Lisbon Treaty: 'No Plan B'

The foreign Secretary says the situation is 'a bit messy' after the Irish referendum.

David Miliband MP

ANDREW MARR: Friday the 13th 2008 is going to down in history as a pretty dark day for the European project.

It's going to be remembered as the day the Irish, once one of the most pro EU nations, turned their backs on their old friends and delivered a killer "no" to the Lisbon Treaty.

So is this the end of the Lisbon Treaty?

The Conservatives think so, so does the Czech President, or is the plan to bully the Irish into voting again and changing their minds. Well the Foreign Secretary David Miliband joins me now.

I should say that little exchange with Nigel Kennedy is of course because your wife is a classical violinist as well. And I think they've played together... DAVID MILIBAND: They have played together and I'm looking forward to hearing the next number which we're going to hear a bit later. ANDREW MARR: Indeed. Great. Well let's start with the constitutional position on the Lisbon Treaty. It has to be signed, or it has to be ratified by 27 countries.

The Irish, the only people to be given a referendum, have said no. So that's it dead isn't it?

DAVID MILIBAND: Well there can be no question of bulldozing or bamboozling or ignoring the Irish vote. We've got to wait for the Irish government to decide what they want to do next.

But I think what's important is that in the end there are two agendas in the European Union. One is an old agenda about institutional reform, which the Lisbon Treaty was designed to bring to an end. And there's a new agenda which is addressing the new sources of insecurity and threats to prosperity that's around terrorism or climate change or the economic problems with the fuel price rises that we are seeing.

I think it's that modern role of the European Union that is more necessary than ever. Britain's national interest needs a strong and effective European Union. That was the case for the Lisbon Treaty. But the rules are absolutely clear. If all 27 countries do not pass the Lisbon Treaty then it does not pass into law.

ANDREW MARR: So if that's the case, if you're not going to bully the Irish and say, you know, you can have any answer as long as it's yes. If that's not going to happen why bother to ratify the Treaty in Parliament?

DAVID MILIBAND: Well it's right that we respect the Irish decision. But it's also right that we take our own decision. We're about 95 per cent of the way through the parliamentary process, the House of Commons, House of Lords, there's a final vote on Wednesday.

It's right that we complete our process because our decision must be for us, according to the rules, the parliamentary rules, that we rightly hold very dear.

ANDREW MARR: But in sum you accept the Treaty is dead?

DAVID MILIBAND: I think in the end it's for the Irish Prime Minister to decide what his next moves are. If you like he's got to decide whether or not to apply the last rites, that's his prerogative.

We've got to listen to his analysis of what went wrong, and hear what he says about the next step. But it's absolutely clear, people should be under no illusions about this, 27 countries need to pass this Treaty for it to come into law.

ANDREW MARR: But if he doesn't go back to the Irish people, and no one is suggesting that he's going to, he's not suggesting that he's going to either, surely it's dead?

DAVID MILIBAND: Well it's for him to decide on his next move.

ANDREW MARR: You're Foreign Secretary of one of the great countries of the European Union, surely you have a view as to whether this Treaty, which we've been talking about for years and years and years, is a dead parrot or a live parrot.

DAVID MILIBAND: Well it won't come into law if the Irish don't pass it. The Irish government have got to decide what their next moves are. The Irish government themselves have said they want to analyse the result, they want to think what's in the Irish national interest. We've got to remain clear about the British national interest. I think it is one to pass the Treaty so that we're clear about our own position.

It was interesting what Nick Clegg said about that. Secondly, we've got to have a strong agenda for the European Union. And this is what in the end is going to decide the future of the EU and also our own security and prosperity. We need an effective European Union. It needs to be addressing the new agenda. And that's what I'm determined they should do.

ANDREW MARR: So if we're not going to be party to bullying the Irish into thinking again there seems to be two possibilities. Either we can carry on with the current rules and just say it's unfortunate but Europe will struggle on, have done for a long time, things have still moved ahead.

Or we can start to discuss this business which is coming out of Paris and Berlin at the moment, of a two-tier Europe, whether it's an inner core not involving the Irish, perhaps in the future not involving us either, and other countries integrate further. So which is it to be?

DAVID MILIBAND: Well I don't think a two speed Europe is on. It was a 1990s agenda, not a 21st century agenda.

Because, remember you mentioned the Irish, they're in the Euro. And so the idea of a first division Europe, a second division Europe, a third division Europe doesn't accord with the realities today.

ANDREW MARR: So that leaves us with the current rules?

DAVID MILIBAND: The Irish are in the Euro, but we are participating in the security and defence policy which obviously the Irish don't do because they're a neutral country.

And just in brackets, it's interesting, the biggest issues in this Irish referendum seem to have been abortion, Irish neutrality and Irish taxation, none of which has anything to do with the Lisbon Treaty. So I don't think a two speed Europe, or three division Europe, is either in our interests or is something that is going to happen, because it is an agenda that's gone.

ANDREW MARR: If the opinion polls are remotely right, and of course things happen and circumstances change, the Conservatives are heading not just for victory at the next election, but a vast victory at the next election.

Given their views, isn't it quite likely actually that we will come to a two speed Europe, that we will be in the slower or outer speed and that that's what most British people want.

DAVID MILIBAND: Well that will be an issue at the next election. But you're right, the Conservatives are unremittingly hostile to the European Union. It's ironic

ANDREW MARR: I didn't quite say that..

DAVID MILIBAND: Well it's the truth. They're saying today, the Conservatives, let's live without the Lisbon Treaty, let's live with the Nice arrangements that were agreed in the city of Nice. They opposed those arrangements as well. They have opposed every single Treaty that has improved the workings for the European Union. [Talking over each other].

There will be a choice at the next election. If people want to vote for an unremittingly hostile approach to the European Union that's opposed every Treaty and said that the Treaty of Amsterdam meant the end of Britain, people can vote for that. But I don't believe that there is a anti-European majority in Britain. And in 2001 William Hague ran on a UKIP platform and look what happened.

ANDREW MARR: If you really thought that you'd have had a referendum like the Irish did.

DAVID MILIBAND: Well no, I think that it's right, that if there are fundamental changes in our constitutional order then we do consult the people. But in those 360, 26 pages of this Lisbon Treaty there isn't a fundamental change in the balance of power between the nations of Europe and the European institutions.

There's actually improvement in the way the European Union works that will make it more effective, more cohesive I think. But in the end it is not a fundamental shift. That's actually one reason the debate didn't take off in Ireland in the way that it might have done.

ANDREW MARR: So institutionally, what is the likeliest outcome?

DAVID MILIBAND: Well predictions are a terrible business in all politics. And in European politics I think they are particularly difficult. There's no plan B. Those newspapers that have written there's no plan B are right.

ANDREW MARR: You're not going to bully the Irish into voting again, which means that this Treaty is dead. And secondly you're against the two or three speed, or tier, Europe. Which leaves only the option of carrying on with the rules as they are?

DAVID MILIBAND: Well that's certainly one option.

ANDREW MARR: What are the others?

DAVID MILIBAND: Well that depends on how the Irish complete their assessment of what's happened, how they address, there are issues raised that actually weren't in the Treaty, such as abortion, neutrality, those became big issues in the Irish campaign, but no one actually believes that the Lisbon Treaty would have affected that.

So I think we've got to have, I'll be with the European Foreign Minister tomorrow and report back to parliament. Then the Prime Minister and I will be at the European Council on Thursday and Friday. It's a bit messy at the moment, but let's work our way through it.

ANDREW MARR: OK. Talking of a bit messy, Robert Mugabe has effectively declared war on a large section of his own country. There has been the most appalling scenes of carnage, violent intimidation, thuggery. I don't think anybody now feels that it was a fair election campaign, or can be. Can anything be done?

DAVID MILIBAND: Well some things can be done. And the first thing is to be clear about the sadism, and I use that word advisedly, that's going on, especially in places north of Harare, in Zimbabwe at the moment. People being killed, people being tortured, people being beaten, election observers being stripped out, election officials being stripped out of the machine. It's important that we speak plainly and frankly about that.

But what can we do? We can support democratic forces in Zimbabwe which we should. We can alert the international communities so that they get election monitors in there. There are now about 150 election monitors from African countries in Zimbabwe. We need more, and I talked to Ban Ki-Moon and the Prime Minister did as well yesterday, the UN Secretary General about this.

And further, we can raise this at the UN and it's right that we do so because the pressure needs to be on absolutely clearly. Four million refugees will not even have a vote in this election, even if they dared to vote. And it's important that the international community is clear about its own perspective because that can give confidence to people in Zimbabwe.

ANDREW MARR: Do you think at last South Africa is changing on this?

DAVID MILIBAND: I think that the South African position at the UN on Thursday was against the full engagement of the UN Security Council, and there's a major responsibility on South Africa in this area.

ANDREW MARR: George Bush is in town today. He's made it clear in interviews that he thinks we should not, as a country, have a set deadline for pulling out of Iraq, pulling our troops out of Iraq. What answer is he going to get on that?

DAVID MILIBAND: Well he knows very well because it's the same rules that the Americans work and that we work. We complete the job that we've started and in the case of the 4,100 British forces it's the training of the 14th division of the Iraqi Army around Basra. And we have to complete that mission.

And it's not about pre-ordained timetables, it's about the conditions on the ground. And the conditions on the ground are to do with that precisely, precisely that degree of training. When we move to provincial Iraqi control, the Iraqi security forces taking over in December it was done on the same rules that apply in the rest of the country to the Americans. So I think that the attempt to try and draw a division there doesn't really work.

ANDREW MARR: I raised this with Nick Clegg. The opinion polls suggest that you are heading for the mother and father of all election smashes. Whenever it comes.

DAVID MILIBAND: Well that's your journalistic view.

ANDREW MARR: Every commentator says the same, most of your ministers privately say the same.

DAVID MILIBAND: Well I don't say that, either publicly or privately. Our job is to do the right thing, to govern well, and then to go into the next election with a programme for the next term of parliament. And in the end people will have to make a choice. They can have referendums at local elections, they can make a verdict on the government.

But in the end they will have to make a choice. And the question for us is are we ready to do the right thing. And when I was on this programme before I said we had to show the character, we had to show the policies and we had to show the vision. And that remains the case. And we can do that as a united and effective force.

ANDREW MARR: David Miliband, thank you very much indeed.

INTERVIEW ENDS

Please note "The Andrew Marr Show" must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.

NB: This transcript was typed from a recording and not copied from an original script.

Because of the possibility of mis-hearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, the BBC cannot vouch for its accuracy

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