Any quotes used must be attributed to Murnaghan, Sky News

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
So then the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad has warned of an earthquake if the West intervenes in his country. In an interview with the Sunday Times newspaper Mr Assad said that involvement risked transforming Syria into another Afghanistan. His comments came after the UN Secretary General and the Arab League made calls for the repression there to end. Well former Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, joins me from Edinburgh. Good morning to you Sir Menzies, no doubt you have read President Assad’s words, he is taking a very firm line there, is it one that we in the West should not cross?

SIR MENZIES CAMPBELL:
Well the language is pretty apocalyptic isn’t it? Earthquakes, burn the whole region and of course the threat of another Afghanistan. President Assad really is exercising or demonstrating defiance and he has to demonstrate defiance if he is not going to be swept away in the same way as Colonel Gaddafi or indeed President Mubarak, but of course he knows he is supported in his defiance in the Security Council of the United Nations by both Russia and China who in principle don’t like the idea of intervention and at the moment believe they were deceived in relation to Libya because they think Resolution 1973 which authorised the Libyan operation was indeed breached by the United Kingdom and France and the United States.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
But those protestors getting shot down on a regular basis, thirty or so we believe yesterday, every Friday more and more. We’ve seen what can be done with a no-fly zone originally in Libya and we know that some of the opposition in Syria are calling for that.

SIR MENZIES CAMPBELL:
Indeed they are and it is perfectly understandable and I wish it was possible but you have to ask yourself of a no-fly zone, who would do it? The United States would need to do it because it has the capacity but as we saw in relation to Libya, the United States would only play a supporting role. You need what is sometimes called host nation support, which of the countries in the region would allow aircraft to fly from their bases in order to enforce a no fly zone over Syria? There are some very substantial practical obstacles but that doesn’t mean to say that any of us who are looking at this are anything other than horrified by the behaviour of President Assad but unfortunately we’ve got a limited number of knives in the box with which to respond.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
So is this just real politick Sir Menzies, we understand how important Syria is geopolitically and perhaps Assad has got a point when he says the whole region might burn given its connections, we’ve got to stand on the sidelines. We can ratchet up the sanctions, we can ratchet up the condemnation but if Assad is to fall it will have to be due to the internal dynamics.

SIR MENZIES CAMPBELL:
I think that analysis is right. Even ratcheting up the sanctions is difficult because of the obstinacy of both China and Russia in the Security Council. The fact that Arab League foreign ministers have condemned what’s been happening, that’s important, but they haven’t gone as far as to say Assad should step down. The fact that the Secretary General of the United Nations has added his condemnation is obviously important too but there is no sanction, if I can put it that way, which lies behind that condemnation and as a consequence, Assad at least for the moment, he may not feel he is safe but he certainly feels he has got a position of some strength. But if you look at these pictures that we’ve seen of what’s happening in Homs and places like that, there’s no doubt about the strength of the opposition and the difficulty is that that strength is subject to the most repressive efforts on the part of the administration to put it down, it’s quite the most brutal of any of the responses we’ve seen since the Arab Spring began.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
Let me ask you now, Sir Menzies, about matters closer to home, still abroad but talking about Europe of course. What’s happening in terms of the coalition? We’ve got your party leaders writing today more or less saying, well he is saying out loud none of this nonsense about repatriating powers from the EU, how would you do it? It would be economic suicide. And yet that’s the bone that it seems Mr Cameron and the Conservative leadership have to throw to their Conservative back benches.

SIR MENZIES CAMPBELL:
Well I had a feeling you might ask me about Europe. Nick Clegg I think makes a perfectly sensible point which is that the idea of federalism in Europe is now dead. You couldn’t have a federation with 27 countries but the other alternative, which is for the United Kingdom to draw away from Europe and become some kind of off-shore associate of Europe, would be deeply damaging to our prosperity and to jobs and it would also be damaging politically because we would lose the unified response which the European Union is able to make and in a world where China and India and Brazil are beginning to march ahead economically and therefore to exercise more political influence, then it would be very foolish not only to abandon jobs and prosperity, it would be very foolish to abandon political influence as well.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
Political influence, what’s been talked about, you’re well aware of it, are things like the working time directive, elements of employment legislation, being repatriated, this idea that if there is a closer fiscal integration taking place in parts of Europe in the eurozone that there might need to be a new treaty and that’s an opportunity for Britain to go along to those talks and say hey, we want these powers back. Do you think that would or could work?

SIR MENZIES CAMPBELL:
Well ask yourself this, if Britain goes along and says we want these powers back, what about the other 26 members? Would some of them want their powers back? And if they do, you then get into an exchange or a discussion which will go right to the very heart of the principal advantage of the European Union which is of course the single market. Look, you don’t make change in Europe by a dawn raid on the headquarters of the Commission and throwing verbal or political hand grenades, you do it by making your case, by establishing with other countries through alliances, political alliances, what it is you jointly can do and then on a co-operative rather than a unilateral basis, you take that case to the European Union and you argue for it. Acting unilaterally has never proved to be successful in the case of the European Union.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
And finally, Sir Menzies, question very close to home, right where you are in Scotland, this issue of the clocks. It’s been talked about again, going back from British Summertime to Greenwich Mean Time, I guess it got light there what, about eight o’clock, a bit after eight o’clock there in Scotland this morning and of course if the clocks didn’t go back it would be an hour later. Do you think it would be sensible to just stay with one time throughout the year?

SIR MENZIES CAMPBELL:
Well I think there is a kind of visceral opposition to any change here in Scotland from the status quo and I am not exactly an objective observer because I have a member of my family who farms and for farmers of course, getting up early, it would make for particular difficulty. I don't think you can have separate time zones north and south of the border and it is notable that when these proposals were being made from Westminster, it was being said very, very clearly by Ed Davey and I think also by David Cameron, that there would be no change unless Scotland was willing to agree. I can’t see Scotland being willing to agree in the foreseeable future.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
Okay, Sir Menzies, thank you very much indeed for your thoughts on so many subjects. Sir Menzies Campbell there, joining us live from Scotland.

SIR MENZIES CAMPBELL:
Thank you.