Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD):...Boris Johnson, meanwhile, is
making speeches in India and the Gulf promising that an
increasing proportion of our Armed Forces will in future be
deployed east of Suez, as far away from Europe as possible, and
last week he was in the Gambia proclaiming the revival of the
Commonwealth while the Canadian Prime Minister was visiting
Brussels and Strasbourg to celebrate Canada’s trade agreement with
the European Union. The Prime Minister says that we...Request free trial
(LD):..., meanwhile, is making speeches
in India and the Gulf promising that an
increasing proportion of our Armed Forces will in future be
deployed east of Suez, as far away from Europe as possible, and
last week he was in the Gambia proclaiming the revival of the
Commonwealth while the Canadian Prime Minister was visiting
Brussels and Strasbourg to celebrate Canada’s trade agreement with
the European Union. The Prime Minister says that we must be a world
power but that none of us must be citizens of that world. I cannot
recall a point in my lifetime when British foreign policy has been
as incoherent as it is today...
(LD):...We should look at some of the trade deals that
have been talked about in theory, if not so far in practice. We
have not heard much about Australia recently but the Australians
said yesterday that they were open to a trade deal with the United
Kingdom. They pointed out that they wanted to increase access to
the United Kingdom for their citizens. When India said that they were concerned
to have a trade deal with the United Kingdom, they said exactly the
same. I do not think that anyone ever thought about that in the
course of the campaign...
of Nympsfield
(CB):...The Bill before us drips with historical
significance. It is also couched in a special, emotional geography
of its own—always a factor, ever since the European question
unloosed its destabilising ingredients on an unsuspecting
Westminster and Whitehall, when Jean Monnet arrived from Paris out
of the blue, bearing a plan for a European Coal and Steel Community
in 1950. The Bill before us is a mere 67 words, but how heavy the
historical freight that it bears. It is a key element in what will
be the fourth of our country’s great geopolitical shifts since
1945. The first was the protracted withdrawal from
Empire—from India in 1947 to Rhodesia/Zimbabwe in
1980. The second was joining the European Economic Community in
1973—or “Brentry”, as the Economist rather neatly described it the
other day. The third was the ending of the Cold War between 1989
and 1991...
(Con):...A massive shift of global GDP shares from the
west and the north to the east and the south has taken place, a
total reversal of fortunes from the old form of globalisation in
the 20th century that went on before 1990, where the north and the
west got richer with global trade and the south got poorer. Now it
is the other way round, except for the very richest who have done
well in both areas. The chief new winners and the new markets are
China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Nigeria, Korea,
Australia, Mexico and Turkey. Incidentally, three of those are in
the Commonwealth. Of course, services know no boundaries as they
are duty free and are not part of a customs union. On the other
hand, they are restricted in the EU by numerous national and local
rules...
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