19:07 Mr Gordon Brown (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Lab)

Let me end by saying that positioning ourselves half in, half out, as a Britain that is somehow semi-detached and disengaged, the Britain of the empty chair even when we are in the room, is already making us weaker than we have been before. We have been irrelevant on the Greek crisis, a fringe player on climate change and a mere spectator in the debate that could have shaped a European growth policy. We are marginal on Ukraine, with Ministers looking faintly ludicrous as, in one and the same breath, they say, “Russia must be confronted with a more united Europe,” and, “By the way, we are thinking of leaving Europe.”

[Source]