David Miliband warns that British weakness in Europe could hold back Ireland

Former British foreign secretary David Miliband has warned that British weakness in the EU could hold back Ireland in European debate because the two countries share common interests on many political questions.

Mr Miliband said in Dublin last night this was a greater risk for Ireland than the threat of British withdrawal from the EU, which he believes to be unlikely. “It is not that Britain leaves the EU, but that Britain is weak in the EU and that on a whole range of issues where Britain and Ireland have common interests and common cause, we get left behind. This is the more serious danger.”

In a lecture for business lobby Ibec and consulting firm Accenture, he argued that the real problem in Europe was “delivery deficit” on essential policies, not the democratic deficit.

On the anticipated British referendum on the EU in 2017, he believed the majority of the population was risk-averse. “I don’t think the fever spreads beyond a minority of people,” he said of the push for withdrawal.

Mr Miliband said his own experience of the search for consensus in Brussels depended on the sense that all partners were committed to “some version” of the European project.

“The danger for Britain is that it gives the impression that it has no such vision, which creates a vicious circle, where more decisions seem to run against our interests, and more grievance is built up,” he said.

“There is already evidence that, in the metaphor of European Council President Van Rompuy, putting your hand on the handle of the exit door means people in the room are less likely to want alliances with you. So the danger is that our influence wanes.”

Mr Miliband, who lost an election for the leadership of the Labour party to his brother Ed, is leaving British politics to take a job in New York as head of the International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian organisation.

As Tory prime minister David Cameron battles to assert control of the emboldened Eurosceptic wing of his party, Mr Miliband said the case for British withdrawal from the EU was deeply flawed.

Taking issue with former chancellor Lord Lawson, he argued that the case that European membership places an untenable burden on Britain does not bear serious scrutiny.

The negative reaction to French demands for a common euro zone president was proof of the “folly” in Lord Lawson’s argument that the euro zone was a unified bloc.

“The euro crisis has taught us the opposite. The countries within the euro zone have different views of how to promote competitiveness. And countries like Germany, Netherlands and Ireland have a lot in common with countries like Britain, Sweden and Poland,” he said.

The crisis, however, provided fodder for both federalists and Eurosceptics, leading them to form a “strange alliance” in arguing that only a full federal union can the currency work.

“While the federalists want it to happen and fear it won’t, the sceptics don’t want it to happen and fear it will.”