William Hague Quotes

We are determined to reach a diplomatic settlement to the Iran nuclear crisis.

For the first time in history at Question Time, all three parties are represented by a stand-in for the real leader.

The lesson of Yugoslavia and the Russian federation is that it is dangerous to force disparate peoples into a common political unit unless they already feel a sense of national affinity.

If you are less influential in crafting the overall approach of the EU you end up with less influence in the rest of the world.

The very making of these allegations undermined Britain's standing in the world as a country that upholds international law and abhors torture. As a government we understand how important it is that we not only uphold our values and international law, but that we are seen to do so.

[Without intelligence agencies] terrorist groups would have free rein to harm UK citizens here and abroad

Those of us who have been in public life have all had the privilege of meeting extraordinary people — soldiers who kept fighting when injured, Paralympic athletes who triumphed, small businesses that learnt from failure to succeed — and have seen the power of moving on without rancour or self-pity. Political leaders would do well to aspire to those attributes and to shoulder their own share of responsibility. If you became prime minister, with a majority behind you and a decent term in front of you, but were overthrown amid chaos, there is indeed someone to blame. It’s you.

I described the euro as a burning building with no exits and so it has proved for some of the countries in it

The electorate voted to leave the EU, and therefore we leave. What is more, the number of people who voted to do so was higher than the number of votes cast for any government in our history. To me and many of my former colleagues in government who preferred to remain, the argument was over.

There has never been any doubt in my mind that we should have an embassy in Tehran if the circumstances allowed

The truth is that the supporters of British membership of a single currency tend to fall back on one central argument that overshadows all others. They say: "It's going to happen and that we can't possibly be left out." It is the argument used by every lemming throughout the centuries and it does not bear close scrutiny.

One could find oneself trapped in the economic equivalent of a burning building with no exits. In Asia, those countries that have had the most violent reactions to the financial crisis have been those countries that do not have the safety valve of democratic elections. How will the peoples of Europe react to a recession without the electoral means of changing the people responsible?

[On the history of former prime ministers and their successors] Now think of Boris Johnson. All of these feelings will apply to him. He is going to be [Edward] Heath with jokes added in, and [Margaret] Thatcher with consistency taken out, all rolled into a bundle of resentment, denial, attention-seeking and attempted vindication that will be a permanent nightmare for the new prime minister.
That he wants revenge on Rishi Sunak is already apparent, but if Liz Truss is elected, she will face the identical problem. The chances of her loyalty to him being repaid are close to zero. Boris lives his life as a performance, and he will want the next act to fill every seat in the theatre of British political life.
The Conservative Party had no choice but to remove Johnson from office. His standards of governance and veracity had fallen below what reasonable people could defend. The downside is that the party will always have the problem of what he will say next.

It is about... making a success of membership of the EU but also with democratic consent for that in its modern form and the best form that we can bring about.

I thank the Prime Minister for his remarks about me. Debating with him at the Dispatch Box has been exciting, fascinating, fun, an enormous challenge and, from my point of view, wholly unproductive in every sense. I am told that in my time at the Dispatch Box I have asked the Prime Minister 1,118 direct questions, but no one has counted the direct answers—it may not take long.