Pax Europea Paddy Ashdown
There was a day when you could divide policies between domestic and foreign; major national issues did not stray too far beyond national borders. This is no longer the case. There is no domestic issue that does not have a foreign quotient with it: not jobs; not the environment; not terrorism, crime, or security.
Those who argue that leaving Europe will give us more control our own affairs, don’t understand that the opposite is true. By pooling our sovereignty with our European neighbours we have more control over global forces. By being alone global forces have more control over us.
Defence is often cited as the first duty of a Government. A stable, peaceful nation, without external threats to its civilians, is a strong nation. AS NATO shows, in the modern, globalised world this means pooling our sovereignty and working closely with those whose values we share around the world. That’s why every one of our international friends, every ally, every world leader worth listening to, has come out in support of us staying in Europe – except for one – Vladimir Putin, whose aim these twenty years has been to break up the EU. Should we really be helping him?
Working in partnership, as a union of like-minded states, we have overcome many of our difference. Just 75 years ago we were dropping bombs on Germany; 30 years ago we were pointing nuclear missiles at Poland. Before that we struggled through centuries of bloody wars. Yet today we sit around the same table, talking together, negotiating a shared, stronger, future for us all.
It is for this reason that I am a passionate European. I find something attractive about this idea – that it has put an end to centuries of war, with the slaughter of millions of our young generations across history, by bringing our previously disparate nations together.
It is not just the nations within Europe that see the benefits of peace and security. The European Union is a massive soft power that, as we act together, helps to build peace on our doorstep and across the world. Furthermore, it helps to deal with the catastrophic fallout from conflict – the destruction that follows wars, as in Bosnia. One of the greatest strategic issues of our time — the mass movements of people escaping wars in Africa and the Middle East – will only be successfully overcome by cooperation, by working together to solve otherwise insurmountable problems. Over the years the European Union has shown itself to be have been far more effective at sustaining and building peace, underpinning democracy and creating the rule of law than all the aircraft carriers of the United States put together.
Of course the peace of Europe is not today threatened by war inside our borders. But it is threatened by war all around us. Consider this; We now live in a world where the US is looking quite as much west across the Pacific, as east across the Atlantic. On our eastern borders we have the most aggressive Russian President of our time, prepared to take European territory with tanks. To our southeast we have an Arab world in flames. To our south the Maghreb is in turmoil right down into sub-Saharan Africa. And all around us are economic powers now growing larger than any single European nation. And this is the time to remove ourselves from the solidarity of our friends and partners in the EU? That would be folly of the highest order and would result on the dangers of a most turbulent era being far greater for us and our children than they need be.
ENDS