Charles Moore Charles Moore

Is my euroscepticism partly down to a delayed teenage rebellion?

On Tuesday, for the first — and undoubtedly last — time in my life, I found myself mounting the platform at the Liberal Democrat conference. This was because my father, Richard Moore, was receiving a richly deserved award there. He is 85, so I was assisting him up the steps in Bournemouth. Part of his distinguished service to his party consists in the fact — surely unique in human history — that he has attended every Liberal annual conference since 1953: these shows have taken up a year of his life. He told me that he spoke at the first one he attended, in Llandudno, in favour of what was then referred to as the Schuman Plan, the embryo of what is now the European Union. It is sad for him that Britain will leave the EU more than 65 years later. No doubt my euroscepticism is partly attributable to delayed teenage rebellion, but the funny thing is that my father and I have extremely similar views about the importance of European civilisation: we just disagree about how best to uphold it. It was touching that the audience recognised his integrity and commitment. What nice people — quite unsuitable for politics.

This is an extract from Charles Moore’s Notes, which appears in this week’s Spectator

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