Ashdown 'bids farewell'

Sir Paddy stood down as leader in 1999

Sir Paddy Ashdown has used what is expected to be his last Commons speech to repeat his call for Britain to join the euro.

The former Liberal Democrat leader warned that Britain would be weakened if it failed to sign up to the single European currency.

There is an argument which says we will lose our sovereignty if we enter the euro. The opposite is the case

Sir Paddy Ashdown

He rejected suggestions that scrapping the pound in favour of the euro would dilute national sovereignty.

Sir Paddy, who stepped down as Lib Dem leader in 1999, is set to stand down as an MP at the general election.

Euro warning

Speaking in an opposition debate on "multilateralism" in foreign policy, Sir Paddy suggested keeping sterling would reduce Britain's ability to manage its own affairs.

"There is an argument which says we will lose our sovereignty if we enter the euro. The opposite is the case.

"If the British pound, relatively small, is positioned somewhere mentally in mid-Atlantic between the most powerful currency in the world, the dollar, and the second most powerful, the euro ... we will have all the sovereignty of a cork bobbing along in the wake of two ocean liners."

Sir Paddy said that Britain would have to learn to "pool sovereignty" and he warned against withdrawal from the European Union.

"Europe is our region and we must be a part of it.

"Why? For the simple and very practical reason that it is only by working with our colleagues in the EU that we can deliver for our citizens the things we want them to have."

There was no doubt the EU had serious faults but that was not a reason to abandon it, he said.

World peace

He suggested that greater international cooperation would help to secure world peace.

"More and more in the world today, it is not the power of this nation or that but the inter-relationship between them that matters.

"It is the way we create institutions to manage global events which will determine whether or not we live at peace and prosperity in the future.

"We have to work together and across borders because we can no long resolve the problems from which our citizens suffer inside those borders."

He said global power had moved from individual countries to big corporations and TV broadcasters.

"Power has migrated from the institutions of the nation states into the hands of the global players."