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Wednesday, 18th June Integration continues

apace
Waterloo Day Meeting Euro-Creep
Robert Oulds 
EDITOR:
editor@brugesgroup.com
TEL: +44 (0)20 7287 4414 Gerald Frost  Monday, 26th October
2009
MEDIA CENTRE Lord Willoughby de Broke  The City Under Threat &
Press Releases Britain and the EU: The
LORD WILLOUGHBY DE BROKE Crunch
Polls
THE EU, THE HOUSE OF LORDS AND THE Professor Tim Congdon 
Comment LISBON TREATY Daniel Hannan MEP 
Rebuttals Lord Willoughby de Broke is a UKIP
Speeches representative in the House of Lords. The United Kingdom and
Whilst he was in the Conservative Party he the European Union
Interviews was a Vice-President of Conservatives Our Fight for Democracy
EU Constitution Against a Federal Europe. His political John Strafford 
Lisbon Reform Treaty interests include Tibet, rural affairs and the
EU. Tuesday, 24th February
Papers & 2009
Quotes GERRY FROST The Destruction of
Links EUROSCEPTICISM: WHY HAS IT FAILED? Parliamentary Democracy
Gerry is the editor of the Eurosceptic Martin Howe QC 
 
magazine Eurofacts. He is a former director Rt Hon. Peter Lilley MP 
Search of the Centre for Policy Studies and is a
Go specialist on foreign affairs, defence and Thursday, 17th July
  issues relating to the European Union. Europe, America and
Democracy
John O'Sullivan CBE 
Sign up for our mailing
list and receive our Submitting to authority
latest news, comment WATERLOO DAY MEETING PODCAST dressed as virtue
and events. Click here to listen online to Gerry Frost and Lord Willoughby de Broke Are the British a Servile
Your Name People? Idealism and the EU
Professor Kenneth Minogue 
Your Email LORD WILLOUGHBY DE BROKE
Lord Willoughby de Broke is a UKIP member of the House of Lords. He is Wednesday, 18th June
one of the ninety hereditary peers elected to remain in the House of Waterloo Day Meeting
Enter code ‘783’ Lords after the passing of the House of Lords Act 1999. Whilst he was in Gerald Frost 
the Conservative Party he was a Vice-President of Conservatives Against Lord Willoughby de Broke 
a Federal Europe (CAFE).
Rejecting the re-heated
EU Constitution
Lord Willoughby de Broke is the Chairman of St Martin’s Theatre Company and an
Welcoming the Irish No Vote
Honorary Governor of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. He was President of the Heart
Robert Oulds 
of England Tourist Board. In 2006 he was elected as the Chairman of the Warwickshire
Hunt. He is also a Deputy Lieutenant for Warwickshire. and President of the
Referendum amendment
Warwickshire branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE). He is a Fellow
vote
of the Royal Geographical Society.
Press Release: Politicians
are fuelling distrust
His political interests include Tibet, rural affairs and the EU. He shall talk on The EU, Robert Oulds 
the House of Lords and the Lisbon Treaty.
Wednesday, 27th
Click here to read the full speech by Lord Willoughby de Broke February
Campaigning against the
GERRY FROST Lisbon Treaty
Gerald Frost is a senior journalist, author and speechwriter who has Bill Cash MP 
written widely about domestic and international politics. Gerry was John Hayes MP 
Director of the London based Centre for Policy Studies from 1992 until 95 Lord Pearson 
and head of the Institute of European Defence and Strategic Studies,
which he founded in 1981. Gerald Frost has edited more than 70 books and Exposing the revived and
monographs, and written widely in the international media. renamed EU Constitution
A look at the Lisbon Treaty
He is currently the editor of the Eurosceptic magazine Eurofacts. Gerry Frost’s talk Robert Oulds 
was titled Euroscepticism: Why has it failed?
The EU Constitution -
Click here to read the full speech by Gerry Frost Returns
The Revived EU Constitution
Breaches the Justice and
Home Affairs Red Line
Speech by Lord Willoughby de Broke Robert Oulds 

I was interested to hear what Gerry Frost had to say because I greatly admire what Demanding a vote on
he’s done in publishing Eurofacts and bringing the facts of the argument to a wider Europe
public. And I’m going to ignore his rather disobliging remarks about UKIP; I’ll leave that Conservative Party Fringe
for another day. Meeting 2007
Syed Kamall MEP 
My subject really is what has been going on in the House of Lords and I come to you The Rt
from the coal face, hot and darkened with dust this evening from a vote on the third Hon. John Redwood MP 
reading of the Lisbon Treaty Bill, where the Conservative amendment was defeated by
a very substantial majority of 90 odd votes, which is more than they lost the original The European Emperor
referendum vote on last week, which was lost by about 50 votes, this was nearly wears new clothes
double that. And you have to ask why? I don’t think it was the strength of the Not a Mini-Treaty
arguments, I think it was a lot of Conservatives were at Ascot actually, that’s why I Professor Roland Vaubel 
think the vote was so substantial.
The EU Constitution:
I think I need to explain to you why somehow you may feel the House of Lords has let Revived
you down, perhaps the eurosceptics, well let’s look at the complexion of the House of European Parliament report
Lords first of all. There are about 215 Labour peers, about 208 Conservative peers, on the Reform Treaty
200 cross-benchers, 60/65 Lib Dems, there is the church of course who are Robert Oulds 
completely Europhile the Bishops and then there are the disaffects, people like Lord
Black who wasn’t able to be with us tonight, Lord Archer and then the UKIP duo of It doesn't take a treaty
Malcolm Pearce and myself and other people who don’t feel able to take a party whip. How the EU uses Article 308
to force ever-closer Union
Robert Oulds 
But of course the 200 cross-benchers aren’t perhaps what they were a few years
ago, which really they are the balance in the Lords, the maths speak for themselves Let the people decide
but it seems to be a sunset home for commissioners. In the Lords we’ve got Lord Rally for a Referendum
Kinnock, Brittan, Tugendhat, Richard, Clinton-Davis, a raft of them in other words Nigel Farage MEP 
there. The cross-benchers also have people who are on Government chairman of Daniel Hannan MEP 
quangos of various sorts, nearly all appointed under the Labour Government although
they have to, by convention, sit on the cross-benches they are temperamentally Blair's 10 years of
inclined to vote Labour or are temperamentally Europhile. And then the Lib Dems of handing power to the EU
course, we know what their position is, I think we do, I’m not sure they know Reform Treaty to revive EU
themselves but I’ll go into that in a minute. Constitution
Robert Oulds 
So the reason that if you’re surprised about the votes in the Lords, simply it’s the
mathematics, it isn’t if you like in our, the eurosceptics, the rationalists, the euro- The EU: Options for
realists, its not in our favour, which is one of the reasons of course we’ve never won Britain
a single amendment during all the 11 days of debate on the Lisbon Treaty. Conservative Party Fringe
Meeting with Douglas
The Lib Dems of course really are the special ones, I mean they manage to vote in Carswell MP and Christopher
the Commons, some of them lost the whip because they voted against their own Booker
party and voted for a referendum. When it came to the Lords, they managed to do a Christopher Booker 
sort of double U-turn and didn’t vote for a referendum and didn’t vote to abstain,
they decided they would vote actually with the Government. So it made it very No clash with a world cup
difficult, it was like nailing jelly to a wall to work out what the ‘Lib Dim’ position game
actually was, but in the end they made it quite clear that they were going to vote Frederick Forsyth addressed
regardless of what their leader said, they were going to vote with the Government the Group
and support the Lisbon Treaty. Frederick Forsyth 

Now this evening’s debate was interesting because of course after the Irish vote the It would burst the
Lisbon Treaty is technically dead, its moribund, it’s all over for the Lisbon Treaty at Cameron bubble for good
the moment. It requires as you all know 27 signatories to get it through, to ratify it, No time to back down over
one of those countries, the only country that was given a referendum decided not to the EPP misalliance
ratify the Treaty so it is dead, but you wouldn’t have thought it to hear the debate Dr Lee Rotherham 
tonight.
Standard bearers of
In fact Lord Brittan got up and said, and I quote, ‘the Treaty is not dead its asleep’. democracy and the
By God if you were Sleeping Beauty you wouldn’t want to be kissed awake by Lord nation-state speak out
Brittan would you? And there were a mass, there was Lord Kerr of Kinlochard who Christopher Booker and Lord
formulated the constitution in the earlier Treaty that was voted down by the French Tebbit address the Bruges
and the Dutch voters and of course they simply cannot accept that their pet baby Group
was voted down by the Irish this time having very carefully ensured as far as they Christopher Booker 
possibly could that there would be no referendums at all in the European Union, it was
too dangerous to do it, they’d all agreed that. They said there’s going to be no Ignoring the French Non
referendum we can’t allow that, just like the Government here, we really can’t ask the and the Dutch Nee the EU
people it’s too dangerous and they’re too ignorant to be asked. Luckily the Irish, I takes more powers
think it was the Irish Court, the Irish High Court, the Irish Supreme Court said this Conference: Integration
Treaty was of Constitutional importance and therefore a referendum was required. marching on
Christopher Booker 
So that is the position and there were several speeches by eminent legal personalities Ruth Lea 
in the Lords who explained in words of one syllable – actually no lawyers never use Professor Kenneth Minogue 
one syllable when ten will do – but they did explain quite clearly that the Treaty was
dead but other noble Lords then got up and said no its not dead at all, it is like Lord Alternatives to
Brittan said, its asleep or the Irish made a mistake or they weren’t actually voting centralisation
about the Treaty, they were voting about the colour of Brian Cowen’s socks or about Plan B For Europe: Lost
abortion or anything but about what the Treaty was about. Exactly what they said if Opportunities in the EU
you remember when the French voted down the constitution, they were voting Constitution Debate
against Mitterrand and not about the issues in the referendum, a total lie. Dr Lee Rotherham 

But it does get under people’s skins in the end, this constant drip of superiority, of Micro guide # 3
arrogance, of denial that people know what they’re voting about and I believe that in Another slice of the Salami:
spite of tonight’s vote, it doesn’t alter the fact that the Treaty is actually dead. And I How the European Criminal
spoke to Lord Neill, who is not a law lord but he is a very highly respected legal Code is being introduced by
person and he said ‘no the Treaty is definitely dead’. He spoke tonight and I collared stealth
him afterwards and I also spoke to Lord Christopher Kingsland who was Shadow Lord Gawain Towler 
Chancellor and he certainly knows what he’s talking about he said ‘no its all over for
the Treaty, its dead, they’ll have to come back with a different Treaty or they’ll have Micro guide # 2
to ask the Irish to vote again’. And I think the chance of the Irish being amenable to The Corpse Bride
having a Treaty stuffed back down their throats is remote in the extreme. Dr Lee Rotherham 

So what is going to happen? There will be confabulation, there will be a lot of eminent Micro guide #1
groups and all of the things they love calling their study groups in Europe and they’ll Can the EU be Reformed?
get together and they’ll try and think of a fudge. But I think it’s going to be quite Robert Oulds 
difficult to be honest and no one seems to want a new treaty, even the Government
admitted that tonight but the Lisbon Treaty is non-operative, it’s finished but it is Visions for the future
extraordinary how many peers tonight simply won’t accept that. Fringe Meeting: The
Conservative Party, Where
The Lib Dems were in total denial. Shirley Williams said ‘well they were voting on the Next?
wrong thing and didn’t have the right information’ and I didn’t get up and speak The Rt
because there were too many speakers and they were too long to be honest, but I Hon. John Redwood MP 
felt like saying well, which is true, yesterday morning I went out to look at my sheep
and there was a dead ewe in the field. So I went up to it and I kicked it, it was still Exposing the facts,
dead and I didn’t call the vet and say this ewe is not dead its alive so could you busting the myths
please resuscitate it. But that is the mindset now and in fact that was exactly what All you need to know about
Barroso said, his first reaction when he came looking, I have to say a little bit green the EU
about the gills after the Irish vote was announced and said ‘the Treaty is not dead, it Robert Oulds 
is alive’. Well you can make your own judgement as to whether it’s dead or alive.
Integration thwarted?
So we had several vigorous exchanges in the Lords and the Europhile lordships don’t Where does Europe go now?
really appreciate UKIP at all so we were always under attack and our amendments,
although we tried to tell the truth about what Europe really means and what it means
to our democracy, it wasn’t very popular. But there were some rather amusing Political correctness - The
moments and I want to share one with you because it concerns Gerry Frost and European Union
Eurofacts. dimension
WARNING: The European
One of the front bench spokesmen is called Lord Wallace of Saltaire who is incredibly Union and Political
pleased with himself, in a very academic way he’s cleverer than most people and boy Correctness
does he let you know he’s cleverer than most people. And he had terrific fun one  John Midgley   
evening, it was quite late and he brandished – I have to say that I’m partly guilty
because I gave Lord Wallace a subscription to Eurofacts for Christmas, and I did give Paper launch and petition
it to all the Liberal front bench, I thought it would really make their Christmas holiday to the PM
– and he picked it up and said ‘oh here we’ve got Eurofacts’ with a sort of sneering Plan B For Europe: Lost
grin to Malcolm Pearson and me who were sitting up on the back benches, ‘and it Opportunities in the EU
appears according to Eurofacts that seers, crystal ball gazers and fortune tellers are Constitution Debate and the
going to be regulated out of existence by the European Union, they will have to petition to Tony Blair
qualify under one of these directives that the UKIP people keep on talking about, ha
ha ha, isn’t that funny, isn’t it ridiculous’ and he sat down to wild cheers from the Lib
Dem benches. Fine. Two days later what was the page three story in The Times, Time for a national
‘Crystal ball gazers, fortune tellers are going to be regulated by the EU’. That was debate on the EU
under the EU Commercial Practices Directive and here’s the story in Eurofacts, so if Comment on Jack Straw's
you haven’t read it I strongly advise you to subscribe to Eurofacts and get the full Referendum statement
story.

So we circulated the Times story together with the extract from Hansard and
No means No
circulated it to everyone in the House of Lords who took part in those debates and
Lord Lamont comments on
that was in a way a little bit of quiet revenge which was quite enjoyable.
the French Referendum and
the EU Constitution
Another enjoyable moment was when UKIP, that was Malcolm Pearson and me, put
The Rt Hon. Lord Lamont of
down an amendment which the Liberal Democrats wanted to have in the Commons –
Lerwick 
they weren’t allowed to table it, the speaker said it was inadmissible – was a
referendum not on the Lisbon Treaty but on whether we should be in or out of the
After 5th May the real
European Union, that’s what the Lib Dems wanted... sorry I misspoke, the ‘Lib Dims’,
decisions will have to be
that’s what they wanted. So we put that forward, we wanted to help, they didn’t put
made
it forward but we did, always ready to help and so we put it forward, we spoke to it
The election issue should be
very movingly and of course the Conservatives opposed it as they were bound to do
Who Governs Britain?
so, they don’t want to be painted as get outers, good God no, and so we voted, we
Robert Oulds 
divided the House on this amendment, which is what the Liberal Democrats said they
always wanted, they said they don’t want to vote on the Lisbon Treaty, lets vote in
A slow coup against
or out, let the people vote on that, so good, we’ll have that. And I said well I hope
political democracy
our noble friends the Liberal Democrat benchers will support us, no, they sat on their
The EU Constitution – an
hands like sort of crows on a branch and didn’t go into lobby at all they abstained.
analysis
And when they were challenged on this by David Howell on the Conservative front
Dr Anthony Coughlan 
bench why they hadn’t supported their own amendment, what was their amendment
in the Commons, they said they couldn’t bring themselves to support a UKIP
Europe's last chance
amendment, some sort of contamination by being close to us on the voting lobby or
The Bottom Line
something.
Robert Oulds 
Dr Lee Rotherham 
So its been a difficult time in the Lords really but you have to hang onto the fact that
the Irish have voted the Treaty down, which is absolutely brilliant and I’d like to go
QMV vs Democracy
just a little bit wider because what is happening I think in Parliament – and I notice it
Summary of Qualified
in the Lords because I spend quite a lot of time there and particularly when there are
Majority Voting in
EU regulations and directives coming through – that Parliament, lets say Parliament
Successive European
broadly, its true of the Commons and the Lords are losing power now. So much of our
Treaties
legislation comes from Brussels.

Just the other day, and I don’t know if this was in Eurofacts or not, McCreevy, the
Competition Commissioner I think, said 80% of our commercial law/legislation now A need for freedom
comes from Brussels. That was not a scare story from Eurofacts, it was not a scare Circle of Barbed Wire
story from The Daily Mail, it wasn’t the Murdock press, it wasn’t anything like that, it Bernard Connolly 
was the Commission saying that and I notice that all the time when I’m in the Lords.
We keep on getting things put up on the order paper, the legislation on waste Comment on the Bush
electrical and electronic directive, the driver’s hours regulations, the curd cheese victory
regulations. Just the other day we had a nice one, the recognition of furrier’s Bruges Group welcomes
qualifications regulations. I had no idea that Lords knew so much about furriers but display of true democracy
they did. But I had to tell them and a lot of them still don’t realise it that you cannot
do anything about it, we can debate them, we can have a wonderful time displaying
our expertise and there were two members of the Worshipful Company of Furriers Coming to a cinema near
there who said what absolute rubbish this furriers regulation was. And I said well you
that’s all very well but it is rubbish, of course it is, but we cannot do anything about Fahrenheit E1 11
it, the Government have to sign up to it, we have to agree to it, it’s a done deal, we Robert Oulds 
can’t do anything about it so there’s actually not much point debating it, you might as
well do the crossword or go and have a drink or something else. Fight for Britain to be
freed from the EU
And this is happening more and more and I think that all of you, if you don’t already The Bruges Group will fight
realise it, ought to know that Parliament is becoming increasingly impotent and it is an for a no vote
ongoing process because more and more law is being made in Brussels and sometimes
its not even seen by Parliament, its what they call directly applied and goes straight
into British law immediately. The ones that are applied, as I say, we can debate them Better off Out!
but we cannot do anything about them at all. So I’m feeling increasingly impotent What is the point of the
there, we can pretend that we’re doing some good there I suppose but we can’t do European Union?
anything about now the majority of law that is coming our way. Lord Pearson 
Last year the ex-President of the German Republic, Roman Herzog, made a statement A wounded thrashing
in a newspaper article that over 80% of German law was put into place not by the tiger
German Parliament but by Brussels, by the Commission and the Council Ministers. And Byzantine Europe
really he was quite serious; he said Germany has got to ask itself well can it genuinely Robert Oulds 
call itself a proper democratic republic anymore.
EU Constitution Briefing
And I think we’ve got to ask ourselves the same question now in this country, we’re Paper # 03
losing our ability to run our show. It’s wonderful having the state opening of Subsidiarity and the Illusion
Parliament but what does it really mean. I mean next week, probably tomorrow or the of Democratic Control
day after, because the third reading is happening even as I am speaking, the Queen John Bercow MP 
will sign this Treaty, it will get the Royal Assent and that will be that. Now the fact
that it doesn’t come into force is neither here nor there and the argument I am Bruges Group exclusive
making that we have no longer the power to run our own affairs in this country. Andrew Rosindell MP,
Member for Romford, speaks
Do you remember years ago when Jacques Delors said 80% of your laws will be made to www.brugesgroup.com
in Brussels in ten years and he was howled down and it was ‘up yours Delors’ and all Robert Oulds 
that sort of stuff went on but actually its happened so there we are.
The European Union will
But ladies and gentlemen I don’t want to end on that rather pessimistic note, this is crack
Waterloo Day after all and Napoleon may think that he’s won the argument, after all How the European Union
our petrol is sold in litres and a lot of our laws now are expressed somehow in metres Fudges Reality
or kilometres, witness the outrageous law that was pushed through last year that you Professor Kenneth Minogue 
cannot be allowed to demonstrate not within 800 yards of Parliament but within 1
kilometre, what’s that all about. Launch of New Paper No.
44
Well let’s celebrate Waterloo Day but let’s wonder whether from the grave the victory Democracy in Crisis: The
is quite as complete as we thought then but let’s hold onto the Irish and I think for White Paper on European
the moment no more Irish jokes. Governance by Nigel
Farage, MEP

Speech by Gerry Frost Britain must make a

choice: Europe or
As I left home this evening the telephone rang and my son, who knew I was coming America / more
up to London, asked me to meet him for a drink. I explained I had another government or less
engagement, I said I was speaking to a meeting in the Bruges Group. He asked the The European Union's anti-
title, I said ‘well it’s Euroscepticism: Why has it failed?’ He said ‘it sounds a bit Americanism and the EU's
negative to me; it could be construed as the musings of a grumpy old man’. I think I latest grab for power
should counter that charge head on; I plead guilty to the charge and ask for 257 The Rt
previous offences to be taken into account. Hon. John Redwood MP 

When Robert asked me to speak this evening, it seemed to me to be an appropriate Paper No. 44
moment to ask why euroscepticism has failed, failed that is in the sense that we have Democracy in Crisis: The
not achieved our fundamental objective of getting the British Government to White Paper on European
announce its intention to leave the political structures of the European Union. This is Governance
a goal which after all, some of us have been pursuing man and boy for 30 years or Dr Cris Shore 
more. True public opinion may be more eurosceptic than it was three or four decades
ago but it was never strongly in favour of the European Union in the first place. The EU bureaucracy, a
culture mired in scandals,
The fact remains that after all the millions of words that have been expended in the corruption and nepotism
eurosceptic court, after all the meetings, petitions, pamphlets, entries on the blogs, – a stark warning for the
books, speeches and after all the many demonstrations that British interests are peoples of Europe
damaged by EU membership, there are only a dozen out of 646 MPs in the House of Launch of paper No. 43
Commons who are prepared to say publicly that they are in favour of repealing the
Treaty of Accession. And this, despite the iniquities of CAP, the regulatory hyper
activism of the Brussels machine, the corruption and the systematic strangulation of
Paper No. 43
democracy, not much to show really for 35 years of political activism.
European Union and the
Politics of Culture
Eurosceptics such as myself like to convince ourselves that at least intellectually we
Dr Cris Shore 
have won, we have won the argument, so much so that the various pro-EU bodies,
the publications, the think tanks, pressure groups have faded away, closed down,
Europe's rotten heart
their members skulking in the political undergrowth until there is a more propitious
“Europe” – a threat to our
moment to announce and advance their cause. Well the truth of the matter is they
freedoms and our peace
can afford to do that, they may have lost the argument but events have moved
Bernard Connolly 
inextricably in the direction of ever closer union. There has been no need for them
recently to exert themselves. The EU juggernaut has moved on regardless, the
Paper No. 37
Europhile victory has been a triumph without them having to exert themselves.
The Bank that rules Europe?
The ECB and Central Bank
So now that the Lisbon Treaty is all but ratified, it seems to me that it’s worth asking
Independence
why this should be so and why it is that eurosceptics have not been more successful.
Mark Baimbridge 
It’s a question that I ask myself frequently. Haven’t they read the latest issue of
Brian Burkitt 
Eurofax I ask myself. How can they possibly continue to believe in an enterprise which
Philip Whyman 
has so dramatically failed?

What follows is an attempt at a tentative answer to that question to which perhaps

you can contribute more ideas and help to create a more comprehensive picture. Is it
our fault, by which I mean is it the fault of eurosceptics, eurosceptic activists,
eurosceptic pressure groups, think tanks, publications? Is the fault in ourselves and
not in our stars, should we have gone about the pursuit of our goals in some other
way. I am inclined to think that most of the opportunities for expressing descent that
exist in a free or freeish society have in fact been exploited, some of them skilfully so
I think we can plead not guilty to that accusation.

Have we been paralysed by a lack of resources, handicapped possibly? Euroscepticism

has won a significant victory, the solemn pledge by all parties to hold a referendum on
the Euro was extracted by a millionaire, James Goldsmith with bottomless pockets.
Given the resources available to Government it was bound to be a David and Goliath
affair but euroscepticism has its own millionaires, the Wheelers and the Paul Sykes as
well as the Goldsmiths. Business for Stirling was well funded as is open Europe. Lack
of funds does not go very far to explain why euroscepticism has not made greater
advances than it has. In passing it’s perhaps worth noting that while the Goldsmith
campaign was well funded and well organised and well led, its goals were clearly
defined.

There is a tendency for some eurosceptics to be coy about their objectives for fear of
being excluded from polite society. If they are open and candid they fear that they
will be so excluded. This comes ill from those who complain the goals of their
opponents; the Europhiles are being pursued by subterfuge and deceit, so perhaps
there is something to learn from that. Has the eurosceptic cause been inward looking
and fissiparous, have we argued too much with one another and failed to cooperate
and collaborate, possibly but most pressure groups campaign bodies and the like are
run by strong-minded, opinionated people who do not easily fall into line or agree with
one another.

Has UKIP, the one Party in favour of withdrawal from the EU let us down? I believe it’s
very important for there to be a credible party to which disaffected members of other
parties, particularly the Conservative Party can threaten to switch their support if it
fails to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s membership and fails to do what is necessary
if it cannot get its way. However, UKIP plainly failed to take advantage of the support
it attracted at the last European elections, there is clearly some dissatisfaction within
the Party that it has not done more to oppose the Lisbon Treaty and it sometimes
seems to me as the recipient of telephone calls from UKIP members that there are as
many splits within the Party as there are members. There is also something peculiar
about a political party whose greatest achievement to date is to get a dozen people
elected to an institution which it thinks Britain should not belong to but I don’t think
we can lay much blame at the door of UKIP. In its defence it can be said that it is
trying to do the right thing, its heart is in the right place even if its strategic brain is
not always fully engaged.

Well is it the force of the public, it has always been a tenant of Thatcherism and I
speak as an unreconstructed Thatcherite, that the public is sounder in its instincts
than are the intellectuals and the elites. Countless opinion polls show that the public
does not like the EU. A recent poll commissioned by Global Vision asked whether if
Britain sought to negotiate a new looser relationship with the EU but the rest of the
EU objected, 57% said Britain should leave the EU under these circumstances while
only a third, 33% said Britain should stay in. So the public is more or less okay. It has
to be acknowledged however that the EU is seldom at the top of the public’s list of
priorities and it’s proved very difficult indeed to get large numbers of people to
publicly demonstrate their views on this subject.

Lord Pearson, whom I greatly admire, said recently that you could get a million people
out in the street today. I think reality is that you struggle to get 250. The British
public may indeed be slow and obtuse in recognising its interests in this matter. There
is however I think one partial explanation for its apparent apathy, the public has been
lied to over the EU so frequently that it believes that it has been effectively
disenfranchised in this matter as it has indeed on the issue of immigration and that
nothing it says or does will make any difference at all. No doubt Europe’s reaction to
recent events in Ireland will have strengthened that view.

Moreover, public opinion needs to be led; motivated, inspired and political leadership
has been in short supply. I was abroad when David Davis resigned over 42 days but I
am told that it resulted in a wave of public support which took members of the opinion
forming elite by surprise. Nick Robinson of the BBC who initially described the
resignation as being absurd publicly acknowledged the strength of public feeling on
the matter.

Now I don’t underestimate the danger that we are sleepwalking into a surveillance
society but it seems to me that the European project, which effectively sounds the
death knell for another project, that of self-government project which began in these
islands would have been a much better issue to resign over. Had David Davis
approached that issue as Keith Joseph when rejecting the post-war middle of the road
economic and political consensus during the 1970s did, combining passion with
intellectual rigour, frankly admitting his own and his party’s errors, I believe he would
have shaken the political establishment to its foundations.

So I’m not inclined to blame the public. Should we blame the Tories, most certainly, I
think we should do that on every available occasion. But it seems to me that the
failure the Conservative betrayal – that’s not a word I like it’s a sort of socialist word,
it’s the word of ideologs but its the best word I can find in the circumstances – the
failure of the Conservative Party in this regard is part of a much larger betrayal, the
betrayal of the national interests by Britain’s political, cultural and education elites
who came to regard the notion of national interest as passé or even immoral. In their 
judgement Britain was small, jaded, unexciting, they thought they could have a slice
of the action in something bigger, more modern, more exciting.

I think in some ways this failure of our elites is comparable to that during the 90s
when members of the British political establishment opted for appeasement rather
than rearmament. But there’s a difference of course, when appeasement proved not
to work many backed rearmament and Churchill. When the EU was shown to fail or at
least not to live up to expectations there was no comparable switch of allegiance.

For some of course the EU is pretty much what they expected it to be and are
presumably happy with the results, the likes of Ken Clarke for example, but I think we
are talking a fairly small number, I think its true that many who once were strong
supporters of the EU are now disillusioned but there has been very little in the way of
recanting or acknowledgement of error. The political elite prefer to ignore the
direction and implications of the European project as much as possible because they
feel somewhat guilty about it and are aware that they have been party to political
developments which have not turned out well and which have been obscured by a
cloak of deceit. Europe is the elephant in the room which all but a few ignore. The
problem for them is that the elephant is getting bigger and more troublesome.

The attitudes which I have described explain why among the political class there is a
readiness to accept responsibility for problems when things go wrong, problems that
originated in Brussels. Normally you can take it for granted that politicians will shift
the blame to any available person, even to the weather or to sporting failures. So
what is taking place is of course very unusual.

On an almost daily basis it is possible to observe Ministers taking responsibility for

problems, the chaos in the Post Office for example or the chaotic introduction of the
absurd and the whole unnecessary Home Improvement Packs; they’re just two
examples of a long list which began life in the EU. Extraordinarily the age old cry of
‘it’s not our fault’ has been replaced by ‘yes it is our fault’. This is not of course an
honest admission of guilt but a thoroughly dishonest attempt to conceal a greater
fault that of transferring powers to an unaccountable and unpopular EU institution
while pretending that you were doing something else, it could be modernising, it could
be responding to the needs of enlargement or simply tidying up to use a phrase
favoured by Jack Straw. The underlying strategy is analogous to that of a criminal
who pleads guilty to a minor charge in order to escape a much more serious one.
Many of the people I am talking about describe themselves as eurosceptic but are
embarrassed by what they have signed up to and do not like to acknowledge the
huge political and economic capital that has been invested in a project which is
becoming less popular and harder than ever to justify.

Now eurosceptics denounce particular aspects of the EU, the democratic deficit for
example, the iniquities of the CAP, the tendency of the EU to over regulate, the
danger that in creating an autonomous defence capability we will wreck NATO, there
are many such people will agree. They say the same things themselves, particularly at
moments such as now when the EU is getting particularly bad press but they curiously
refuse to move on from analysis of the EU’s defects to a conclusion that we would be
better off out or even to a conclusion that we should seriously explore that possibility
and the means of doing so. What is it that prevents moving to a conclusion which
many in this room would seem obvious and right?

I think the explanation is that too much capital has been invested in this project to
permit candour. Like a gambler who frittered away his family fortune the calculation of
what has been lost is too painful even for those who have gone along with the
project rather than enthusiastically endorsing it and of course such omissions
inevitably involved deteriorating relations or perhaps ruptures in relations with friends,
allies, political parties, its not an easy thing to do.

Its possible to mention scores of MPs, distinguished journalists and broadcasters who
fall into this category and one also observes the emergence of the younger
generation which has no reason at all to feel guilty for mistakes made in the 70s, 80s
or 90s but has come to recognise that it has little to gain in terms of career
advancement if it raises difficult matters relating to the EU. I note the Policy
Exchange which is full of bright young people, now the biggest political think tank in
Britain in terms of funding employing around 45 people and the one closest to David
Cameron does not include Europe in its published list of priorities and has published
only one paper on EU matters and that on the implications of enlargement. Curious, I
would have thought as Chairman, Charles Moore would certainly describe himself as a
eurosceptic as would its Director Anthony Browne. Its publications team with good
ideas about policy measures the Tories will introduce but it seems curiously
uninterested in the question of how such measures are going to be introduced when
as is now the case, around maybe 80% of our laws and many of our policies are made
in Brussels.

As you are probably aware the Conservative Party says that it wishes to reclaim
control over employment and social policy. If it is serious about this it will need to do
some serious work. I can’t see any evidence this is being done at the Policy Exchange
or anywhere else for that matter.

Although rare, it is not unknown for political errors to be acknowledged. In the 20s
and 30s young intellectuals admitted to having been wrong about communism. A good
number of these became rabid anti-communists. Why are there not more examples of
European federalists making similar intellectual U-turns? As I say its not an easy thing
to do, its not just a question of admitting that you’re wrong, that you backed a
system that sucked out the substance of democratic British institutions that resulted
in the passage of hundreds of laws which meet our needs if at all very poorly, many of
which were evidently absurd and unnecessary, a system which has cost the tax payer
billions, again with very little in return, which has created a method of agricultural
support, which is probably the most inhumane and inefficient in history.

To acknowledge the full enormity of the harm that has been done of course you also
have to admit if you’re honest, that all of this has been done deceitfully by people
who sometimes appear to have also deceived themselves. There has always been a
furtive quality about British collaboration in the European project and it is this quality
which makes it particularly hard for our political elites to admit error since it amounts
to an admission of moral weakness as well as flawed political judgement. This it seems
to me is what euroscepticism is up against.

Well what of the future? That consummate eurosceptic blogger Richard North, whose
partner Helen Szamuely is here this evening, recently concluded that euroscepticism
had indeed failed, indeed it was quite dead. I disagree, I think its defined as a general
aversion to the affairs of the European Union, I think its more evasive than it has ever
been, its time to regroup, to raise our game. The political elites in this country who
are responsible for our present difficulties are weaker and less confident than ever
and they are conscious of the huge and still growing gulf in attitudes which separates
them from the electorate.
 Moreover there are signs that the tectonic plates are shifting, that Britain is going
through one of those periods reflected not only in the opinion polls but in other
manifestations too in which the prevailing consensus is likely to be challenged under
the impact of events, particularly I think economic events. The Chancellor has
recently been writing to José Manuel Barroso, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel 
complaining about the impact of the CAP on food prices, he’s stopped taking the rap.
It’s not of course that he’d expect Mrs Merkel or Mr Sarkozy to take a blind bit of
notice; he’s simply trying to escape responsibility for decisions which originated in the
EU. We may expect more of the same as the Government loses the plot and cannot
work out whether its likely to be damned more as a result of admitting that the EU
was behind so many unpopular measures or not.

Now I have no doubt that in the long run the EU edifice will implode under the impact
of its own contradictions, though despite the present lack of political leadership I
remain hopeful that Britain will have chosen to chart its own course by then. My gut
instinct is it will take one more twist of the integrationist ratchet for British public
opinion to become angrier and more assertive and for euroscepticism to become more
hard line. At that time we may expect milk and water eurosceptics to become 100%
proof eurosceptics and more senior politicians to offer a semblance of leadership if
only to avoid being left behind in the rush. There is still all to play for, we have failed
so far but we may yet succeed.

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Honorary President: The Rt Hon. the Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven LG, OM, FRS
Vice-President: The Rt Hon. the Lord Lamont of Lerwick
Co-Chairmen: Dr Brian Hindley & Barry Legg
Director: Robert Oulds MA
Head of Research: Dr Helen Szamuely
Washington D.C. Representative: John O'Sullivan CBE
Founder Chairman: Lord Harris of High Cross
Former Chairmen: Dr Martin Holmes & Professor Kenneth Minogue