On Wednesday, Prospect held a discussion event with Philip Hammond the Foreign Secretary. Before an audience at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Bronwen Maddox, the editor of Prospect, asked him about the forthcoming referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union, Britain's relationship with Saudi Arabia and how relations with the United States might be affected if Donald Trump were elected President. In the question and answer session that followed, Richard Dawkins asked the Foreign Secretary why Britain should bother having a referendum on Europe at all. A selection of quotes and pictures from the evening can be found here below, and the full discussion can be heard in the player above. (Please note that there is a dip in sound quality at 26mins 11sec. The was due to an unavoidable technical glitch, for which, apologies.)
On obtaining a deal on EU membership
“We’ve made quite a lot of ground and I think we are seeing in many areas that we are aligning, we are getting an understanding of how we take this forward with our European partners.”“It’s no secret that we have bigger challenges in the areas of access to benefits migration issues than we do in the other areas.”
“Until we see the draft document that the Council produces we won't know whether we’ve got far enough for a deal in February to be a realistic prospect.”
“Now the ball is in their court and we really need to see a draft.”
“If we are not close enough, then as the PM said, it’s more important that we get the right deal than a quick deal.”
On immigration
“I do not want to support a proposition that is then going to fail when it’s put to the British people. And my judgement is that unless there is within this package measures that will have the effect of reducing net migration into the UK from the EU, and there are various ways that can be done, unless there is something that can have that effect, we have no chance of persuading the British people to support the package in a referendum.”“It’s a necessary condition for a package to be recommendable.”
Was Angela Merkel wrong to welcome refugees in the way she did?
“I would note that Angela Merkel herself is making much less generous noises about future migration policy in Germany now than she was a few months ago. I think perhaps the scale of the challenge was not foreseen by politicians and some of the early statements were perhaps made with a rather more modest potential influx in mind.”Syria peace talks—can they take place while Russia keeps up its current tactics?
“There’s no doubt that the Russians’ engagement in this process has complicated the issue. I’ve got no doubt that Russia shares our desire to defeat Islamist extremism and destroy Daesh in its base in Raqqa. But what the Russians are doing is not what they said they’d do. 70 per cent of Russian airstrikes, even now, are targeted against moderate opposition. These are the people we believe have to be an integral part of the new Syria. Destroying them, bombing them, bombing civilian areas—schools hospitals, mosques—while engaged in a political process in parallel I’m afraid is not a sustainable position.”“I don’t think it’s sustainable to continue a political process co-sponsored, as it were, by a protagonist who is bombing civilians on the ground.”
On President Assad of Syria
“Somebody who has murdered hundreds of thousands of their own citizens and deliberately targeted civilians with barrel bombs and displaced two thirds of the population from their homes cannot be part of the future of the country.”“So long as Assad is there, the Sunni oppositionists are not going to lay down their arms. There isn’t going to be an effective end to the civil war.”
“There has to be a commitment to Assad’s departure to enable a political solution to the civil war.”
“If the Russians were prepared to remove Assad from the equation, while protecting him personally, my personal view is that while that would be distasteful, it would be preferable to seeing another hundred thousand Syrians killed.”
Intelligence and Russia's deployment in Syria
“I think we were surprised by the speed of the Russian deployment [in Syria]. The signals we had from Russia were that while it might want to have some greater involvement it would be a limited involvement.”“Candidly, I have a question mark in my mind whether Russia is really committed to a political solution. Or whether what we are actually seeing is a military campaign designed to shore up the Assad regime and to create an Alawite mini-state under cover of a political process.”
The Litvinenko murder
“While this is a very serious crime and we want to send a very clear signal about our view of this crime, we did in fact react when the murder or Mr Litvinenko took place on the assumption that there was Russian state complicity, if not Russian state direction of the crime.”Relations with Saudi Arabia
“We always deplore the use of the death penalty. We believe it’s inhumane. We believe it’s ineffective and we always say so.”“The Saudis are well aware of our position.”
“We have also got to be realistic. The death penalty is mandated in Sharia law. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not about to abandon Sharia law.”
Afghanistan—the situation in Helmand province
“It’s possible to defend [Helmand].” “The Taliban have made inroads, particularly in northern Helmand, which has always been the most difficult part of the province.”“The Afghan 215 Corps that garrisons Helmand is currently significantly under-strength. And I think we have got to keep making the case to the Afghan government to prioritise Helmand. They are facing many pressures in other areas.”
The FCO and its resources
“We did very well in the most recent spending review. We certainly did better than most people were predicting with a flat real terms settlement over all.”“We were planning internally for a much harsher settlement and working out how we would cut overhead costs in order to maintain our frontline presence.”
“I think it is worth noting that we have a diplomatic service roughly the same size as that of France, but we deliver that with a budget about 75 per cent that of France.”
“Our benchmark around the network is to outperform the French while under-spending the French. We probably serve slightly less good wine.”
What if Trump were to win the White House?
“We deal with countries not with individuals. I think that our relationship with the US is deep enough… that it doesn’t depend on the dynamics of any particular pair of leaders.”“We could be in a similar forum in Washington where someone says ‘how about Prime Minister Corbyn, how would that affect the special relationship?’ But I like to think the relationship is deep enough… that it drives with a momentum all of its own.”
A question from Richard Dawkins
RD: “I am going to be invited to vote on whether we should leave Europe. I don’t have a degree in economics. I am totally unqualified to make the decision, so is just about everybody else in the country and I could imagine that on an issue like, say, foxhunting, a plebiscite might be a suitable way to proceed. But on something as complicated and important as Europe, why on earth hand it over to the British people?”FOR SEC: “There speaks a true democrat. Too important for the people to decide.”
RD: “We have a representative democracy.”
FOR SEC: “And the people decided at the last democratic election that they wanted to be governed by a party that included in its manifesto a commitment to allow this decision to be taken by the people through a referendum. It’s going to be the only way to settle this issue and it’s very much in the interests of Britain and in the interest of British business and our future wellbeing that we do settle the issue and settle it properly.”
“On the one hand of the scales you are asked to give up some of your sovereignty to the European Union. And on the other side of the scales you gain some economic benefit being in a market of 500m people. What’s gone wrong is very simple. The economic benefits haven’t been materialising for Britain so many people feel that the dynamism and entrepreneurialism of our economy has been held back by the dead hand of Brussels bureaucracy while on the other hand our ask in terms of our sovereignty has been too great. Recalibrating that equation—a bit less sovereignty demand, a few powers coming back to the nations, better protections to ensure that future decisions properly respect the principle of subsidiarity and on the other hand a new focus in Brussels on creating jobs wealth and growth rather than focussing simply on the social model of Europe, recognising the reality of the globalised economy in which Europe has to try and earn its living—will rebalance that equation in a way that I think ordinary British people will be perfectly capable of recognising, perfectly capable of reaching that judgement.”
[gallery ids="42486,42487,42488,42489,42490,42491,42492,42493"]
The arrangements for the event were kindly supported by
