'The Spectator' is right: PM's duty is to save the Union (Dirk Hazell)

'The Spectator' is right: PM's duty is to save the Union

January 6, 2012 8:58 PM

Commenting on this week's editorial in 'The Spectator', Dirk Hazell agrees that the Prime Minister's duty is to save the Union.

"The United Kingdom has proved an exceptionally worthwhile, successful and resilient Union.

Its future will be different to its past but all parts of the United Kingdom will have a better future if we stand together and the Prime Minister would do well to heed the advice in this week's editorial of 'The Spectator'.

One essential pre-condition to keep the United Kingdom united, and here I may part company with 'The Spectator', is wholehearted British participation in the European Union, with strong localism and devolution across Britain. This is settled Liberal Democrat policy.

The Prime Minister's awful performance last month in Brussels - which the Chairman of the European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, a Liberal Democrat, has made clear did not help the City and so failed to protect the livelihoods of Chelsea and Fulham residents - is all too predictably emboldening Scotland's SNP First Minister adding to the risk of breaking-up Britain.

The quickest route to ending the Tories' centuries long role at the heart of British politics is to succumb to far-right hysteria and to fail to protect the Union. Mismanagement of the Tory Party must never be allowed to undermine the British national interest.

The Anglo-French Defence Entente of 2010 was potentially massive progress and a huge achievement for the Coalition Government.

Anglo-French campaigning in Libya in 2011 liberated an oppressed people and reversed the joint Anglo-French humiliation of Suez.

Britain's place is, as a united Union, at the heart of efforts to revitalise Europe's economy and, in the process, to safeguard the economy of every corner of the United Kingdom."