William Hague Quotes

This country needs an increased capability to protect ourselves, not only against cyber attacks on the government but on businesses and on individuals

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?

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

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.

To end up destroying the UK and gravely weakening the European Union would not be a very clever day's work. So, even as a long-standing critic of so much of that struggling organisation, I am unlikely in 2016 to vote to leave it.

[There is potential for Brexit to become the] greatest economic, diplomatic and constitutional muddle in the modern history of the UK, with unknowable consequences for the country, the government and the Brexit project itself

What has happened to our courts system when career burglars and muggers get a few dozen hours' community service, or a couple of months in prison if they are unlucky, while people defending their homes against the very same criminals risk long prison sentences?

The Tony Martin case lit a touch-paper that has led to an explosion of anger and resentment among millions of law-abiding British people who no longer feel the State is on their side. The specifics of the particular case are best left to the criminal courts. But politicians aren't doing their job if they don't listen and respond to the unprecedented outcry which has greeted the murder conviction for this Norfolk farmer who was defending his home against burglars.

[T]he Conservative Party is like an absolute monarchy, but this is qualified by regicide. If we take any form of PR back to our parliamentary colleagues, they will be looking for new leadership

It was our national identity, so powerfully expressed in Winston Churchill's speeches, which had helped see us through the darkest days of the war. For us, patriotism was the focus of our resistance against Nazi tyranny. We have never been as nervous of nationalist feelings as our continental neighbours, and I believe we have never really understood, let alone showed, the fears and ambitions of European federalists.

I was the driver's mate, delivering the bottles and beer around South Yorkshire. We used to have a pint at every stop – well the driver's mate did, not the driver, thankfully – and we used to have about 10 stops in a day. You worked so hard you didn't feel you'd drunk 10 pints by four o'clock, you used to sweat so much. But then you had to lift all the empties off the lorry. It's probably horrifying but we used to do that then go home for tea and then go out in the evening to the pub.

Nothing is more absurd than a Prime Minister who has committed us in principle to joining the Euro saying last week that he was against it. He talks about his five tests; we know what they are: "Does Peter want it? Will Gordon let me? Will the French like it? Will Robin notice? Can I get away with it?

In the Prime Minister, we have a man who has forfeited the right to be believed or to be trusted. In more than 20 years in politics, he has betrayed every cause he believed in, contradicted every statement he has made, broken every promise he has given and breached every agreement that he has entered into. In 1982, the Prime Minister said that we would negotiate a withdrawal from the EEC. In 1994, he said: "Under my leadership, I will never allow this country to be isolated." In 1996, he said that he had made it clear that if it is in Britain's interest to be isolated then we will be isolated. There is a lifetime of U-turns, errors and sell-outs. All those hon. Members who sit behind the Prime Minister and wonder whether they stand for anything any longer, or whether they defend any point of principle, know who has led them to that sorry state. In one of his frequent meetings with the former leader of the Liberal party, whom he so much preferred to meeting his own Cabinet, the Prime Minister told us as it is. He said that he had taken from his party everything they thought they believed in and had stripped them of their core beliefs and that what kept them together was power.

We want to get a better relationship with the EU - there are changes we want in that relationship

[The Chequers Brexit proposals are] the most that can be achieved within the inevitable and inescapable constraints