Murnaghan Interview with Liam Fox Conservative MP, former Defence Secretary, 20.09.15

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well the government has announced a new push to tackle the growing migration crisis offering extra resources to the United Nations to help resettle Syrian refugees and European leaders will meet this week for more emergency talks as tensions continue to grow, in particular between Hungry and its neighbours.  Well I am joined now by the Conservative MP, the former Defence Secretary Liam Fox and he’s in North Somerset, a very good morning to you Dr Fox.  So first of all, this government’s response, the numbers, some people saying 20,000 isn’t enough but speeding up the rate at which they arrive your take on that?    

LIAM FOX: Well I think that there is such a big difference between the British government’s approach and that of other European governments.  I thin inadvertently or not, Chancellor Merkel sent a signal out that said come to Germany, everyone’s welcome.  The Prime Minister I think in the House of Commons set out a very balanced approach which said yes, we will take people who want and need to come for the sake of asylum to the United Kingdom but we will choose which individuals we will take and we will choose them via the UN camps in Syria because one of the problems has been that what people call migrants has got a very large range of numbers of people within that. You’ve got those who are genuinely fleeing a war zone looking for safety for themselves and their families but then you have also, if you look at the pictures, got a very large number of fit young men, clearly the fittest and the fastest, who are getting to the European borders and we’ve now got a very large number of people in the European Union, yesterday it was estimated as much as four-fifths who are not from Syria at all but who are coming from Eritrea, from Pakistan, from Afghanistan, from beyond, just looking for a better economic life rather than safety.  

DM: What’s your take on the tensions then that this is causing in particular emanating from Hungary?  Do you think it’s taking the right approach to accuse Croatia of in effect – well not even in effect, it accused it directly of being a people trafficker.  

LIAM FOX: When I was in Macedonia, which of course is not in the European Union, a few weeks ago, it was very evident then that people were walking from Greece, up through the Balkans to get to Croatia and then into countries like Hungary and Slovenia.  Now under European rules those who seek asylum should do so in the first EU country they come to.  Quite clearly now you have got an issue where the large numbers are coming in are causing a nationalist backlash, some sort of ethnic tensions themselves in the countries into which they are arriving and they are trying to parcel them out as quickly as possible.  The Hungarians are right that that is against the European rules but last night we had the Austrians saying that the Hungarians were bussing people into Austria without themselves recognising the rules that they had to register people and allow them to claim asylum if they wanted to do so at that point.  I think what it’s showing is that the European Schengen borderless policy inside the EU is subject to enormous strains and rather like the euro itself, it works pretty well at times of zero tension but when things get more difficult the structures themselves have not been properly thought through and I don't think the rules have been properly applied.   

DM: There are several dimensions in terms of the UK’s attempt to renegotiate its relationship with the European Union and first of all on the European stage, it is coming from some in particular German quarters that the British attitude has been noted as they attempt to redistribute the huge number of refugees and migrants fairly as they say around EU nations.  

LIAM FOX: Well we are not part of any quota agreements, we’ve stayed out of that as we stayed out of Schengen, the borderless European agreement, as we stayed out of the single currency.  All of these decisions have been shown to be very wise in retrospect and many of the problems that Europe is experiencing is because they haven’t thought through the wider issues on how these structures would perform in times of difficulty.  I think that it’s right that we’ve stayed out of those, now what does that tell us about our future approach?  I think it tells us that the United Kingdom is different from many of our continental neighbours, not just geographically but in the way that we have approached and assimilated groups in the past and I think that as an island nation we have a very different view not only of our geography in relation to Europe but our own history and that needs to be taken into account.  What we’ve seen in recent days is when you totally disregard a country’s identity as has happened with Croatia, as happened in Hungary, you will get some sort of backlash so we need to understand that we are a sovereign and distinct nation and I want our relationship with the European Union to be co-operating with our partners, where it’s in our mutual interest to do so but I want us to be able to take separately the levers that we might need to use for Britain’s national interests should our interests be different from the others and today we’re seeing that those interests are.

DM: And you do believe it has implications for the timing of the EU referendum because when it comes to things like free movement of peoples within the European Union you believe this would require treaty change and there is no way the Prime Minister could get a treaty put through the EU member states and hold a referendum by, we’re hearing perhaps by next year?

LIAM FOX: There is no doubt about the sincerity of the Prime Minister’s wish to get us to a referendum, that’s the policy on which he fought the general election and which I know he personally believes but there is a problem in that if we get a an agreement, a renegotiation which doesn’t require treaty change, that implies there is not very much in that renegotiation and it is probably not worth having. If we do get a meaningful renegotiation that does require a treaty, then I think there is a very powerful argument to have that treaty in place before the British people cast their votes, for two reasons.  Firstly, even if government’s make promises, even if they sign protocols, governments can change between the time of them agreeing it and us getting to a referendum but the second thing is that even if the leaders agree, in countries like France and the Netherlands and Ireland, they require a referendum before they can ratify any treaty change so if we were to get a referendum before the treaty we would be very much putting ourselves in the hands of voters in other countries and that’s really not I think what the British people want to see.  It’s not what I want to see.

DM: Okay so how does that affect your attitude and those within the Conservative party who agree with you to the idea of a referendum next year?

LIAM FOX: I think it’s looking more difficult to have a referendum next year for those very reasons.  We said we’d have a referendum by the end of 2017, that still gives us some considerable time and I think that when the Prime Minister talks about change in Europe he is not just  talking about the change in Britain’s relationship with the European Union but he’s talking about a different European Union and what would be interesting to see is whether after the Greek crisis, following the Greek election today, following the migrant crisis which effectively say that the two great changes in Europe, the euro, the single currency and Schengen, the borderless agreement, both have serious flaws.  Whether other European countries now might recognise that the British case is correct, that we actually want reform for the whole European Union, for all European citizens and not just a better British membership of a grouping that we think has fundamental flaws.

DM: How dangerous do you think this is for your party?  There are those who are saying, aren’t there, that the Conservative party has decided that Jeremy Corbyn is no threat, the Labour party is in a bit of a mess so therefore we can indulge ourselves in our European once again and tear ourselves apart in front of the public?

LIAM FOX: Well they are two separate issues.  First of all I would never entirely dismiss any leader of a major democratic party although I do think the Labour party are in a very terrible state and their MPs are walking around Westminster like the undead at the present time in a state of profound shock but we have always known that we would come to the referendum in 2017, we’ve always known that that’s an issue that will provoke very strong passions in the United Kingdom and it’s an issue that cuts across party politics so we do need to have a proper debate about this. This is the first time that anybody under 58 years of age, including myself and probably most MPs, will have had the chance to vote in what is the most important constitutional question affecting the United Kingdom which is who makes our laws and I think that we have to try and have as mature and balanced a debate as possible and treat both sides with due respect during that process.  That’s the best way in which we’ll be able to come together afterwards in the years that we will still be required to work together to govern this country between 2017 and the next general election.  

DM: Dr Fox, many thanks for your time there, Liam Fox.