This speech has to begin with a lot of thanks. First and foremost to our generous host tonight, Britain’s Ambassador to the EU Lindsay Appleby, and all his staff who have mounted the dinner with such skill and effectiveness. And also to Jonathan Faull and Paul Adamson, the originators, I believe, of the idea of celebrating, if that is the right word, my 90th birthday this week. And of course all the rest of you here tonight, who have travelled far, or turned out for the occasion. How could I possibly resist such an invitation, even if I hope I am less narcissistic than the present occupant of the White House.
I have from time to time sought advice when putting a speech together. One such occasion was when I was due to speak, in French near Alençon, at the wedding of the first of my children to get married. “Just remember” my interlocutor said “that you will neither be as brief or as witty as you think is the case”. On the present occasion the advice was “Not too much nostalgia”. Well, I will try. But I may not entirely succeed.
How can someone who first arrived in this city in September 1965, when the European institutions were paralysed by President de Gaulle’s “empty chair” policy and Britain’s hopes of ever joining the European Communities were at their nadir; who went through the whole of our accession negotiations; who spent four fascinating years in the Commission as Christopher Soames’ chef de cabinet; who trudged through four years of the quagmire of the budget rebate negotiations; who returned from Washington as Britain’s Permanent Representative to participate as lead negotiator at the official level with the late and much missed David Williamson in the negotiation of the Single European Act, one of the fundamental foundations of the European Communities’ growth and success; and left for New York in 1990, bequeathing to my government and to Jacques Delors the basis of the opt-out from the Euro which eventually enabled the European Monetary System to move ahead without a major, existential crisis; how can one simply skirt over all that history? But that is enough nostalgia.
The last 25 years have passed me by playing the role of an appalled spectator registering and trying unavailingly to resist the slide towards the 2016 referendum and the horrors of the Brexit aftermath, more as an observer than a participant from the red benches of the House of Lords. I have not enjoyed that experience, even if we have now thankfully moved into a more constructive period. May that continue and bring mutual benefit to both sides of the Channel as it has done so far.
I will not embarrass my host by plunging far into the speculative waters of whether Britain might again hope to be a member of the EU, as it most certainly still is a part of Europe and that at a particularly challenging time for our security and economic prosperity. Much though my heart would like that to happen my head tells me that is unlikely to occur in the foreseeable future.
But one thing I would like to say, with some firmness, before the historians get to work re-arranging and interpreting the events of recent years. This is that there was nothing inevitable about our departure from the EU at the end of January 2020. President de Gaulle was not right that we simply do not belong in the EU. Our departure was due to the errors and miscalculations of politicians on both sides of the Channel, but most markedly on our side. Above all by the illusions of two British Prime Ministers, Harold Wilson was the first – and I lived through the 1975 referendum too – and then David Cameron in 2016 who believed that they could settle the divisions in their own parties over Europe by holding an in/out referendum. And now we have to live with the consequences of those miscalculations.
That is quite enough from me, except to conclude by saying that I remain as convinced as the day I drove to Brussels in 1965 that European integration remains in Britain’s interest, as it is in that of its own members. The EU is here to stay – and to prosper and to grow.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick is Chair of the European & International Analysts Group and a former UK Permanent Representation to the European Communities and the United Nations.
Speech delivered on 30 September 2025
