Obituary - Sir Julian Priestley, former secretary general of the European Parliament

Died: April 22, 2017

SIR Julian Priestley, who has died of cancer aged 66, was a European bureaucrat who was secretary general of the EU’s parliament under five presidents from 1997 until 2007, although he was central to the development of the parliament for much longer.

In the role, which was the pinnacle of a career devoted to the European project, Sir Julian oversaw great change in the EU including an expansion in member states from 15 to 27 and the rise of Eurosceptic parties such as Ukip. It was a great sadness for him that after his retirement he had to watch what he saw as the calamity of Brexit.

Sir Julian had always been committed to Europe. He was born in Croydon in south London where his parents were members of the Labour Party and early supporters of joining the common market and, after studying philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford, the young Julian joined the civil service of the EEC.

He started working at the headquarters of the European Parliament in Luxembourg and led the Youth for Europe campaign in the run-up to the referendum on British membership of the common market in 1975.

However, he also had ambitions in British politics, standing three times for Labour, in 1974, 1979 and in 1983, losing on the last occasion to David Owen of the Social Democrats. Much later, in 1994, the newly elected Labour leader Tony Blair offered him the job of his chief of staff, but by that point Sir Julian preferred to stay in Europe and turned it down. From 1989, he was secretary general to the parliament’s socialist group before taking up the post of secretary general of the parliament.

The role largely involves advising on rules and procedure, but he also had to oversee the 4,000-strong staff and organise sittings of the parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg, a chore which he found increasingly tiresome.

His devotion to the ideals of the European Union never wavered though and he was utterly dismayed by the Brexit vote last year and what he saw as Labour’s acquiescence, arguing that progressives in British politics should fight to have the result of the referendum overturned.

Writing on his blog, he said: “I wish our valiant parliamentarians would not feel obliged to preface all their remarks with a ritual genuflection to the sanctity of the referendum result, which somehow has to be ‘respected’. Why do we have to ‘respect’ it?

“Is there something sacred about the outcome of a referendum vote? When a party wins a general election, do the other political parties just abandon the field and shut up shop?

“No, defeated political parties rightly regroup, oppose the government of the day, seek its early downfall to reverse their previous defeat and prevent what they consider to be the most harmful elements of the government’s manifesto from being adopted. It’s called parliamentary democracy. The truth is that our democracy is not based on the principle of popular infallibility. The people can get it wrong.”

In recent days, Sir Julian had also been hopeful that the French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron was a sign of hope. “Perhaps a new political force will emerge from the debris of our politics,” he said. “Where is the new British Macron? An attractive, new, energetic, youthful force, committed to progressive values in a new era, and unreservedly European.”

For most of his working life, Sir Julian lived in Luxembourg with his long-time partner Jean Schons, whom he married in 2015.

In recent years, he had concentrated on writing and campaigning and published four books on Europe and last year a novel, Putsch!, which centred on the power struggles in the Labour party of the future.

He is survived by his husband.