A SENIOR North politician has claimed it would be “economic madness” to leave the European Union.
Liberal Democrat peer John Shipley, an adviser to Nick Clegg, issued the warning in the House of Lords as the crisis gripping Greece and the Eurozone shows no end of abating.
Lord Shipley said: “My view is that a demand for a referendum on membership of the European Union was an unnecessary diversion. It was misguided and mistimed.
“Referendums are not flavour of the month and would simply have added to instability across Europe and the Eurozone.
“However, Europe and the Eurozone are often seen by the general public as the same thing, so I think the reasons for our being in the European Union need much stronger explanation.”
He said being part of a single market of 500m consumers was central to employment, with 3.5m British jobs relying on it.
The former Newcastle Council leader said: “My own region, the North East of England, is the only region in the UK to have a positive balance of payments, and we have it largely because of exports to the EU.
“We also have across the UK non-EU foreign direct investment which has come here because we are in a single market,” said the peer, a serving councillor in Newcastle.
“The case for leaving the EU and imagining that growth would follow from being outside it is very badly put.
“It would be economic madness to withdraw from the EU, and it would cause a major rise in unemployment. Of course, collapse of the euro would devastate jobs, too, and so we have a responsibility outside the Eurozone for helping to solve the Eurozone crisis.
“It is central to what our Government should be doing because it is in our national interest so to do. But we have to be very careful.”
He also called for action to tackle youth unemployment of nearly one million in the UK, saying lessons could be learnt from Germany in terms of long-term planning rather than short-term gain.
Work to tackle an “astonishing” skills gap was also needed, said the peer who welcomed plans for a university technical college in Newcastle.
Lord Shipley added: “Unemployment in the North East of England runs at 11% at the moment, twice the level of the South East of England.”
