“Principles of co-operation, of diversity, of Social Europe, of internationalism” – Full text of Richard Howitt MEP’s speech

Let me start by saying that after 2,797 miles of campaigning in the General Election, the count I went to was in Thurrock, a three-way fight, in one of UKIP’s top two target seats in the country. At one point we really thought we had won but – like Labour Party supporters across the region and the nation – our hopes were dashed. It has been a campaign in Thurrock which was a throwback to the 1930s in more ways than one. UKIP’s tactics were to congregate in the streets and appeared to want to create a deliberate atmosphere of intimidation. People who called themselves UKIP supporters threw stones at us while we were canvassing. They twice came to our street stalls, pushed over the tables and physically jostled our activists. Despite her understandable deep disappointment at not winning despite all the hard work, it is telling that our excellent candidate Polly still derived some grim pleasure that UKIP didn’t win in Thurrock either.

I don’t want the politics of Britain to go back to the street fighting of the 1930s.

And it isn’t just about UKIP.

It was David Cameron who let the genie out of the bottle, with his policies on Europe, on immigration, on race.

But there have been other times, other places, other people this year for me, who can help restore our faith in Britain, as an outward-looking force for tolerance and mutual understanding in the world.

After the Paris terrorist attacks on journalists and on Jewish communities, I took part in a spontaneous memorial of local British and French expatriate people together in Cambridge, all of us holding handwritten signs saying “We are all Charlie Hebdo.”

I launched an exhibition in the European Parliament to mark the centenary of the death by German firing squad of the Norfolk First World War nurse, Edith Cavell.  She was executed for nursing British as well as German soldiers, injured and maimed by war.

And bringing together in Brussels in 2015 local representatives with an international audience, including German colleagues, I was able to read Edith’s words on the eve of her execution:“Standing as I do in view of God and Eternity, I realise that patriotism is not enough, I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone”.

This year in Harlow, Basildon, Braintree and in South West Norfolk I’ve held events as part of the RSPCA campaign for the European Union to crackdown on puppy smuggling. This is actually another issue of trafficking, involving the falsification of passports and big criminal profits. But it is one that involves unspeakable cruelty to animals and – as a major source of rabies – a danger to both animal and human health.  What has struck me is how the British pet lovers I campaigned with have not wanted to blame Europe, but instead they have enthusiastically embraced how Europe is the place where we can take action which will change things.  In Britain, it seems, our love for our furry friends is far stronger than any antagonism about Europe.

And this year, when the European Parliament voted a report on the progress of the controversial EU-US trade negotiations known as TTIP, no less than 14,000 people with a home address in the East of England contacted me via email, telephone or social media, to express their concern. By the way, I was honest with them in my answers, we do have to be pro-trade. But Labour MEPs were not given the assurances we sought for the National Health Service and other public services to be excluded from TTIP.  We were not given the assurance to drop the proposal for businesses to be able to sue governments in secret, undemocratic corporate courts, rather than use the open system of justice used by everyone else. Therefore I voted against the report on TTIP and I and my fellow Labour MEPs will continue to oppose TTIP until and unless we get the legally certain assurances which we seek.

But my point in relating this story to you is to illustrate that even on a relatively complicated issue of trade negotiations, when Eurosceptics say that there is a democratic deficit in Europe, a very large number of activists was able to mobilised and to see how they were able to use democratic mechanisms to genuinely affect European decisions.

So whether it’s the idealism of the internationalism which is rooted in our history, the solidarity we feel today towards those fleeing war or victims of terrorism, or the capacity to embrace Europe to take some ‘bads’ in the world and to see how we can turn them in to ‘goods’, each of these examples shows that the human nature of local people in relation to Europe is very far from the warped caricature of the deranged Eurosceptic mind.

And it really is true in September that, the very same UKIP MEP who we defeated in Thurrock, publicly blamed over-long grass in the Borough – on the presence of refugees.

Deranged indeed. And…verging on the ridiculous!

Now this year too, as Spokesperson on Foreign Affairs for both Labour and for the European wide-Socialist Group of MEPs, I have had the privilege of working at the highest level.

In doing this, always I am motivated by seeking to justify the faith you – in this room – have put in me.

Sitting with the key UN negotiator trying to influence the world goals now set by the United Nations, to try to bring sustainable development to our planet and its people.

Going to Tehran at the personal invitation of the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, as part of a trust-building exercise to try to get the Iran nuclear deal finally agreed.  And now taking on the role as the lead European Parliament negotiator to try to bring Iran in to solving conflict in Syria and the Middle East.

Being the proposer of the historic resolution, and the negotiator to get the majority to support it, so that it was Labour in the European Parliament that won the parliamentary vote in support of formal recognition of an independent Palestinian state.

This very week, I had the deep honour to represent the whole Socialist Group – on behalf of its President –  at the meeting of Socialist Leaders from the different EU countries attending the European Summit in Malta.

And earlier this year, I had the opportunity to go to refugee camps in Eastern Ukraine and in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, both about thirty minutes away from where war was and is raging.  To be able to use that experience to try to learn about the root causes of the refugee crisis and to promote public debate which seeks to humanise what being a refugee is really about.

I’m holding a breakfast fringe meeting on the refugee crisis here tomorrow morning, where we will hear from the group “Herts Welcoming Syrian Families” and from a leading refugee representative herself.  And where I will talk about some enormous acts of generosity which I have witnessed within our local communities towards refugees.  Please come along.

But one story I’d like to tell you now is about visiting a church which had given refuge to refugees.  I won’t say where it is, because I don’t want to politicise it. But the vicar said to me that his congregation are all ‘Daily Mail’ readers, who only a year ago talked about migrants only as welfare scroungers.  But he told me how their personal contact with the refugees who arrived had completely transformed attitudes, and of the incredible generosity shown with refugees sleeping on his parishioners’ spare beds and sofas, having thousands of pounds of expensive medical bills met and treated like honoured guests – which is what they are.

I believe we are at an important moment in the whole public debate about migration.  For humanitarian reasons, it is absolutely right we give help now, irrespective of what opinion polls say.  But the pictures of the corpse of three year old-Aylan Kurdi and the recognition that migrants are queuing up in the Western Balkans to get to Germany-  not all at Calais – have profoundly questioned opposition to migration in British public opinion. If we can show political leadership at this time on what a humane, rational response to migration pressures looks like, then perhaps we can turn short-term sympathy during this summer to a long-term shift in favour of a more open, more tolerant public acceptance of migration.

That should be our mission.

Which brings me, in the last part of my speech, to say some words about the EU referendum campaign to come.  For a poll which could come as soon as April, and which is likely to be no later than September next year.

Pat McFadden will make the Labour case for Britain remaining in Europe shortly, so let me say three things in particular from my own point of view.

First, at a regional conference for the East of England, let me emphasize that the ‘Labour In for Britain’ case is especially important for us.

Europe is not just something they argue about on the television, it is a local issue.

And our campaign on Europe will be a local campaign.

The European Union is 53  per cent of ourregion’s trade. We’re talking about 400,000 jobs in the East of England.  For business, our region’s top export partner is Germany, bringing in £3.5billion to our economy from one European country alone.

More than 40% of Britain’s container trade passes just through Felixstowe. Our ports and airports make us the gateway from Britain to Europe. My work has helped them to be on the key Trans-European Network for transport, which links mainland Europe across to Ireland.

The East of England is officially classified by the European Commission as part of the network of leading regions in Europe for innovation.  In the last five years we have brought in £1billion of European funding directly, regional aid which has created 1,000 new businesses and 4,000 new jobs.

About £350million of that has gone towards cutting-edge research carried out in our region, two-thirds of which boosts the renowned universities of this region.  This year, 450 of our local students are studying for a year abroad, once again thanks to Europe.

The East of England remains a major centre for the offshore energy industry, home to Britain’s principal gas inter-connector to mainland Europe and we are seeking to make our region the ‘renewable energy capital of Europe’.  Despite being in Northern Europe, the water conservation problems we have really do make us one of the driest regions in Europe, and it is our coastline which is sinking in to the sea.  Which makes European leadership on global warming absolutely essential to us.

All of these things make the East of England significant in European terms, and underline that Britain’s continued membership of the European Union is absolutely significant to us too.

And we do benefit from the cultural diversity which Europe has brought to us.

Whether it is Roman Colchester or St Albans, the trading links for King’s Lynn, Great Yarmouth and Ipswich in the Hanseatic League from the fourteenth century, or in this century: the Italian community in Bedford, the Portuguese in Norfolk, the city of Cambridge as a centre for multilingualism, or the fact the highest number of migrants from the Baltic countries since the EU enlargement came to our region, Europe has always been part of our history.

Now we have to make it part of our future.

My second point is aimed at our trade union colleagues in particular.

Remind your members that the European Union is a union.

It is based on the principles of collective bargaining, of the power of organisation, of solidarity and of unity.

And just like any union, there are some people who are members with whose politics we may not agree.

But you fight their politics, you don’t fight the union.

You fight to recruit and retain your members, not to let them walk away.

Tell your members, on Europe, David Cameron wants to create a scab union. That he is the ultimate union buster.

But Labour will stick by the union we want and for which we will always fight.

And I have a third point for this conference which is about my own past.

Lots of people in this room know me personally and may have heard me talk before about my own family background.

How in the Second World War, my Dad served in the RAF and my Mum served in the Women’s Voluntary Service.

How as an MEP I have stood in Berlin at some of the sites of Nazi Germany, and reflected on their service in fighting the Nazis.

And how proud my late mother would be that today, that I have German friends and colleagues, against whose parents our parents had to shoot guns and drop bombs.

Her generation fought for a Europe, free from conflict.

They won their battle.

Now at a different time and in a different way, our generation has a new fight to preserve the Europe for which our parents’ and grand-parents’ generation sacrificed so much.

A battle we have to win.

Not just the generation of today, but recognising those inspiring young people who are campaigning for votes at 16 in the EU referendum – a campaign Labour fully supports – that this EU referendum is also very much a fight for the life prospects of the next generation.

So do not take peace in Europe for granted. Look just beyond Europe’s borders.

And just as a week ago, when we stood together at war memorials, in acts of remembrance, in the days ahead when we contemplate the future of Britain in Europe:

The words we should have in our heads are: “We shall remember them.”

Now our party is united in our determination to campaign for Labour to remain in the European Union. I thank and welcome the joint statement of Jeremy Corbyn and Hilary Benn which made that absolutely clear, as one of the first statements of the new leadership, five days after Jeremy’s election.

Now in a few moments, we will hear Shadow Europe Minister Pat McFadden put the Labour case for the referendum and I am grateful Pat has joined us here in Stevenage.  I am very proud to serve with Pat on Labour’s Shadow Foreign Affairs team, where I represent the Labour MEPs.

At a time the party is growing and transforming itself, I think it is very important that we welcome new members, but that we are careful to maintain the political memory and experience of the past.

And that is very much embodied in Pat, who worked in different capacities for John Smith, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

I’ve often also heard Pat describe the case he puts for Europe, using the words “hard-headed.”  He is someone who’s known how to deal with tough moments in politics.

And look at the money the ‘leave’ side has in this referendum. Look at the frankly sinister politics that are represented by Nigel Farage and his like.

We have a tough fight on.

And Pat – as well as Alan Johnson who’s leading the ‘Labour In For Britain’ campaign – they have both shown that you can go through the ‘ups and downs’ of politics, stay strong and overcome tough battles.

This is one such moment.

But I welcome Pat too, as a winner. He’s helped Labour win General Elections, working at the highest level. And in his Wolverhampton seat, at this General Election, he was such a certainty that Ladbrokes had him at 100/1 on to win…and he did.

So thank-you for being here, Pat, and thank-you for what you are doing and will do to help us win in this referendum campaign.

And to all of you, the members and activists in this region, my constituency, thank-you for what you are doing and will do in this referendum too.

Like me, each of you has the chance to play your own role in an historic moment in the politics of this country.

And for our party, the EU has never been just about an institution, but about an ideology.

Our ideology.

The principles of co-operation, of diversity, of Social Europe, of internationalism.

It’s not that most of the rest of Europe is run by parties affiliated to Labour and our political principles, it is not. But the values which underlie European co-operation are closer to our values.

We are those Syrian refugees. We are the poor of the world denied access to fair trade. We are the poor people of Greece who have born the brunt of austerity.  We are Charlie Hebdo.

Because we are part of a common humanity and we behave towards people from other countries – first and foremost – as fellow human beings.  And we believe in human rights.

And in truth, that is why the hard Eurosceptic Right hates the EU quite as much as they do.

Ideology not institutions.

Their values are those of inhumanity.

So this may be a referendum campaign, not an election.

But it’s a political fight and it is a time to go out to fight for our politics.

And when people look back on this moment in the years ahead, for each of us to be able to know: that history is being written, and that it is us who are on the right side of history.

Thank-you and good luck.