Dr. Barry Colfer:

He was all right. Look at me now.

On what Deputy Howlin said about autocracy and the risk of further slippage, there are three things that can be done practically. One is hard, one is less hard and one is slightly easier. One is to change the rules around Article 7, which the Deputy accepts is difficult. The second is to make more EU goodies contingent on the protection of the rule of law and fundamental factors of public administration and so on. The third is for the EU just to promote its values and seek to bolster democratic institutions in the bloc. As easy as it is for me to talk about them as a researcher, many of the countries that are members of the EU were not full democracies a generation ago. I am patient. It is terrible to see what is happening in - we always single them out - Hungary and Poland, but it takes time for democratic consolidation to conclude. The EU has a role in trying to bolster and support its members on that journey.

On the inadequacies and fundamental disagreements in foreign policy, as the Deputy said the EU is not a state and it never will be. It has a plurality of interests. It does not need to have a fully fledged foreign policy. What it needs to do is or where it can add value and be helpful is around supporting the development of institutions and police forces in other parts of the world and so forth. These activities can be categorised as foreign policy. The EU should do more of that and less of the contentious stuff.

On the French and German paper, Professor Barrett used the words I would say. It is absolutely the case that French and German support is necessary but it is not sufficient for treaty reform to happen. The paper was presented at the General Affairs Council, which is a serious audience. France and Germany still hold enormous weight. In fact their paper probably holds more weight than the European Parliament paper I spoke about at the outset. Certainly, people play down the importance of France and Germany at their peril.

The Deputy made an important point that is often easily overlooked, which is that there is already a two-speed Europe in many ways such as with the currency, the Schengen agreement which we are not a party to, and the protocols, some of which Ireland enjoy. More of this is inevitable in a more developed and plural European Union. That is one lever the EU institutions will continue to pull.

I will make a broad political point about getting around the citizens. Needless to say, leaders also do that at their peril. The Deputy may remember that it happened in the UK. Blair, Cameron and the Liberal Democrats all promised referendums which they did not deliver and they suffered the consequences. This is the big one. The public space needs to be protected.