Resetting the UK-EU Relationship (European Affairs Committee Report)

Lord Empey Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, in his opening remarks, the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, pointed out that the European Affairs Committee is the only committee in Parliament looking in detail at these matters. Given the direction of travel, the concept of a reset and the manifesto commitments made, while of course it is entirely its own business, it is extraordinary that the other place does not have a committee specifically looking at these matters. It is entirely a matter for the other place, but it seems odd to me.

Reset is, to some extent, in the eye of the beholder. It can mean sensible and practical co-operation or, for some, on the other hand, as we have seen from some of the contributions today, another slidy way of getting back into the European Union in one form or another. We held a referendum in 2016 and, irrespective of what side of the argument one was on—the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, will know from his experience that people like me were worried about the direction of travel and what would happen, particularly in Northern Ireland, where we share a border with an EU country—we went to the Prime Minister of the day to establish the negotiating position and came away clearly of the view that no such position existed. Consequently, we have ended up in the constitutional and economic sludge through which we are wading as a result of the arrangements that we are now working in. The point I am making is that if a Government or party feel that they want to take a different trajectory and go back into the European Union, they should have the guts to stand up and say so, because we are undermining trust, and that is a mistake.

The SPS has been raised on a number of occasions. To me and other colleagues, in effect we have been in this position for some years now. People do not seem to recognise the implications, because it means that people in Brussels will be deciding what regulations to determine how we do our business. That is the inevitable consequence. We will be a rule-taker with no meaningful influence and not a decision-maker. Let us be honest with each other: that is what this means.

From a local perspective in Northern Ireland, as I said, you join us in the sludge because we will then all be in the same boat. Under no circumstances will we have anybody effectively taking a decision for us in this or the other place. It will be taken away from us elsewhere. If that is what we want, we should say so. But bear in mind that there is no way of avoiding the fact that parliamentary sovereignty is going to be transferred in significant quantities to the European Union.

The fishing has been mentioned, and we have the tobacco and vape things, on which growing numbers of European countries are likely to challenge our decisions. On the referendum, I know that situations have changed—we can all see that—but we had a referendum in Scotland, and a decision was taken to remain within the UK. If we say that in 10 years we can avoid the decision we took on the European Union, the nationalists will say the same thing for the independence referendum, so we are digging a hole for ourselves.