William Hague responds to David Miliband’s claim in The Spectator that the Tory EU policy is suicidal and says the government’s own strategy has been an abject failure
Three weeks ago in these pages David Miliband bravely took up the challenge of defending Labour’s record on Europe and claimed that the Labour government has been shaping the European debate. Yet the reality is that this government has brought Britain no greater influence in EU affairs nor greater standing internationally, while its legacy will be to leave the EU more lowly regarded in this country than ever before.
Take first the case of the renamed EU constitution, the Lisbon Treaty. The solemn promise of a referendum followed by the premeditated breaching of it must rank among the most calculated acts of political dishonesty in modern British history. Trust in politics is now at an unprecedented low point; the shameless and deliberate abrogation of a binding manifesto pledge is surely one of the reasons why.
This Treaty would represent a profound change to how this country is governed, the powers the EU enjoys and the role it would play in our national life. The creation of a new EU president, an EU foreign minister and his own foreign office in all but name, a legally binding Charter of Fundamental Rights, the significant expansion of EU powers over areas such as criminal justice and more has led the President of the European Commission to proclaim that the Treaty gave the EU ‘the dimension of empire’.
Far from the end of institutional debate, this Treaty heralds a new round of self-absorption. In Council, Commission and Parliament, the EU’s institutional armies are already being drawn up to fight the mother of all bureaucratic turf wars over new powers and offices.
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