Lord Green Former Chairman, HSBC

Interviewed by Henry Hopwood Phillips

Henry Hopwood-Phillips talks to Lord (Stephen) Green, former head of HSBC and government minister, about his latest book

The European Identity: Historical & Cultural Realities We Cannot Deny.

What’s your book’s elevator pitch?

It’s an exploration of what it means to be European. What do we have in common? How do we differ from others? How will we project ourselves on the twenty-frst century stage—which will be as the nineteenth century’s was—a concert of powers.

Isn’t the real reason Europeans are not happy to entangle themselves with the EU less about fuzzy identity-level reasons than the fact they cannot emotionally connect to a opaque institution with a democratic defcit?

First of all, it is clear that the EU is in bad need of reform. You don’t have to be a eurosceptic to believe that. But talk of leaving poses an existential threat to Britain.

France is relatively homogenous and boasts a strong statist tradition, Germany has always been primarily a cultural identity with political identities layered above it quite comfortably, and Britain has the most fragile identity of the three.

That’s not to say there aren’t smaller players on the same wavelength—Belgium, Spain and Italy are similar.

A vote to leave the EU would be a vote to break up the UK. Scotland would demand its independence if the UK did so.

The last time something of this magnitude happened was when Ireland left the union after WWI, an event I’m not sure most Britons have fully come to terms with yet. People are not making commercial decisions here, they are working out who they are.

But if sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, is identity the lowest form of politics?

SG: I don’t believe that. You have to ask the big questions. We can get away for dec- ades, even generations, without asking them when others have settled the account for us, but eventually we must wonder what we stand for.

The philosophies Europe gave the world seem to have mutated in the hands of our rivals. Should a future EU stand by them or should we create hybrids?

It’s a profound question and one that I could write a big book on. But look at China and the Confucianism that forms its bedrock. The common ground it shares with Europe is interesting – take Confucius and Aristotle –they’re quite similar…

In being anti-metaphysical?

Something like that. They had a metaphysic, just not a very personalised one. But compromises are still being struck today: the Chinese know they must make their own accommodation with Western ways of thinking, most obviously pluralism, for instance.

To answer your question, I don’t think the EU will mutate – though I don’t want to paint too static a picture. Everybody’s on a journey here and we’re still learning from history that’s being made.

You’ve written “Trend data shows that culture is on the wane as an element in people’s understanding of identity”. Could you go a little into what you mean here. Usually the two are considered synonymous.

Culture meaning classical concerts, art and suchlike are becoming less important factor in forming a person’s identity.

Conversely, sport and other things are now more important. In parallel, Chinese intellectuals are bewailing the fact their youth cannot read the Classics any longer.

This may be part of a world trend in which urbanisation, globalisation and consumerism reduces interest in the past – if so I think that is dangerous.

Perhaps the creation of world culture results in an amnesia of what preceded it?

You’d think so wouldn’t you but then we see the rise of very regional consciousnesses.

The risk is that modern society increases (and satisfes) the appetite for immediate gratifcation, which is a mindset that stops in its tracks what you or I might have done, reading the Classics and immersing oneself in deep springs of knowledge and wisdom.

Doesn’t the typical ticklist of European values (compassion, rights, democracy etc.) look a tad superfcial – have we lost a sense of identity as uniquely invested in the irrational?

Yes but the irrational aspects of identity don’t make a pretty sight. Identity has both the ability to create and to destroy. But it is there and cannot be ignored.

One way or the other, we are not social atoms, we all identify with things, people and values.

Finally, isn’t there a risk of the EU playing midwife to a world-citizenry rather than standing for anything in particular?

I’m all for it playing midwife. This process accelerates the consciousness involved in being on a planet that is fragile, that we need to care for.

But the ‘world citizen’ need not be an exclusive identity. Saying you’re European does not cancel out German-ness any more than being a Sussex man cancels out my Englishness.

Some of Lord Green’s prior directorships included The Bank of Bermuda Limited, HSBC Mexico, SA and The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited.

Deputy Chairman of HSBC Trinkaus & Burkhardt AG and was a board member of HSBC France. In 2005 he was appointed a Trustee of the British Museum, a position from which he resigned before his appointment as Minister of State.

In 2014 he was appointed a Trustee of the Natural History Museum by former Prime Minister David Cameron.