While Labour works on key issues in the EU, the Tories are taking Britain on the road to irrelevance

By Chris Bryant MP

Europe is one of the most important determinants in our national destiny. More than half our trade is with EU countries. Without the EU we can achieve little on climate change, on international crime or on energy security. Within the EU we can ensure our major foreign policy objectives on Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan and the Middle East Peace Process and Russia can flourish.

Europe will not be the key determinant in the general election. By far the most important issue will be the economy and the very real danger that Tory cuts now would take us into a second recession or even slump.

But what we have seen so far this year is that on every occasion that the Tories have been subjected to even the slightest hint of scrutiny, they fall apart. Sit them close to the fire and they melt. It’s certainly true on Europe.

I think we have learnt five things about them already:

* The Tories are still the same old euro-phobic dogma-driven obsessives that they always have been.

* David Cameron is not in charge of his own destiny in relation to Europe but in hock to his backbenchers.

* Cameron has hand-picked for himself a set of extremely unsavoury allies in Europe.

* Cameron’s proposals on Europe are naive, unworkable, undesirable and unachievable.

* And the Tory position is already damaging the national British interest.

There is of course an alternative. But it requires a concerted decision to engage with Europe, not alienate all our allies and trading partners.

It also requires a mindset that doesn’t see Europe as the problem, but as a possible means of dealing with the key challenges Britain faces.

Europe isn’t perfect. It needs significant reform. Its budget needs a radical overhaul so that it reflects the economy of the 21st century, not the 19th. It needs to be far more disciplined in the way it deals with the emerging economies of India, China, Russia, Brazil and Mexico. It needs to tackle the issues that matter to voters – international crime, migration, jobs, climate change, poverty – rather than constantly worrying about its internal structures.

That’s what Labour is focused on. That’s why we support the European Arrest Warrant – because it puts international criminals behind bars.

That’s why we support European action on climate change – because no country is a hermetically sealed unit.

That’s why we support coordinated action on the economy – because Europe has to compete on the basis of added value, not just in the bargain basement.

And that’s why we support Britain’s membership of the EU – not just because it has brought peace to a war-scarred continent, not just because it has extended human rights all the way from Lisbon to Vilnius, but because it is good for British trade and British clout.

This post is based on a speech Chris Bryant is giving tonight to Progress, in the Wilson Room at Portcullis House in London.