Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2013-10-23-Speech-3-221-000"
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"en.20131023.32.3-221-000"2
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"Mr President, in this, the last annual CFSP report in the lifetime of this parliamentary term, I congratulate Mr Brok, but apologise that I have to use my own contribution to warn how the global influence of my own country – the United Kingdom – would suffer, as has been demonstrated by the previous contribution, if Conservative Eurosceptics get their way and take Britain out of the European Union.
International partners, including Britain’s historic allies and friends in the world, have been clear. Japan called on the UK to maintain a strong voice and continue to play a major role in the EU. Australia told the UK that EU membership allows Britain greater leverage in our global influence, and the Obama Administration warned Britain that referendums, such as the one wanted by Prime Minister Cameron, turn countries inward. That is the real alternative. Remember, when Putin’s adviser wanted to criticise British intelligence, he called us a small island that no one listens to. In Norway, a country Eurosceptics often cite, the Head of their Institute of International Affairs said that his country’s relationship with the EU is not an alternative for Britain as it is ‘complex and costly, as well as problematic in terms of democracy and the national interest’. Even the UK Government’s own so-called Balance of Competences Review shows that foreign policy competences remain squarely with the Member States and that most of the evidence argues strongly that it is in the UK’s interest to work through the EU. Yet it is their ideology that leads them to ignore their own evidence. This year’s European foreign policy scorecard has already shown the British Government prepared to give up leadership in six out of 19 areas of European foreign policy, despite the overall finding that in only one, during the last year, has there even been minor divergence between EU and UK goals.
In this debate it is the individual merits of our High Representative, not her nationality, that allow us to celebrate what I consider to be foreign policy successes: the mediation between Serbia and Kosovo, encouraging reforms in Burma, leading the enormously important diplomacy on Iran’s nuclear programme and combating piracy off the Horn of Africa. But I am proud that the High Representative is British too, and that her personal success demonstrates how British foreign policy can sit comfortably at the heart of today’s European Union.
The British Labour Party offers a different vision. We understand that each of our countries stands taller and is able to build better alliances, win more trade deals and tackle global challenges, including climate change, by taking part in EU foreign policy and that this enhances, rather than threatens, our sovereignty. Today we punch above our weight. Tomorrow we might not even get in the ring. Labour’s shadow foreign secretary argues that the EU amplifies British power and promotes our values, not just our interests."@en1
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