weak.

But it is the obligation of mainstream politics – centre left and centre right – to provide answers otherwise those on the far right and left will successfully ride the anger.

During the course of the Brexit negotiation Britain will be evaluating its future relationship with Europe; Europe has an opportunity to evaluate its own future.

The European Commission White paper is a necessary start.

I remain totally convinced that nations such as ours, coming together as we have done in the European Union, goes with the grain of history. As the new power brokers of the world emerge in the high population countries, particularly China and India, all those comparatively smaller in size will need to form alliances to protect not only interests but values.

But we need to show that necessary integration does not come at the expense of desired identity, that Europe can deal firmly and expeditiously with the challenges upon it, and that it is both sensitive enough to understand the concerns, cultural and economic, that our people feel so strongly, and capable enough to overcome them.

An open and honest debate about how Europe reforms can play a positive part in how Britain and Europe approach Brexit. Whatever relationship the future holds for us both – as you know I was and remain a passionate supporter of Britain staying with our European destiny – we have too many mutual interests, too much shared history, too profound a sense of common values for us to do other than strive for success for that relationship.

So let us keep lines of communication intact. Let us explore together the options as we go forward. Let us – where possible – always choose flexibility over rigidity and solutions which are about the long term flourishing of the people not the short term exploitation of the politics.

We are only at the beginning. There is a long way to go to, particularly for the negotiations.

Below is the text of the speech made by Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister, at the Shimon Peres memorial service at Mount Herzl, Jerusalem on 17 September 2017.

We miss him don’t we? I know I do. I miss the sense of anticipation before each meeting; the insights; the wit; the brilliant one liners, even the ones I heard before; the crazy genius of being able to speak English better than the English when it wasn’t even his second language; and of course most of all the wisdom, the supreme ability to take the most complex developments – economic, political, technical – and translate them into words we could understand and visions we could aspire to.

Because Shimon was such a magnetic personality it is easy to forget that his principal quality was not his way with words but with deeds. He was a man of action, whose wellspring was nonetheless a deep and coherent philosophy.

The description in his autobiography of his interaction with the French Government to secure the know-how for nuclear power, or the account of the raid on Entebbe, read like passages from a thriller. But through each line, we are aware that nothing he did was without purpose.

He was determined to defend his fragile young country against the hostility of a region all too willing to find an external enemy to divert attention from internal challenge.

But for him that was but one step towards the ultimate goal of an Israel secure and at peace with its neighbours in a region of tolerance and justice. His patriotism did not require an enemy; it did not need to conquer. It was not born of a sense of superiority but a sense of hope.

For Shimon, the State of Israel was never simply a nation, and was more than just the homeland of the Jewish people; it represented an ideal.

The country he wanted to create was to be a gift to the world. It drew upon the best of the Jewish character developed over the ages, sustained through pogroms, persecution and holocaust, often battered but never subdued. This spirit is the spirit of striving: to make oneself better, to make the world better, to increase the sum of knowledge and understanding; to examine the variegated flotsam of human existence and the contradictions of the human condition and see not a cause for despair but a path to progress.

This was what animated Shimon Peres.

He never gave up on peace with the Palestinians or on his belief that peace was best secured by an independent State of Palestine alongside a recognised State of Israel. One of our last conversations was on how to change the plight of the people of Gaza.

Despite all the frustrations of the peace process, in his last years he could see the Middle East changing and the possibility opening up in the region, with its new leadership, of a future partnership between Arab nations and Israel.

He grasped completely the extraordinary potential there would be if Israel and the region were working together not simply on security but on economic advance, technological breakthrough and cultural reconciliation.

His Annual President’s conference brought together figures from round the world to discuss not the past or the present but Tomorrow. This was a man who was born when horse drawn carriages were still in use and lived to see a driverless car.

He was fascinated by the future, loved science, delighted in innovation and was younger in mind at 90 than most people at 30.

I once tried to define Shimon in three words. I chose Compassionate, Courageous, and Creative. But I spent a long while asking which virtue came first.

I settled on his compassion.

I know he took difficult decisions as all in positions of leadership do. Some of them had painful consequences.

But in the final analysis, Shimon Peres wanted to do good, strived to do it and by and large did it, motivated by a profound compassion for humanity.

At the core of that compassion, was a belief in the equality of all human beings across the frontiers of race, nation, colour or creed. He would defend Israel to his dying breath. But he was a citizen of the world also and proud to be one.

For him, every new possibility technology or science gave us was not to be harnessed for the profit of a few but for the welfare of the many.

For him the world growing smaller was not a harbinger of fear but an achievement.

For him if Israel did well, it was a chance for the world to do better.

The memories of great people who help shape history, like Shimon, do not fade but clarify over time. We see what they stood for when they were alive and what they mean for us who live on today.

In his best moments, Shimon embodied the success and hope of a nation and in doing so, touched and educated the wider world.

So yes I miss him. And I thank him and his wonderful family – Tsvia, Yoni and Chemi – and his fabulous colleagues Yona, Nadav, Efrat and Ayelet and all the team – for the magnificent support they gave him.

But I won’t forget him. For me and for so many others here and round the world, he is and always will be a thought in our minds and an inspiration in our hearts.

Below is the text of the speech made by Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister, to the European Policy Centre on 1 March 2018.

Brexit is momentous and life-changing for Britain. The British people should be given a final say on whatever deal is negotiated. If they are allowed that say, then Brexit can be averted.

I and many others will work passionately for that outcome.

But today I want to say here in Brussels why Brexit is also bad for Europe, and why European leaders share the responsibility to lead us out of the Brexit cul-de-sac and find a path to preserve European unity intact.

For the first time since its inception, a nation, and a major one at that, will have disrupted the onward march of European cohesion, left the European Union and will have done so apparently for reasons of principle at odds with the whole rationale for the Union’s existence.

Britain without Europe will lose weight and influence. But Europe without Britain will be smaller and diminished. And both of us will be less than we are and much less than we could be together.

In politics, there is a kind of fatalism which can often overwhelm what is right by making the right course seem hopeless or even delusional.

So it is with Brexit. In the UK, we are told ‘the people have spoken’ and to interrogate the question further is treachery. The ‘will of the people’ is deemed clear and indisputable, though what that ‘will’ means in practice given the complexity of Brexit, the multiple interpretations of it, and the differing consequences of each version, is – with every day which passes – not clear at all.

But nonetheless we are told we must just do it.

And in Europe there is often a sorrowful shaking of heads and a shrugging of the shoulders, when what we need is strong engaged leadership to avoid a rupture which will do lasting damage to us both.

I understand European reticence. Until Europe sees real signs that there could be a change of mind in Britain, why should it contemplate the possibility of change in Europe?

However, the argument in Britain is far from over. It is in flux. See the speech of Jeremy Corbyn this week.

What I call the ‘Dilemma’ of the negotiation – close to Europe to avoid economic damage but therefore accepting its rules or free from Europe’s rules but therefore accepting economic damage – is finally prising open the discourse.

It is a binary choice. The cake will either be had or be eaten but it will not be both.

The Dilemma divides the Brexit vote. Many of those who voted Brexit want a clean break from Europe even if there is economic difficulty as a result and even if it soured the politics of Ireland. But many others would not want it if there were an economic cost; and would certainly believe that peace in Ireland should be protected.

Outside commentary under-estimates the fact that at some point this year the Government have got to put a vote to Parliament and win it. They will of course try to fudge, but as we are seeing this cake is quite resistant to fudge. After last June’s General Election, winning this vote will be much tougher than is commonly understood. For once, Parliament in this equation can be more decisive than either Government or Opposition.

There are three legs to the stool upon which could sit a reconsideration of Brexit. The first is to show the British people that what they were told in June 2016 has turned out much more complex and costly than they thought. This leg is looking increasingly robust as time goes on.

The second is to show that there are different and better ways of responding to the genuine underlying grievances beneath the Brexit vote, especially around immigration. This leg is easy to construct but needs willing workers.

The third is a openness on the part of Europe to respond to Brexit by treating it as a ‘wake-up’ call to change in Europe and not just an expression of British recalcitrance. This is the leg to focus on today.

The stool needs all three legs.

For Europe, the damage of Brexit is obvious and not so obvious.

In obvious terms, though the economic pain for Britain, especially of a clean break Brexit, is large, the cost to Europe is also significant and painful.

One in seven German cars is sold in Britain and goods exports in total are worth 3.5% of its GDP; the figure for Ireland is 14% of GDP and for Belgium over 7%; Britain is a huge market for French produce of many kinds; and a top three export partner for 10 EU members including Italy and Spain.

Around 200,000 Dutch jobs are involved in trade with the UK. There are around 60 direct flights between London and Amsterdam every day. According to the Dutch Government agency CPB a hard Brexit could make every Dutch person around 1000 euros poorer.

A Europe in which Britain finds it harder to be a financial centre for European business will be deeply damaging for Britain but it will also impede the economy of Europe.

Estimates of the long term effect on European growth vary depending on the version of Brexit chosen, but they vary from bad to very bad.

In short, no one I have spoken to in the investment community from the USA to China thinks this is a good idea for Britain or for Europe.

Because of these effects, some in Britain believe that therefore Europe will bend in its negotiating stance and allow Britain largely unfettered access to Europe’s Single Market without the necessity of abiding by Europe’s rules.

This won’t happen because quite simply it can’t. To do so, would risk unravelling the Single Market and a return to precisely the system that was in place before Europe wisely and in the interests of its economy and with of course the full urging of successive British Governments decided to create the Single Market.

But the damage to Europe of a political nature is to my mind more deleterious.

For Schuman and other founding fathers, the project of European unity was a project of peace, cooperation in Europe being the alternative to the wars which had ravaged Europe and the world in the first half of the 20th century.

They looked back at the long history of European nations and saw centuries of conflict punctuated by all too brief epochs of relative harmony. From the time of Charlemagne, Europe had come together periodically, but mainly through religion, force or transitory necessity.

There had been an uneasy balance of power arrangement towards the end of the 19th C but then the rivalries of the great European nations pitched them into a war no one ever thought would prove as devastating as it did. The attempt out of it to produce a new political settlement fell victim to the competing totalitarian ideologies of communism and fascism and the descent into the darkness of World War Two.

Then, standing on the rubble of destruction, they decided to approach European unity with renewed vigour and vowed to give it institutional and practical meaning.

Thus, began what has now become the European Union.

The rationale for Europe today is not peace but power.

For almost 300 years, the world has been dominated by the West. At the beginning of that time the great powers were European, with colonies and Empires. Japan and China were of course major nations, but they were not shaping the world.

By the end of WW1, the United States had emerged as the most powerful nation, steadily eclipsing the United Kingdom and stayed that way through the 20th century.

But today, the world is changing again. China is today the second largest economy, the biggest global trader and as holder of huge amounts of American debt intimately important to global prosperity.

If we look back at the top economies in the year 2000, Europe dominates the top ten. Germany’s was 4x the size of India’s and larger than China’s. Mexico, Brazil and Indonesia were distant specks on the horizon far behind.

By 2016, the situation changes dramatically. India is now almost as large as the UK and France.

By 2030, India’s economy will be larger than those of Germany or Japan. Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico are narrowing the gap. China becomes the largest global economy and 7 or 8 times the size of the UK.

Look ahead to 2050 and India is several times the size of the German economy and no European economy is in the top 6.

With this economic change, will come political change.

The West will no longer dominate. And Europe, to retain the ability to protect its interests and values, will need to form a strong bloc with the power collectively to do what no European nation alone will be able to do individually.

Regard the regions of the world today. Everywhere, in reaction to this fundamental shift in geo-politics, countries are banding together: from South East Asia to the continent of Africa.

Nations are in a desperate scramble to find their place in a world in which no one wants to be forced to choose between the big powers or unable to withstand their demands.

For Europe much more is at stake than trade or commerce.

Take defence. Yes, NATO remains the cornerstone of Western security policy. But in an era in which the United States (and not only under this Administration) is signalling the limits of its appetite for military commitment, and where current events in Turkey show the fragility of some of the assumptions of alliance within NATO, it is foolish, indeed dangerous, for Europe not to have the independent capacity to protect its interests.

If the SAHEL erupts who will bear the brunt of the eruption? Europe. But who will we be obliged to call upon? The USA.

Of course, Britain can maintain a close relationship on defence even outside the EU. It still represents 25% of European defence spending. I welcome the British PM’s speech to the Munich conference and the excellent paper recently from the German Council on Foreign Relations.

But how much more effective would such cooperation be if we were still part of Europe’s decision-making structure? Instead we are in the surreal position of proclaiming our desire for tighter European cooperation in defence just as we withdraw from Europe’s political framework for doing so.

How can we police our borders except through common strategy; or fight terrorism but through enhanced integration of intelligence and surveillance; or protect our privacy from either foreign Governments or corporate behemoths other than by the strength which comes from size?

Do we seriously believe that if we had approached negotiation on climate change as individual countries, rather than as Europe, we would have driven the agenda in the way we did?

Our values are also in play.

Brexit is happening at a pivotal point in Western politics. Parts of our politics are today: fragmented, polarised, occasionally paralysed, with visceral cultural as well as economic rifts; with politicians who strive for answers swept aside by those riding the anger; a sterile policy agenda focusing on who to stigmatise, and barely touching the real forces of change which are technological; and conventional media locked in an ugly embrace with social media to create a toxic, scandal driven, rancorous environment for debate which risks destruction of democracy’s soul.

Meanwhile there are new powers emerging who look sceptically at Western democracy today and think there may be a different, less democratic model to follow.

For the first time, not just our power but our value system is going to be contested.

We need at this moment for Europe to regain its confidence, take courage and set a course for the future which re-kindles the spirit of optimism.

I believe firmly in the trans-Atlantic alliance. Despite what it may sometimes seem, so do most Americans.

In the new geo-politics, we need each other for reasons just as compelling as those which thrust us together in the early 20th century.

Especially at a time when America appears pre-occupied with its own political upheaval and is hard to read and easy to parody, Europe should be far-sighted enough to keep the alliance strong, to be determined in defending our values from those who would de-stabilise us, and to send a message to the rest of the world that Europe will grow in power in the 21st century precisely because of those values.

None of this can in any way be advanced by Britain’s departure from Europe.

It rips out of Europe one of the alliance’s most sustained advocates.

It weakens Europe’s standing and power the world over.

It reduces the effectiveness of the Single Market by removing from it Europe’s second largest economy.

And Britain out of Europe will ultimately be a focal point of disunity, when the requirement for unity is so manifest. No matter how we try, it will create a competitive pole to that of Europe, economically and politically to the detriment of both of us.

More contentiously, I believe it risks an imbalance in the delicate compromise that is the European polity.

Britain supports the nation-state as the point of originating legitimacy for European integration. Others are more comfortable with the notion of ever closer Union leading over time to a more federal structure.

The truth is that the anxieties which led to the Brexit vote are felt all over Europe. They’re not specific to the British. Read the latest Eurobarometer of public opinion. In many countries, similar referendums might have had similar results.

I know from experience that Britain is often the argumentative partner who speaks up, but there is frequently a large group of others sheltering behind us, glad there is a voice in the room articulating what others think but are shy of saying.

Even the famed Franco-German motor can need British spare parts and lubricants even if they come with the odd bit of grit; and from time to time, British mechanics can work with others to create a back-up engine.

President Macron has sensibly proposed a series of Europe wide debates on Europe’s future in recognition of the strains in Europe’s politics.

These will not work, however, if they become merely a way of explaining to Europe’s citizens why their worries are misplaced.

It should be a real dialogue.

The populism convulsing Europe must be understood before it can be defeated.

Immigration is a genuine fear with causes which cannot be dismissed.

Many feel the European project is too much directed to the enlargement of European institutions rather than to projects which deliver change in people’s daily lives.

There is much good work done by this and the previous Commission to reduce regulation and bureaucracy, unfortunately usually ignored or over-shadowed. But we should recognise this is still an issue for people all over Europe.

The things Europe is doing to build its capability to make the lives of Europeans better – in energy, digitalisation, infrastructure, education, defence and security need to be driven forward with much greater intensity.

And the difference between those in the Euro zone and those outside it will require different governance arrangements.

Europe knows it needs reform. Reform in Europe is key to getting Britain to change its mind.

There should surely be a way of alignment.

A comprehensive plan on immigration control, which preserves Europe’s values but is consistent with the concerns of its people and includes sensitivity to the challenges of the freedom of movement principle, together with a roadmap for future European reform which recognises the issues underpinning the turmoil in traditional European politics and is in line with what many European leaders are already advocating, would be right for Europe and timely for the evolving British debate on Brexit.

If at the point Britain is seized of a real choice, not about whether we like Europe or not – the question of June 2016 – but whether on mature reflection the final deal the British Government offers is better than what we have, if, at this moment, Europe was to offer a parallel path to Brexit of Britain staying in a reforming Europe, that would throw open the debate to transformation.

People will say it can’t happen.

To which I say in these times in politics anything can happen.

In any event, it depends on what magnitude of decision you think this is.

There are errors in politics of passing significance.

And there are mistakes of destiny.

If we believe and I do, that this is of the latter kind, we cannot afford passive acquiescence.

Those whose vision gave rise to the dream of a Europe unified in peace after centuries of war and whose determination translated that dream into practical endeavour, their ghosts should be our inspiration.

They would not have yielded to fatalism and neither should we.

We have months, perhaps weeks to think, plan and act.

Let’s be clear. Even if Brexit is Britain’s future, and yours is a European Union without Britain, we can’t alter our geography, history or manifold ties of culture and nature.

This is a divorce that can never mean a physical separation.

We are consigned to co-habiting the same space, trying to get along but resenting our differences and re-living what broke us apart, awkward silences at the breakfast table, arguing over the rules with no escape from each other.

But – and here is the supreme irony – with so much in common and still liking each other.

Better to make our future work together.

If we don’t, a future generation will; but their verdict on ours will be harsh for time wasted and opportunity spurned.

It doesn’t take a miracle. It takes leadership. And now is when we need it.

Below is the text of the speech made by Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister, as part of the Speaker’s Lecture series on 26 March 2018.

On one thing everyone is agreed: Brexit is the most important decision this country has taken since the end of World War Two and the commencement of modern British history.

It was taken by referendum, on one day in June 2016, with a simple majority of those voting and by a margin of 52–48.

At that point, self-evidently, there was no knowledge of what the alternative to life outside the EU would look like. But the country voted to leave, and the Government was mandated to negotiate the terms both of exit and the new relationship.

Since 23rd June 2016 as the negotiation has proceeded, so has our appreciation of what Brexit entails. The negotiation is complex. The future relationship around trade is technically fraught. There are many different versions of what Brexit will mean in practice, ranging from staying in the Single Market and Customs Union to going out without an agreement and trading on WTO terms.

One other thing has emerged: there are different views about what is an acceptable Brexit outcome in Parliament, in the Opposition Party and not only in the governing Party but in Government itself and even the Cabinet.

So, in a rational world, this would result in an active and thorough debate about the mandate the June 2016 vote bestowed. Was it a mandate to leave on whatever terms in whatever circumstances? Or can we read into the mandate some qualification relating to the effect of different Brexit outcomes?

If it is the first, then there can be no revisiting of the decision irrespective of what it means for the national interest or the economy.

If it is the second, then plainly it is logical, once we know the terms of the negotiation, that the people have a right to judge whether they want to proceed with that negotiated version of Brexit.

It is a matter which reflects in the most profound way on the state of our politics, that it is that official position of both main parties in Britain that the first is the correct interpretation of the referendum decision. i.e. the British people voted to leave on any terms or indeed on no terms such was the vehemence of their dislike of the European Union.

In other words, this decision on that day by that majority in that way has had the consequence of bringing into being a mandate which is comprehensive, all-encompassing, and eliminates further discussion of the wisdom of the decision.

Just roll that round your mind for a moment. In no other dimension of life let alone politics, in no personal decision that any of us take in the myriad of different situations which require decision in our lives, would we take such an all defining direction to a new future in this manner. We wouldn’t move jobs on that basis, move home, marry or divorce with such a ‘whatever the terms’ abandon as we apparently have chosen to do in this case of the most momentous decision for the direction of our country in modern times.

And what is more, in circumstances where the decision was only a small margin to the side of 50/50.

How on earth have we come to such an extraordinary and definitive reading of the mind of the British people? That not merely do we insist that they have insisted that we leave whatever the facts we now discover or the terms our Government can negotiate, but that – even more extraordinary – the same British people would resent deeply being given an opportunity to pass judgement on these terms once they know them?

By a combination of a pitiful lack of leadership and the bludgeoning of that part of the media dedicated to Brexit at any cost, we have taken the British people to the point where we consider it a betrayal to allow them to re-visit the most important political decision of their lifetime once they are in possession of the full facts which will determine the nation’s destiny for generations to come.

If we proceed with Brexit future historians will naturally focus on the impact of the Brexit decision; but I predict that one major part of their inquisition will be how we as a country were persuaded that we should take such a decision so irrevocably in such a fashion.

The case that I and others make is not that we ignore the referendum and reverse Brexit by a simple act of Government or Parliament.

It is rather that we honour the Brexit result but say that the process of decision-making by the people should not cease to exist after 23rd June 2016, but should continue up to and until a final judgement on membership of the EU when set against the new relationship our Government has negotiated once we know it.

If the people are to be trusted with the decision to leave before we know the terms of exit, why, once we have that knowledge, are they now disqualified and seemingly incapable of making the decision on whether the terms of exit meet their approval?

Yet this is where we are.

It is for this reason that Parliament today assumes such a special significance. We cannot rely on the Government. It has been plain for a long time that their primary interest, given the divisions, is to keep the façade of unity.

Unfortunately, we cannot rely on the Opposition because its leadership believes – whether for reasons of opportunism or covert opposition to the EU – that they must commit to doing Brexit but pretend that they would secure a better Brexit deal.

The truth is that the case for letting the people make the final decision is common sense if it is considered rationally and free of pressure.

Think of all the things we know since 23rd June 2016. Think of how much greater is our understanding of the various options, the intricacies of our trading relationships, the impact on each sector of business and industry. Add up all the aspects of the negotiation – from EURATOM to fishing rights to security cooperation – and think how much more we know about corners of national policy which seem settled in bureaucratic obscurity but now require analysis, investigation and painstaking accord.

Take Northern Ireland. I recall the visit I made with John Major during the referendum. Let’s say we didn’t exactly set the campaign on fire. The warning we gave was dismissed with ease by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, almost with contempt. Today, Northern Ireland is the issue which stands between the Government and a successful conclusion to the withdrawal agreement and no one is dismissing it now.

Everyone says they want a frictionless border between North and South. In the past this was easy. For 100 years since partition, there was an agreement for the free movement of people and commerce across the border. The Republic of Ireland and the UK were always in the same relationship to Europe as each other. They joined the EU on the same day in 1973.

Now the border will become the border between the UK and the EU.

It is, frankly, obvious that the border can only remain frictionless if the North stays in the same relationship to Europe for trade and free movement of people as the South. This means not just a Customs Union but a Single Market arrangement.

We can solve part of the puzzle by turning a blind eye to free movement of people, though of course it makes a nonsense of ‘taking back control’ of our borders for immigration purposes.

But for trade, Europe will insist that if we are out of the Single Market, then there will have to be some form of checks. We can argue about how many and at what cost, but the border cannot be frictionless. Yet that is what we were promised.

Northern Ireland is a metaphor for the entire negotiation.

In all areas – from pharma to cars to financial services, what I call ‘the Dilemma’ will become manifest. Either we keep to Europe’s rules – however we call it, equivalence or alignment – in which case we have not fulfilled the central Brexit promise of absolute control over our laws; or alternatively we are free to diverge from those laws in which case the disruption to trade and consequent economic damage will be large.

At some point the Dilemma will have to be confronted and overcome. The question is when.

Here is where Parliament is vital.

The resolution of the Dilemma can only be made by a choice. At this point we will know what Brexit really does mean, which of the very different versions of Brexit the Government has negotiated and whether the one negotiated satisfies the wishes of the people.

The Government’s whole approach up to now has rested on the hope that the Dilemma can be avoided, that Europe will agree that Britain can stay roughly in line with Europe but nonetheless have the freedom to set our own rules and that, on this basis, we will have largely frictionless trade; not absolutely as we have now but near it.

This is what is now known as ‘cakeism’.

Here is the thing. Having our cake and eating it, is not negotiable. Europe is not going to agree this. They might – and I stress might – agree to cherry-picking i.e. in some areas we align and keep Single Market rules and in others not; but they are never going to agree to ‘cakeism’.

The Government half recognise this. This was the meaning behind the Prime Minister’s recent speech which did try to differentiate between different sectors. But the most she felt able to offer in the areas where we want to stay close to Europe was something short of alignment; and the result was an immediate rebuff from the European side.

It is a measure of the frailty of the public discourse around Brexit that the ‘deal’ the Government struck last week on transitional arrangements, was accepted as some sort of victory. The reality is that Britain conceded that, during the transition, we will remain bound fully by European rules, though we will have lost our say over them. It was not a compromise but a capitulation. Meanwhile the resolution of the Dilemma, including on Northern Ireland, was postponed.

As time goes on, the Government will recognise fully that if they put a proposition to Parliament which clearly resolves the Dilemma, and before March 2019, the risk is it will not pass. Either it will mean divergence from Europe in which case, the business community will protest the damage and MPs will take notice of that. Or it will mean alignment with Europe in which case the diehard Brexiteers will cry foul and the British people will wonder why we are leaving.

So, the Government will turn to fudge.

They will understand – and the Brexiteers will assist them – that they have somehow to get past March 2019 without a defeat and they can only do that if the terms of the new relationship are sufficiently vague to let the fiction of ‘cakeism’ continue.

Then once past March 2019 and when we are irreversibly out of Europe, they can negotiate safe in the knowledge that then the issue will be whatever deal they do versus no deal.

Before we leave we have at least some limited negotiating leverage. Not much. We constantly forget that, even though Brexit dominates our news cycles, it is largely absent from those of the rest of Europe, except Ireland.
But once we have left and are in the ‘transitional’ period, there is nothing. We can say that Europe will suffer if there is no deal or their companies are excluded from our markets, but the reality is that the pain we would suffer from being shut out of theirs is so disproportionately greater, this is a bluff that will never work.

Basically, we will have to take what we are given. By the end of 2020, the transition will end. The cliff edge will beckon. We can navigate a harder or easier descent; but retreat will be impossible.

It is this strategy that Parliament has a duty to foil. It has demanded a ‘meaningful vote’. The vote is only meaningful if it is on a proposition which allows us to know with precision what our future path looks like before we take it.

Exposing the strategy of fudge and preventing it, should be the overriding aim of the Labour Party in Parliament. I understand, though don’t agree, with its decision to go along with Brexit. But it is the duty of Opposition MPs to thwart a strategy designed to place the country in a position where it puts beyond reach of reconsideration a decision of this fundamental importance whose full consequences we do not know.

Failure to stand against the fudge would be unforgivable.

As for the Conservative Party, I understand why they feel they must deliver Brexit as ‘the will of the people’. I understand also why they believe that delivering it is the best inoculation against a Corbyn Government.

But in politics the difference between tactics and strategy is everything. Tactics are about the politics of the moment. Strategy leaps over the moment and tries to imagine the long term.

Think ahead. Before the end of 2020 we will know the real deal. I suspect we will have a Canada type deal with not much plus. And if we don’t, we will have a deal which will leave a big number of Brexiteers feeling hoodwinked.

There is then another 18 months to an election. Think June 2022. Will the economy be stronger? Will the Brexit news be better? Will people be feeling that Brexit has really delivered all that ‘control’ we say we don’t have now? Will the NHS be on the mend? Will the Free Trade Agreements be stacking up?

Brexit happening in this sequence will be a Tory Brexit, fully owned, exclusively and completely by the Conservative Party.

The 17m who voted ‘Leave’ may be short on gratitude. The 16m who voted ‘Remain’ will be unlikely to forget. Remember that 13m wins an election.

Brexit is not the route to escaping a Corbyn Government; it is the gateway to having one.

The sensible strategic course for the Tories is to share the responsibility. Resolve the Dilemma before March 2019.

Put the proposition to Parliament. Even better let the MPs have a free vote.

Then let the people make the final judgement on whether the British people prefer the terms for leaving Europe to what we have now inside Europe.

If Brexit passes in these circumstances then that is the end of the matter. We leave. If it doesn’t then the people have decided. The Government has done its best.

In 2022, the Conservative Party can fight an election not on responsibility for Brexit but on the normal domestic issues of the day.

When I was growing up in politics the Tories were always the pragmatic folk. They eschewed ideology. They were business minded and prided themselves on common sense. They stood out against being railroaded by shouty activists.

These are the qualities which have deserted them in pursuit of Brexit. At every stage decisions have been made driven by short term politics driven by loud-mouthed rhetoric. We triggered Article 50 before the French and German elections before we had any clear idea of our negotiating position thus pushing ourselves up against a very tough timetable for such a complicated negotiation.

We put down red lines around the Single Market and Customs Union with little thought as to how that would be compatible with the interests of business and thus shut down our negotiating room for manoeuvre.

We made a series of demands about money, transition and the rights of EU citizens all of which we were obliged to surrender.

The Europeans, having at first thought that there was some truly cunning plan from the best brains of the British system now frankly think it is the product of the brain of Baldrick.

Only by dint of the barrage of pro Brexit propaganda from the usual quarters are we spared a proper sense of indignity from the way we have conducted this negotiation.

It is not too late for our politicians to grip our nation’s destiny and approach this issue differently.

I return to the magnitude of the decision.

Much has focused on the economics of Brexit. It is often said that the predictions of economic calamity turned out to be false.

We can argue about the degree and the timescale.

But there is no serious disagreement among serious people about the economic consequence of Brexit. Growth estimates for the next 5 years are the worst in over half a century. Quite apart from everything else, this will mean billions less in revenue to spend on public services. Every economic forecast says the same including that of the Government.

Speak to those familiar with the international investment community and the sentiment on Britain has turned severely negative. Investment in the motor industry alone is down 40%.

We are utterly and wrongly complacent about the damage to financial services if we lose access to Europe’s Single Market. Short term, the losses will be limited because of course it is hard for Europe to re-adjust from London as a financial centre for European finance. Short term.

Long term, the City should be under no illusion: European regulators and even more so, European politicians, will not find it acceptable to have the centre for European finance outside the purview of European regulation.

Frankfurt, Paris, Dublin are setting out their stall. Over time, we are going to haemorrhage jobs and business.

But the political damage, the damage to Britain’s geo-political standing is the missing dimension to the Brexit debate.

The most alarming characteristic of the Brexiteers is their confusion of delusion and patriotism. To recognise Britain’s position in the global hierarchy of nations and how it is changed over the past 70 years is not to be unpatriotic.

The world of geo-politics is undergoing a revolution.

China will become, if not the dominant power, a power to rival America.

By 2030 India’s economy will be bigger than Germany’s; by 2050 several times the size.

Population and GDP, through the mobility of capital and technology, are becoming re-aligned.

Britain will be medium sized in a land where there are some very tall people and three giants.

Like France or Germany, we will be obliged to advance our interests through alliance. On our own, we are weaker when dealing with trade, China, Russia, or even Facebook and the other global corporate behemoths.

In alliance, we gain strength.

That is the modern case for the European Union.

To say this is not to diminish British pride in what we have achieved or confidence in what we can achieve. It is just to say that reality, not fantasy, is a better guide to statecraft. It is not to dishonour our past, it is simply to understand that the future will be different.

The qualities which lighten our path have not changed. But we should recognise what they are. They include stoic resistance to bullying; standing firm and being prepared to stand alone where right to do so.

But they also include creativity, innovation, openness and engagement with the world.

The more intellectual proponents of Brexit can pretend that these latter qualities drove the case for Brexit. But, come on. The pretence is ludicrous. Sure, there are those who believe Brexit will herald a new ‘Global’ Britain. But the coalition which delivered the Brexit vote had, as its base, sentiment that was anti-globalisation, isolationist and particularly anti-immigration. And this sentiment was ruthlessly exploited by the Leave campaign. I am not complaining. That’s politics. But don’t tell me that the Brexit mandate derived from a desire to intensify globalisation.

And this of course is the terrible long-term risk of Brexit. People say that there will be disillusion if Brexit doesn’t happen. Personally, I doubt this if it is the result of a fresh ‘say’ on the final deal.

But even if true, the bigger disillusion will be when those who voted for Brexit because they feared the future shaped by free market globalisation, realise they are now conscripts in an adventure to embrace it more fully.

This is the awesome responsibility which now rests with Parliament.

This is a moment when every MP is a Leader. This is a decision like no other. It requires each Member to sit the test of leadership. Passing doesn’t mean voting this way or that. It means voting according to conviction and not according to the whip.

Only Parliament can change the direction of this process. Only Parliament can ensure a meaningful vote on the terms of the new relationship with Europe before we leave by demanding that those terms are written with clarity and not with fudge. Only Parliament can give back to the people the final ‘say’ on the terms the Government negotiate. Members of Parliament: each, and every, one of you holds in your hands the responsibility to insist that these decisions of such importance to our country are taken before March 2019, before we cross over irrevocably to life outside Europe, before it’s too late.

To each MP the question: do you really believe Brexit is the answer to the challenges facing Britain? Do you believe Britain will be stronger or weaker outside of Europe? If you left everything aside other than your own conviction, would you continue or find a way out? And if it is the referendum alone which persuades you to follow, is not worth examining the arguments which permit you to lead, to say to the people in the light of what we know we should have the right to think again?

Last week, we had a small but perfectly formed example of how we have fallen as a nation into the vice of a false patriotism. Our passports.

We want to change them from magenta to blue and it appears that it is a Franco-Dutch company which has won the contract for the new passports. Outrage. A ‘national humiliation’ one Brexiteer called it.

The national humiliation is not that we have chosen a foreign company over a British one.

The national humiliation is we think the colour of our passports defines our sense of nationhood.

There is time, but not much time, to restore a proper patriotism, one which concentrates on building the nation’s strength to handle the challenge of a changing world, not taking refuge in the vain hope of escaping it.

Here in this Palace of Westminster, in the birthplace of democracy, in the forum where so many decisions have been taken which have shaped not only Britain but the world, our fate will be decided by Members of Parliament.

I say to them: think of our history. Think of our future. Think of the true meaning of both. And make that decision according to conscience and belief.