European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 5) Bill

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, with his crystal clear legal mind. I shall study his amendment with great interest when it is tabled.

Most people will agree that we have had a miserable afternoon here—although it ended slightly less unhappily than I feared—but the reason for the muddle into which we all seemed to get earlier is quite clear and direct: in the Commons, Parliament has taken control of the business and the Government from the Ministers of the Crown. We know that Parliament is not a Government and that, as my noble friend Lord Strathclyde made clear earlier, when Parliament takes control, things always go badly wrong—they always have, every time in history. When we look in our history books, we find that every time Parliament has tried to take control from the Crown and the Executive, disasters usually follow.

Outside my office at the other end of the Royal Gallery there is a cabinet in which there is a document signed by 59 commissioners taking parliamentary control by virtue of deciding to cut off the head of the Crown Executive—namely, the King—in 1649. That was Parliament taking control. How did that end? Disastrously: it ended with the abolition of Parliament and a sticky end for all 59 commissioners who signed the executive order. It has always been so. It is natural that if we cannot sustain an Executive and the Crown prerogative is taken away by Parliament taking control, they cannot govern, negotiate or make treaties. This is the position we are in today.

Why are we in this position? Because of cascades of errors. All this is not recent. We could all spend hours blaming each other and events going back years and years into the middle of the previous century. These errors created the waves on which we are riding today, rather like corks on a wave. We are being blown along by events and the bad decisions taken by our predecessors years ago. When I was banging on about predecessors the other day, my younger son warned me, “Well, you are one of the predecessors, so you are to blame for where we are now”.

This morning, I was speaking to a French official visiting London. He said, “This is all familiar to us”. Alexis de Tocqueville described exactly what is happening now—admittedly more in relation to America—in saying that as the growth of individualism and the concern for individual liberty grew, so it would become more and more expressive and detached from the body politic, the professional politicians and the political institutions, and that huge gaps would arise. That is not very far from where we are now but, in a sense, the whole atmosphere—the whole situation—has been vastly amplified by the electronic revolution and communications technology which, in the words of Madeleine Albright, have given every individual their own echo chamber. The flood, power and volatility of opinion have changed the business of trying to prevent the gap between the government system and the individual from growing vastly wide—and vastly wide it has grown.

Where are we heading? If this Bill goes ahead, which it probably will, one possibility—the one favoured by Mr Corbyn and his wing of the Labour Party—is a permanent customs union. Another very strong possibility is a long delay. It may be short to start with, but it could be long. Another possibility, which would cheer up many people on the Lib Dem Benches, is no Brexit. That possibility is now there.

As far as a permanent customs union is concerned, ironically, if the much-reviled withdrawal agreement were supported, it would provide a temporary 21-month customs union and, after that, the means to get out of it. I know that that is denied by those who talk about permanent entrapment, the backstop never being resolved and being permanently entangled in a customs union, but the reality is that, funnily enough, the people who are arguing that are also arguing—and I believe they are right—that the hard border issue can be resolved in 21 months perfectly well, so it would never happen or, if it did, it would be only temporary. Anyway, that is another story we have debated endlessly. The point is that, on present trends, the prospect of a permanent customs union is looming over the scene, which would be a lot worse for many people, including me, than the temporary customs union in the withdrawal agreement.

There is another dubiety behind the present situation: democracy, a much-bandied word, is not the same as majoritarianism. The idea that a majority vote determines all and the minority can be completely ignored is not democracy. It is a different trend that led to some disastrous outcomes in the 20th century. Compromise is always necessary in democracies. There are no exceptions. The irony of our present situation is that if this Bill goes forward, and if one of the outcomes I mentioned—no Brexit—were to occur, that would be an extraordinary situation: not on denial of minorities, which some of my noble friends, and certainly my honourable friends in the other place, do not quite grasp when they speak about the will of the people and that sort of thing, but on the way the referendum decided absolutely that Brexit was the outcome when in fact a vast minority’s view needed to be taken into account. If we go ahead with Brexit, it will be the other way round. We will be denying the interests of the majority instead of those of the minority, which would be hugely dangerous. There should be no illusions about that. If that is the outcome, it would be deeply unsettling and dangerous—certainly equivalent to anything the country experienced in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Quite simply, rather than having this Bill—it looks as though we are going to have it all the same—I would much prefer the way out that some of us have argued for all along: all of my party should support a version of the withdrawal agreement. It is called Mrs May’s deal or the Prime Minister’s deal, but it is in fact a worked-out agreement with the European Union that it does not want to reopen. If the EU can adjust it or add codicils to it, that is fine, but rather than the dangers of denying the majority in the future and saying goodbye to Brexit altogether, it would be far better for my party to support the withdrawal agreement. To my mind, it always was and will be the best way forward. That is difficult to face—compromise is always difficult to face—but unless we face it, there are grave dangers ahead for us.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Anderson. He is absolutely right to highlight the issue about the procedure following a counterproposal. My understanding is that discussions that include the Government are under way on this. Perhaps the Minister might be able to indicate to us at the end of the debate whether the Government themselves will be tabling an amendment on Monday. The Minister is shaking his head and saying they will not, so I think the House will take careful note of that in terms of where it might go next.

In his brilliant speech introducing the Bill, my noble friend Lord Rooker said that the Prime Minister had the reputation of being the most law-abiding person in the country who, even when she was late for an engagement, travelled at precisely 29 miles per hour in her official car. As a former Secretary of State for Transport, I am delighted that she observes the speed limit in that way. However, the big problem that we in this country face at the moment is that she is accelerating the country at about 100 miles per hour towards the cliff edge. We are seeking to decelerate the car very rapidly to see that we do not go off the edge of a cliff but stop, take stock as a country and do something far more sane and sensible than that.

If we had complete trust, there would not be a need for the Bill, but I am afraid a pattern of behaviour has grown up over the past year. There was the first meaningful vote, which became meaningless when the Prime Minister lost it, and then the second meaningful vote, which then became meaningless. There was the clock that was not supposed to be run down but is now practically at zero. That pattern of behaviour has led Parliament and responsible parliamentarians to believe quite rightly that without a legal backstop, which is effectively what we are legislating for, there is a real danger that things could go seriously wrong next week.

The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, is right to say that the procedure in the Bill does not make it absolutely impossible for no deal to take place but makes it much less likely because it imposes a process of parliamentary accountability and debate, both beforehand and afterwards, which makes it extremely unlikely that no deal would happen. The reason it makes it extremely unlikely is that the considered and firmly declared will of Parliament is that we should not have no deal. That has repeatedly been the vote of the House of Commons, by 400 to 200 votes when a view on that specific proposal was last expressed. The majority of one on this Bill is very misleading, because it is due to concerns about whether it is correct to limit the royal prerogative in the way that is being done at the moment. I take careful note of the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Norton, on that.

It is very important to address the underlying issue, which is the crisis facing the country: does Parliament want no deal? The House of Commons could not have been more emphatic on that. It does not want no deal. However, because it does not have sufficient trust in the Prime Minister to ensure that no deal is removed from the equation, we have this legislation.

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, in unjustly derogatory remarks about Sir Oliver Letwin earlier, missed the point that Sir Oliver has been performing a very valuable public service. He has effectively made himself the leader of a massive parliamentary majority encompassing all sides of the House of Commons and the overwhelming majority of Members of your Lordships’ House, who do not want to see the country trashed next week by an inadvertent move towards no deal. Introducing his Bill yesterday, at the beginning of the debate in the House of Commons, Sir Oliver said,

“there should be a transparent and orderly statutory process or framework within which the House has an opportunity to consider the length of the extension that is asked for and to provide the Prime Minister with backing for her request to the EU in an unequivocal and transparent way”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/4/19; col. 1060.]

That is a laudable and very necessary objective for Parliament to secure, which is why we are attending to these matters so late on a Thursday evening and will not rest until we have enacted the Bill.

The big question which then faces us as a country is: what do we do once we have this long extension? We are in the middle of a very deep political and constitutional crisis, because of our inability to light on a policy which is sustainable for the nation. The noble Lord, Lord Howard, who is no longer in his place, gave a very simplistic answer to the question. I am afraid that, to my mind, that simplicity is born of a fundamentalism I find extremely unattractive. He said the House of Commons voted three years ago to delegate the decision on what we will do as a country to the people. This goes to the fundamental issue facing Parliament and the country at the moment. Three years ago, all that the country was asked to vote on—the only option people were given—was four words: leave the European Union. That was the option on the ballot paper. There was no detail.

As has now become clear, the people behind the leave campaign all had inconsistent and often contradictory objectives about what they wanted. Some said we would stay in the customs union and keep freedom of movement; some said we would not. As the negotiations have proceeded—I give the Prime Minister credit for doing her best in the negotiations—it has become clear that we cannot achieve the objectives set out three years ago. Not only that, but the Prime Minister’s own objectives, set out in her Lancaster House speech of January 2017, cannot be achieved either.

When faced with a situation in which promises made cannot be kept, the country faces a very deep crisis and circumstances have changed radically, what do you do? Do you continue to accelerate at 100 miles an hour towards the edge of a cliff? Or do you decelerate, stop, take stock, be reasonable and—this is highly appropriate—give the country the opportunity to make a judgment on whether it wants to proceed with Brexit on the terms negotiated by the Prime Minister or stay in the European Union?

The situation we face reminds me very much of a Sherlock Holmes novel. I was reminded of it because I have been speaking up and down the country on Brexit recently. Two weeks ago, I was in Crowborough, where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle lived. Indeed, I had my photograph taken next to his statue. I had to get a special angle for the photo, because it is next to a Wetherspoon’s. For reasons noble Lords may understand, I was very keen to have Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the picture, but I was not so delighted to have a Wetherspoon’s in it. I managed to get the right angle, however, and those who follow me on Twitter can see the picture.

In The Sign of the Four, Sherlock says:

“How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?”


That is the situation the country now faces. The impossible have been eliminated: no deal; the Prime Minister’s deal; different variations of the Prime Minister’s deal; and supposed alternatives to the backstop, which simply have to be called alternative arrangements because they do not exist and cannot be defined. In a wonderful Orwellian twist, not having any alternative arrangements, what have the Government done? They have set up an alternative arrangements working group. You could not make it up. But there are no alternative arrangements. We will not have a frictionless border in Northern Ireland in the cloud and so on—it does not exist.

In this situation, the only sensible policy for the state that now exists is to take the best deal that can be negotiated, which is the Prime Minister’s existing one—at least that is technically possible to implement, because it has been negotiated—and put that to the people, with the alternative being to remain in the EU. In the conversations taking place between the Prime Minister and the leader of the Opposition, I believe it would be possible to forge a compromise on that basis.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

The noble Lord is both wrong and right. He is right that the referendum was a simple choice. What did it show? It was not a decisive view either way; it showed that the country was deeply divided and confused. I think Sherlock Holmes or Dr Watson would say that the answer to all this must be a compromise, because the country is divided. Why does the noble Lord think that, in putting a further referendum to the country, things would be any different? We would still have a divided nation, maybe with a slight majority one way or the other, and there would still be a need for compromise. Is that not obvious?

[Lord Adonis]

I am precisely proposing a compromise, which is to take the Prime Minister’s deal, which is the best deal that can be negotiated if we are to have Brexit, and put it to the nation, with the alternative option being to stay in the European Union. That is a compromise that would bring both sides together. The compromise I do not think it is possible to have, which I know the noble Lord, Lord Howell, hankers after, is some half-bastardised form of Brexit. We have spent month after month searching for that and I am afraid that, like the holy grail, it does not exist.

Brexit

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, who speaks with such clarity and authority. Although I do not agree with everything she said, I agree with much of it.

These occasions have begun to acquire a sort of ritualistic quality. Time after time, there is always the noble Lord, Lord Newby, pronouncing the obituary of the withdrawal treaty, although somehow it goes on. Its death is somewhat exaggerated. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, tries to cheer us all up with his attempt at light-heartedness. The noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, puts it all in a wonderful historical perspective. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, tells us that everything on offer is unacceptable, although in this case I think her lovely story about everyone being out of step did not quite add up, because all the people she mentioned, or most of them, want to be in step with the Prime Minister in agreeing the withdrawal treaty. It seemed she drew the wrong conclusion from her story, but never mind. We have to say these things and no doubt they will all be said again by all parties.

Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Newby, I have considerable sympathy for the Prime Minister and her frustration about the membership of the House of Commons. Of course, there are many hard-working MPs of great integrity. Some of us spent decades in the House of Commons and we did our best, but of course there are also some—and there always were—who really do try anybody’s patience, like Disraeli’s flies in amber. One wonders how the devil some of them got there.

I have been astonished at the cavalier disregard of some MPs for the facts or the truth, especially in commenting on the so-called Prime Minister’s deal. Actually, of course, it is a carefully worked out 585-page treaty, drawn up painstakingly between EU and British representatives over a long period. Thus from certain MPs, journalists, academics and lawyers who should know better come statements that, “The withdrawal agreement binds us permanently into subjugation”. That is nonsense. Another one says that we “remain for ever under ECJ rules”. That is not true. Another says that we pay billions “for nothing”, which is nonsense again, or that we remain trapped, et cetera. Others have talked idiotically about penal servitude, the EU torture chamber, putting us at the mercy of our competitors, or being plunged by the Treasury into a spiral downwards into oblivion. These views have come from both sides, from the hard-line Brexiteers and the hard-line Europhiles.

Others keep insisting that the referendum is being undermined, when in obvious fact the treaty reflects the referendum result. What it undermines is the totally antidemocratic view that the majority takes all and the minority can be ignored. That is the deadly straight road not to democracy, but to majoritarianism and demagoguery. It is the point—I am afraid we are getting quite near it—where populism hijacks democracy.

As to the backstop mentioned by so many, the doom-mongers and our dear lawyers again keep saying—here is their latest—that there is,

“a long-term risk to … the integrity of the United Kingdom”.

This is nonsense. All sides insist that it should be only temporary. There it is again in the Prime Minister’s latest letter, as in her Statement, that,

“the backstop is unlikely ever to be used, and would only be temporary if it is”.

That cannot be reconciled with the statements that some prominent MPs and columnists consistently make, ignoring the facts, referring to bondage and eternal entrapment. Such statements are utterly twisted and distorted. The withdrawal agreement does none of these things. It is a transition document—a necessary first step on a long journey. It is an exit, as ordained by the referendum, but an orderly one. It takes us decisively out of the European Union and opens the way decisively to new trade relations in a changed world and to catching up with Asia, which is rapidly moving ahead of the western world in almost every respect. After transition we are free of the EU’s worst overcentralising and outdated features, but we remain good and close neighbours—possibly even closer neighbours than we have been—and not all that far, ironically, from what the rest of Europe is increasingly arguing for and what the prospective next German Chancellor is arguing for herself. Portraying the treaty otherwise is malign and mischievous, or the product of narrow legalistic contortions by the lawyers. I should not say this, but I sometimes agree with what Shakespeare had to say about lawyers.

As for all the talk about Mrs May going, this really is a mad time to be suggesting such a thing. The chairman of the 1922 committee has apparently been to see her about resigning. The late Lord Whitelaw, with whom I worked very closely, had a wise adage about parliamentary life at Westminster: never take any notice at all of the 1922 committee’s view. It was always wrong. That is what he said, more than once.

I have urged the Prime Minister, and I urge her again, to make the next meaningful vote on the withdrawal treaty a matter of confidence in Her Majesty’s Government. I am convinced that that is possible under the 2011 Act. Of course, it is a gamble and a risk, but no greater than the risk she is taking at present. It would have a powerful effect on all but the most myopic hardliners, as well as on a good many sensible social democrats in the Labour Party—not, of course, the leadership, but that is a different story. If she won we could move on to the task of working out modern commercial arrangements with the EU and the rest the world. If she lost—and that is the gamble—under the 2011 Act there would be a fortnight of limbo and then a general election, for which the European Union would certainly grant any further time necessary. In fact, it has indicated as much. It would take about seven weeks to get a general election under way and organised. It could therefore take place in mid-May. It is certainly not what I want and it would be really messy, with the vote split in every direction in various constituencies between official party candidates and breakaways, between Conservatives and independent Tories, between Corbynite Labourites and more sensible social democrats. But a new Parliament would have a good chance—a better chance than the present one—of being less paralysed. It could well have an ad-hoc majority for the withdrawal treaty and for meeting the overwhelming wish of the British people for settling withdrawal and moving on.

But, of course, none of this needs to happen. Why? Because a confidence vote would be a smack of firm government and would bring over further sensible ERG doubters, and there are quite a few of those. Of course, the deepest diehards in my party will remain outside because, sadly, they are now beyond reason, beyond conservatism and, when one examines their pronouncements, beyond truth. Calling a linked confidence vote—the bold, high-risk course—could now deliver the majority needed and the great issues of our times would be decided in Parliament, in line with our model of democracy, and not in the streets, where democracy does not belong and never did.

Brexit: Date of Exit

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, speaking for any party at the moment is a bit tricky. But as Her Majesty’s Opposition have ruled out no deal—personally, I agree with them—and the only available deal, and given that we know that there is a requirement that if a delay is to be granted it has to be for a purpose, with a strategy or an aim, would it not be wonderful just to have an inkling of what Her Majesty’s Opposition are proposing for the future, so that we at least know what kind of support we are going to get?

[Lord Callanan]

My noble friend makes a very good point with the benefit of his experience. The Labour Party are fond of telling us what they are against. What they have not done is tell us what they are in favour of. Ultimately, the other place will need to decide what it is actually in favour of, rather than what it is against.

Further Discussions with the European Union under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, it has been a habit in these debates to say at the beginning of each that there is nothing new to discuss, but this time there is a great deal to discuss, and I want to share my thoughts on it with your Lordships. In addition, we have had a new joke from the noble Lord, Lord Newby, which is always helpful and familiar.

From inside the Westminster bubble, I can see that things still look very confused, but if one stands aside outside and pauses for a moment, the situation is in fact as clear as daylight. In practice, the great binary choice on offer has shifted from the withdrawal deal or no deal to the withdrawal deal or Article 50 being delayed. The delay may be short and limited or it may be longer; it depends on what goes on in the other place. We have no control over that and no one really knows.

Obviously, the Prime Minister was always going to be reticent, to put it mildly, about what happens if she loses again before 12 March. That is entirely understandable. You do not enter a race announcing what you will do if you fall off at the first big fence; you enter the race to win. But this new situation, where the binary choice has changed, poses an acute dilemma for the European Research Group warriors, who now face an almost impossible choice. With the Prime Minister having nodded towards a short delay, as she did yesterday, the dilemma for the Brexiteers—the harder-line ones—is even deeper. The excellent Mr Nicholas Boles MP pointed this out in the Evening Standard the other night, and he is right, although he did not mention that this will also encourage some of the strongest remainers to oppose Mrs May’s deal in the hope of ending up with no Brexit at all. That is their hope and they are quite open about it.

None the less, it seems to me that the Prime Minister has outfoxed her own rebels, half the media and now the Cooper-Letwin ensemble—we shall see about that this afternoon; it is going on now. Labour’s new-found love of a second referendum—although on precisely what question is not at all clear—deepens the dilemma for the ERG rebels even further. If they vote with the Prime Minister, with or without add-ons to the withdrawal treaty and with or without a backstop softening or any other so-called alternative arrangement, she is over the hump, at least for the moment. If they vote her down, we delay and lurch into another bog land of uncertainty with all sorts of outcomes, of which a second referendum is only one—that would please the Liberal Democrats—and no Brexit is another.

In all this, the group I feel most sorry for—well, not really, but almost—is the ERG warriors, with their marshalled ranks and drawn swords. We were just talking about the Ides of March. My mind went back to Lars Porsena and his glittering Etruscan hordes, who planned to capture Rome but found that things went rather differently when they got to the city gates and the bridge. Instead of taking control, they ended up with those behind shouting “Forward!” and those in the front crying “Back!”

Of course, the absolute diehards in my party will never give in. I read one ill-informed article, alas by a recently joined Member of your Lordships’ House, claiming that they had taken over the Tory party. In reality, they now risk losing everything. If even half the ERG breaks ranks now and just some of the Labour remainers who are waverers support the Prime Minister, she will win this round, contrary to all the predictions of the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and his friends.

This is what I believe will happen. The people worrying about shipping goods here by sea from Tokyo after 29 March need not worry. By April, we will either be on the path to frictionless trade and an admittedly slow journey out of the present customs union to a new form of free trade or still in the European Union. There can now be no crash-out, managed or otherwise. That does not seem to have been absorbed, judging by some of the comments made this afternoon. I am afraid the Brexiteers’ dream has, for the moment, gone up in smoke. My belief is that the Prime Minister, with her deal, the massive agreed treaty with the European Union and all those in this country—the majority, I suggest—wanting to settle matters now and move forward, will win the day. Any further concessions from Brussels may come before 12 March if Brussels is feeling helpful, or afterwards if not. Obviously the negotiators will not reopen the agreed treaty, but they may well agree to a codicil about its interpretation as time goes by. I gather they are now working it—the so-called joint interpretative instrument.

My prayer is that after this unhappy phase we will get on vigorously with building close relations—not just in trade but in security, defence, cybertechnology and even possibly in physical links such as the mooted second channel tunnel—with all our regional European neighbours, all as part of our new, unfolding international policy stretching out to Asia, Africa and the Americas, and to carefully balanced ties with China, where all the growth will be. For this we will need powerful networks and the know-how to nourish and benefit from these networks, the Commonwealth being foremost among them. Old alliances are falling away and new ones are becoming necessary as we enter a new cycle in international history.

This morning your Lordships’ International Relations Committee heard evidence that we were on the verge of a terrifying new arms race and the possible spread of tactical nuclear weapons, and that the limits on nuclear warfare that the world has hung on to since Hiroshima are now slipping away and could leave our cities in smoking ruins. Somehow our Brexit bickering, breakaways and gabbling interviews with excitable MPs all seem rather small in comparison.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

But what he brought down was graven on a tablet of stone, and what Mr Nick Timothy drafted for the Prime Minister in September 2016 was not, in my view, to be taken as graven on a tablet of stone. We know now that the Cabinet was not consulted about it. We knew at the time that the country and this Parliament were not consulted, but these four red lines have determined where we are now.

The European Union has said all along—it said it in the cover note of its first mandate—that if our red lines were to change, then it was happy to look again at its mandate and change it. However, we do not seem to listen to those across the House of Commons who propose something that would break one of the red lines. When Labour talks of customs union, and this House votes for customs union, it is dismissed because it breaches one of the four red lines.

By the logic of the Prophet Timothy, Switzerland, Turkey and Norway are not sovereign states independent of the EU, because in at least one respect each breaches at least one of the four red lines laid down by Mrs May in the party conference speech in September 2016. Yet the Swiss think that they are independent. They do not think they are in the EU, and are commonly regarded as not being in the EU. I do not know why the definition of Brexit that was laid down without consultation in September 2016 has to be accepted as the only definition, and why it is a denial of Brexit, flying in the face of democracy, to argue that there might be a better Brexit than the one defined by Mr Timothy and the Prime Minister in September 2016. That is why I am offended by the “my deal or no deal” choice.

As everyone has been saying and as the document published yesterday proves, no deal is an economic catastrophe for the country, but it cannot be right that the only alternative is the lineal descendant of the tablet brought down by Moses to the party conference in September 2016. There are at least two more options available. One is to try for a better Brexit, which I do not believe the Prime Minister is going to do with the short extension she says that she might be ready to foresee. She is not looking at anything other than the sort of declaration that could be fitted into the political declaration, or might be free-standing, in some way adding emollient words about the backstop. However, the backstop is not the only defect in this dreadful, humiliating package—this humiliating treaty and vacuous declaration.

If we were prepared to contemplate the Swiss approach to free movement of persons, the Turkish approach to a customs union or the Norwegian approach to the single market, or if we were prepared to envisage an EEA-type arrangement, we do not know what new prospects might open up—we have never tried, because No. 10 does not listen. It has never been tested. We have never discovered what the EU means when it says that, if we were to change our red lines, it would change its negotiating position. That makes the “my deal or no deal” position irresponsible.

Others have explained why no deal is extremely bad for our trade. There would be no preferential arrangement with the EU or with any of the countries with which it has preferential deals, which amounts to more than two-thirds of our trade. The non-EU countries I am talking about include some very big ones, such as Japan, South Korea and Turkey. We are told that we have rolled over six agreements, but these are with minnows—not Japan, not South Korea and not Turkey.

Quite apart from the question of our domestic tariff, which the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, spoke about, we have to accept that our export market would be seriously damaged by no deal. Whether it happens in April, May or June, no deal is no better then than it would be on 29 March.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I apologise for interrupting the noble Lord—he said some very nice things about me and I have a lot of very nice things to say about him. However, he has presented me with a puzzle. He keeps talking about this business of “my deal or no deal”. In fact, the Government have now recognised that it is not “my deal or no deal”, but “my deal or postponement”—admittedly, in the words of the Prime Minister, a “short” postponement. We all know perfectly well that an overwhelming majority in the other place supports a delay in Article 50. If the Prime Minister fails on 12 March—I do not think she will—there will be a postponement. The concept of “my deal or no deal” is last week’s story. It is simply out of date, so why is the noble Lord worried about it?

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

I am worried about it because I do not believe that the Prime Minister intends to use the short delay she says she is prepared to settle for—although she has not said that she would vote for it—to explore the possibilities of a better Brexit. As far as she is concerned, the only deal is that which she brought back in November, possibly titivated slightly in the declaration to try to deal with the objections of some to the backstop. I believe that is all she intends to do. The right thing to do is to have a long enough extension to go back and consult the people. This has turned out so differently from what we were told, and it is absolutely right that we would go back and consult the people.

The point I was trying to make was about trade. I would like to end on a warm and friendly note towards the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, who is in such sparkling form today—I shall try to sparkle back in what is, for me, an unusually friendly way. I congratulate him on his honesty in the last debate, when he put to rest the Legatum Institute theory that the answer to the problem of WTO terms and no preferential trade deals was Article 24. It was extremely straightforward and honest of him to say of Article 24:

“This provision refers to interim agreements. In order to use it, we would need to agree with the EU the shape of the future economic partnership, together with a plan and schedule for getting there. This would then need to be presented to all 164 WTO members and they would be able to scrutinise it, suggest changes and, ultimately, veto it”.—[Official Report, 13/2/19; col. 1935.]


That, I believe, is absolutely correct. I think it was generous and honest of a Minister to put it on record. Article 24 is absolutely no way out in the situation we would be in with no deal. It depends on a deal being struck. It depends on a process going on. It is possible that eight years into future negotiations this is what we might be able to do, although we would, as the Minister rightly said, be dependent on the agreement of 164 parties in GATT. Therefore, even that cannot be assumed.

EU Withdrawal

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with a great deal of what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, said in his excellent speech. If this goes on much longer I fear that the noble Lord, Lord Newby, will run out of jokes and perhaps the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, out of apposite analogies.

As the Commons struggles it its paralysing three-way trap and the search goes on for the holy grail of alternative arrangements, the question again is how your Lordships can best help with advice on escape hatches, if any exist. The position has now been clarified and reclarified to the point of almost total unintelligibility. Either there is an Article 50 delay—short, medium or long—although for what purpose no one openly has an answer, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, emphasised; or there is the so-called crash-out, managed or otherwise; or, the best hope, the withdrawal agreement treaty scrapes through at the end of February or the end of March, still unopened but somehow reinterpreted by a codicil or instrument to make it temporary and conform to the consent required under the Good Friday agreement, a point that often tends to be overlooked. The device being examined for that is called a joint interpretive instrument which can be attached to the treaty. So that is what is behind the withdrawal agreement.

Behind the delay lobby is the obvious wish for another referendum, which we have heard about, although the questions remain of who knows where that would lead, what it would settle and whether the legislation to launch it could ever pass through the other place.

Behind the no deal, walk away or crash-out option on WTO terms, we have the assurance of my noble friend Lord Lilley that there are 30 reasons not to worry. Unfortunately there are many others who have at least 30 more reasons to worry a great deal—not least farmers, most of industry and business, the police and many other major concerns of this nation.

As for the withdrawal agreement scraping through before the end of March, behind that is the hope that both the EU negotiators and, here at home, the famous ERG diehards in the other place will all yield a bit and make concessions, along with 50 or 60 Labour MPs who are said to be now seeing sense, or so I read.

On top of this, we now have the letter of the leader of the Opposition, Mr Corbyn, to the Prime Minister asking for agreement on “a permanent customs union”. It is a pity that he did not ask instead for an evolving customs partnership because that in the end is what we are going to get. Not only do customs authorities in and out of the EU co-operate closely all the time anyway but most goods travel under simplified procedures.

However, more than that, behind the Corbyn letter there is an alarming and pitiful ignorance—admittedly widely shared by many Members of Parliament and the media—about the radically changed nature of all trade today and of the real meaning of a customs union in modern conditions. This is where your Lordships can help—if we can get heard above the cacophony of disagreements in the other place. The McKinsey Global Institute reminds us that today—and even more tomorrow—most international trade is not going to involve customs machinery at all. Already the bulk of both service trade and just-in-time import trade is conducted without any reference whatever to customs unions or customs delays.

Services do not do customs or customs unions. Services which are not traded through frontiers at all already constitute more value in global trade than goods. This dominance of services, which have grown 60% faster than goods trade in the past 10 years, is completely obscured by traditional trade statistics. The conventional statistics—last year’s Bradshaw, as the late Harold Macmillan would have described them—fail to track soaring cross-border flows of digital services and intangible assets between affiliates which are becoming a huge part of the trade picture. I do not know who does the research for Labour or advises the excellent but obviously frustrated Sir Keir Starmer, but they should get on top of this.

In short, the whole idea of a permanent customs union with the EU, which Mr Corbyn is calling for, is becoming marginal to boosting our trade and, therefore, our jobs in the digital age. As the Governor of the Bank of England was saying this morning, there is indeed a new order in cross-border commerce lying ahead. By the end of the two-year transitional period, if the withdrawal agreement allows, it will be even more so. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, whose speeches on this matter are always a treat that I enjoy, will be able to tell us exactly where Labour has got to on this new situation. We have heard nothing about it so far.

The other area where Commons experts plainly need help is in their mistaken conviction that the EU today is a fixed system on a fixed path. In fact, the old EU model is being rapidly overtaken by all the obvious pressures of digitalisation, notably populism, massive centrifugal forces and decentralisation—all causing what the New Statesman, which I do not often quote, calls a new European schism. Eastern and central Europe are breaking with Brussels, southern “Club Med” Europe is rejecting the north, I now read that the French are withdrawing their ambassador from Italy, and Greece has been putting on trial its chief statistician for the crime of telling the truth. As for the core of EU countries, France—our long-standing ally and friend—magnificent Germany, also now our good friend, are both in deep stress and political instability. We should be working out how to assist them instead of arguing with them over outdated trade practices.

Ireland, too, should be our closest friend these days, not our opponent. I strongly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hain, who made that point the other day. This is a close neighbour that is now richer than us in terms of per capita income, is increasingly ready to forget old bitterness, faces undoubted dilemmas with which we should strongly sympathise, and actually wants to engage more closely with the Commonwealth and stick closely to the Good Friday agreement, as well as the common travel area and a dozen other relationships that both sides should treasure.

All in all, the Brexit situation ought to be perfectly able to be handled by a properly informed and functioning Parliament ready to support a step-by-step approach into the utterly changed conditions lying ahead—the first step being precisely what the withdrawal agreement, maybe with some codicils, offers, as my noble friend Lord Lansley pointed out a few minutes ago.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I am doing my best to follow the noble Lord’s argument. I do not entirely understand what a widening customs partnership is. It is an unclear concept. We all agree that in a digital age and where standards and regulations are at least as important as tariffs, we are in a different world. When Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister 30 years ago, she accepted that having a single market was more important than being in a customs union. Can the noble Lord explain how a widening customs partnership would deal with the harmonisation of standards and regulations, which—I think he is arguing—are more important than customs these days?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

The explanation would take longer than the time I have available. I shall share it with the noble Lord afterwards but the basic point is that services are the expanding side of international trade. Standards have to be negotiated with America, the European Union and so on, and within the EU of course, but also with all the great new markets of Asia, Africa and Latin America, where the big expansion of services will be. There never was a clear single market in services. We hoped for it but it never worked. We face the same problem there as we are facing throughout the world. It is perfectly straightforward that in this area old-fashioned customs arrangements affect only solid physical goods; they are a declining part of the system. Therefore, concern with old-fashioned arrangements is becoming less relevant.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)]

I follow a great deal of what the noble Lord said but physical goods still have to cross the border, and I am not sure what solution he has for that on the Irish border.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

That is a different question. What we are talking about here is whether one is in or out of a customs union with the single market. I am saying that it matters a great deal less than it did. I can produce a long list of statistics showing that it is becoming less important.

Turning to the Irish border, I have always argued, as a lot of people have argued, that it does not need future technology. At present there is an invisible border but considerable differences between the Republic and the north in a variety of things. That can continue. There can be additional policing, authorised transport and all the rest of the things that we have discussed in this House which can deliver over the next two years, unless we are very stupid, a perfectly adequate invisible border. It can be done, and a great many people know it can be done. The argument about the backstop is absurd because no one ever wants to reach that point, as the noble Lord recognised.

In my view, the Brexit situation should be perfectly manageable. Next time it comes up in the House of Commons, it should be made a vote of confidence. If—I repeat “if”—regrettably this Parliament still votes it down and cannot agree on any way forward, and therefore is failing the people, the only course is for the people to elect a new Parliament, for which a short Article 50 extension would be needed and would be granted. Like it or not, and want it or not—and it does not sound as though the Opposition want it now—that is the way that parliamentary democracy works. Just in case, I gather that 6 June has been pencilled in as the appropriate date.

Brexit: Parliamentary Approval of the Outcome of Negotiations with the European Union

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, as the Brexit process nears its high noon, I suggest to your Lordships that it might be a useful time for us as a House, as the noble Baroness has suggested, to think a little not just about the withdrawal process but about safeguarding the health of our parliamentary democracy. With all this wild talk about citizens’ assemblies, the national fury and frustration at the deadlock in Parliament, and Parliament being widely despised and, indeed, ridiculed, I am afraid that the parliamentary institution itself is clearly now in danger.

Parliament is being depicted outside this place as a ship of fools, drifting fast towards a no-deal cataract, with all the Members of Parliament on board desperately calling for the Government to somehow shift, abolish, postpone or rule out the cataract and the chaos ahead—with a shower of amendments, as we have heard, and with a proposed Bill which, incidentally, I understand cannot be passed anyway, regardless of filibustering, without a money Bill from the Government; so it cannot be passed at all, if the Government oppose it. It might be worth the noble Lord, Lord Newby, checking on that, because he is looking puzzled. The suggestion that you can somehow wish the cataract away is a brilliant idea—if you shut your eyes tight and wish hard, the nasty waterfall or cliff-edge will disappear and something else will turn up. Of course, in real life the only course is to turn the ship round and head fast upstream to the safety of the withdrawal deal that we have on the table, with the backstop tweaked, clarified or perforated if possible—but, basically, that is the one anchorage available. Short of that, the rocks of the cataract are unavoidable, however many amendments MPs pass and however many tables it is taken off.

A number of people, especially our good friends the Lib Dems, keep saying, “Well, what about a second referendum?” The problem—and I really ask them to think about this, because I do not think they have—is that plebiscites do not solve anything. First, they certainly weaken parliamentary government and smash our national unity, as we saw with the previous referendum. The idea that a second referendum—in fact, it will be the third—will settle the issue is pure fantasy. Secondly, mass voting events are now more open to vicious manipulation than ever before. Of course, dictators twisted and corrupted mass opinion in the 20th century, but now that giant algorithms and incredible power can target millions of people individually and bombard them with a cascade of endless slogans, true or untrue, fake or real, the facts are 10 times worse. Indeed, not an hour ago, we heard a Question emphasising that point.

Now there is an even bigger danger of distortion which applies not only to plebiscites but to all big public votes and elections, and that is foreign meddling. Disinformation has become a worldwide currency, and a cheap one too, allowing not just weaker nations but sinister hacking groups of no known allegiance to undermine and confuse facts and truth so that discord, descending into street violence, can be sown and all forms of democracy discredited with terrifying ease. In effect, the true voice of the people has become harder and harder to discern and act on. That is the reality we now face.

As for the next stage of Brexit, anyone who thinks that it will all be put to bed via a referendum or any other means in the next two years is living in a fool’s paradise. Like many others, I have struggled with this underlying conflict in one form or another for most of my political life. In or out of the European Union, and with all the tensions between existing members, which are growing all the time, I see a future Europe of constant bargaining: an endless, continuous set of disputes between the legitimate yearnings for national unity, identity, sovereignty and independence and the pull of ever-deeper interdependence and collaboration, as the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, reminded us the other day. These forces are working in both directions, they are driven by unstoppable technology and they are constantly clashing as new issues come along. My noble friend Lord Patten—I do not know whether he is in his place today—was worrying about having to debate customs unions for ever. Yes, he is right. They will indeed be debated in 50 different varieties long after he and I have gone.

As for Ireland, the puzzle for me is this: it has been obvious from the start that, contrary to what has been asserted, modern means are available and can work to keep the border invisible. At first, the EU high priests said that all these systems were “magical” and dismissed them, but now we have Mr Juncker admitting that they exist and could work. The reality is that long before we get anywhere near a backstop, well inside any transition phase, a workable open border can be up and running—probably rather similar to either the sort of minimalist borders that exist already in Northern Ireland or the sort of borders that exist elsewhere across Europe between EU member states, all of which are completely consistent with the subtle ambiguity at the heart of the Good Friday agreement.

There is the additional reality that a hard, sealed border is in practice impossible. In Ireland, under Mr Willie Whitelaw almost half a century ago, I and my colleagues tried to close the border with military and customs posts to stop the Provisionals and their weapons coming up from Dundalk. It made not the slightest difference. All that happened was that a number of young soldiers and brave customs officials got murdered. You would need a wall across Ireland, like in Mexico or Israel, to make a hard border, which no one wants anyway.

We are on a long journey, step by step. As my noble friend the Duke of Wellington said in a speech in the Chamber the other day, many things that cannot be fixed now will become soluble later. As the wise noble Lord, Lord Bew, says, “Things evolve”. Relationships evolve. Trade patterns evolve. The EU evolves; it is doing so very rapidly before our eyes. People who keep calling for certainty and guarantees will have to go on calling, because there is no certainty in life or business and certainly not in our connections with our neighbours. Francis Bacon said, “If a person will begin with certainties, they shall end in doubts”.

I am not closely acquainted with the Prime Minister, and I have hardly ever met her, but I know political courage when I see it. She is criticised for Brexit delay, but actually the delay is proving invaluable. I would make it a confidence vote. A touch more delay, and a good strong will, will work wonders. Every day that passes is clearly bringing a stronger realisation, to those with closed minds, that short of massive dislocation and self-harm, there is only one practical way of delivering Brexit—hopefully with a few adjustments wrung out of the EU, but we will have to see what can be obtained. We know the realities. The Prime Minister’s courage, denounced by all the jejune know-all commentators and political foes as stubbornness, is what will pull us through to the next stage in the evolution of our ties both with our regional European neighbours and with the utterly transformed world of Asia, Africa, the Commonwealth network and Latin America—where most of the growth is going to be. We need to associate more closely than ever before with these parties to ensure our future prosperity and security. It used to be a case of the east catching up with the west; now, it is becoming the other way around.

The longer we delay the Brexit journey with pretence alternatives, unicorn solutions and child-like yearnings for riskless certainty and a rose-tinted past, the slower will be our adjustment to the entirely new world conditions that have already come about, and that we now face. We should get on with it, and that, I believe, is now the wish of this nation.

Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, I am honoured to speak after the most reverend Primate, whose voice is much valued in the land in these troubled times. I am also grateful to the Whips for reinstating me in this debate after some of us were cut off a bit abruptly before Christmas. I assure your Lordships that I shall not repeat what I would have said then and that I have something a little new to say. It is always prudent to show gratitude to the Whips, especially when I am going to say some things that will not, I fear, be popular with them or my party.

To continue reviewing our current situation in partisan terms is completely useless. Everyone knows that my party, the Conservatives, are badly split, not down the middle but with a significant and entrenched dissenting minority. Everyone knows that the Labour Party is also badly split, although this is much easier to cover up in opposition. They do it rather well, if I may say so. But we all know, and endless polls confirm, that at least a third of the Labour Party in the other place do not much like Mr Corbyn’s policies, while the excellent Opposition Front Bench here in this House is clearly cool towards him and leading figures such as the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, have vowed to work to undermine him every day of their lives. Even our own Lib Dems, so strongly and assiduously represented here in their massive ranks, have another referendum as their official line, but they know, or at least the wiser ones must know, that a plebiscite is a dangerous and divisive instrument and is not true democracy, which always has to be filtered and mediated. Mass opinion is not only a mosaic of differing views but changes from week to week. The only solid, civilised and true democracy is the parliamentary sort that we are trying to operate here at Westminster. We all know that in our heart of hearts.

The incontrovertible reality now, which is as plain as a pikestaff, is that the Parliament we have, as presently constituted—that is, the House of Commons—cannot agree on anything positive. It can unite against no deal—we are all for that—but without an agreed alternative it will happen anyway, however much it is voted against and however many people are whipped through the Lobbies. Everyone keeps asserting their own position and none will prevail. There is talk of Parliament taking control, but Parliament is not a Government, and if the present House of Commons cannot decide on or support any way forward, it must be replaced by one that can.

How could that be done? My advice to the Prime Minister, which I am sure she will not take, would be to make the upcoming vote on the withdrawal agreement, or perhaps the next one if the first is lost, not only a three-line Whip but a vote of confidence in the Government. Of course, the best thing would be for her to win or to narrow greatly the majority against her—that I continue to hope for—but if she still loses on a clear confidence issue, as seems highly likely, she should immediately call a general election, as the five-year rule would fully permit her to do. It is true that she has undertaken not to lead the Conservative Party into the next election in 2022, but for a 2019 election she would still have to be in place. Based on Lords Library figures, under the 2011 Act, the timing from a no-confidence defeat to the polling day requires about seven weeks, giving us a new Parliament well before Article 50 day, 29 March, and we can probably get a short technical extension to that anyway. Of course it would be a gamble, and it may be a gamble very few want, but it would also have the smack of firm national leadership.

The consensus of commentators and so-called polling experts and, I suspect, of many noble Lords, is that this just hands victory to the Corbyn cabal and destroys the one available deal and agreement that is on the table, but I wonder. The proclaimed consensus of opinion is often spectacularly wrong, and I hear experienced Labour voices warn that that could certainly be so. Why should yet another divided party, led by someone with policies most Labour supporters regard with dismay and no credible alternative Brexit path—because none exists—win the nation’s trust? The European Union has made crystal clear that the deal agreed is locked and final. It may be that it can be tweaked here and there, on duration, legality and so on, but the promise that there is a deal around the corner, based on Labour’s so-called six tests, that is much better than the one agreed is pure fantasy and delusion or worse.

My guess is that in a new Parliament the PM’s losses on the rebel Brexiteer front would be small and outweighed by support elsewhere for her deal. The nation wants an orderly Brexit deal and does not want deadlock. That is the real consensus and the mood of the nation, which must somehow be fed back into a Parliament that reflects it. Far from an indecisive and paralysed outcome, an election could provide a new Parliament with a firm majority for the deal now on the table. New cross-party alliances could form—in fact they are already developing, as we can read. We would at last begin to emerge from the labyrinth which has no other exits, except a no-deal disaster, although plenty of wrangling and negotiation, which some people have called a Europe of constant bargaining, lies ahead.

I believe there is an overwhelming national view to be harvested in support of the PM’s transition plan and gradual further disentanglement from the old, outdated EU model. I repeat that we are and must remain a parliamentary democracy, otherwise we are nothing. The answer is, and must be found, in our ancient Parliament elected by the people. That is where we should keep it, whatever the cost. That is where the nation is entitled to look for it, if not in this present stalemated and deadlocked Parliament, then in a new one.

Brexit: Negotiations and No-deal Contingency Planning

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

I do not think that the noble Baroness’s analysis is correct. The European Economic Area is an agreement between EFTA countries and EU member states, and our membership of it will lapse when we leave the European Union. In order to join the European Economic Area we would have to become a member of EFTA, we would require the agreement of the EFTA countries and we would then need the agreement of the European Union in order to continue in that membership. That presents a number of legal and practical difficulties—but I would be happy to write to the noble Baroness in more detail about how it might not work.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

Does my noble friend feel that the point has been put sufficiently strongly to the Brussels establishment and the Commission that the Chequers plan is already a compromise and is a compromise of compromises? That does not seem to have penetrated, judging by some of the comments from the Brussels Commission. Does my noble friend also feel that the Brussels Commission understands that a great many of the fundamental principles to which it refers have already been modified throughout the European Union, particularly in relation to labour movement, frontier controls, airport entry controls and the movement of services where there is no single market? Have those points got over to the people we are dealing with in Brussels?

[Lord Callanan]

Of course we are dealing with a lot of different interlocutors as well as the official EU negotiating team, represented by Michel Barnier, and the Article 50 working group. We are also liaising with individual member states. It is fair to say that there is a variety of opinions. We think that we have set out a compromise. It was obtained at some difficult political cost, but it offers a way forward. A number of member states and individuals in the EU have commented that it offers a workable and viable way forward and they look forward to engaging on it. Of course, it is a negotiation. There have been various noises off, but we still await the official Commission response. Senior members of the task force have made it clear that they think it offers a viable discussion and way forward.

Brexit: Preparations and Negotiations

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Monday 23rd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, having the last slot as a Back-Bench speaker at this late hour is marvellous for attracting an audience—it is amazing to see how people are coming in—but it is misery for thinking of something fresh to say after 66 speeches. However, let me try this.

At the risk of being labelled an absurd optimist, I am in some ways very encouraged by the debate that we have been conducting all this afternoon and evening. Why? It is because it has made all the dead ends, blind alleys and disaster scenarios which lie ahead much clearer. It has therefore made the need—the absolute necessity—for a compromise of some clever kind much more essential and clearer as well. That was obvious not only from the negative speeches about the White Paper, of which we heard plenty, but also from the positive ones such as those from my noble friends Lord Bridges and Lord King, the noble Lords, Lord Boswell and Lord Taylor, and several others. Theirs were voices of logic and common sense on the point that we have been driven to amid all the cascade of criticism and inspissated gloom, from every angle and viewpoint, which we heard regularly throughout the debate.

My second reason for being encouraged instead of cast down is that whatever the diehards and extremists on either side tell us about the EU standing rock-solid firm, about how its four freedoms cannot be challenged and how it is bound to reject the White Paper, I hear the real voice of Europe sounding a very different note. This morning, we heard a German Minister saying how the Chequers plan was a step forward and how Germany was anxious to meet it. Last week the Financial Times, where most stories are usually slanted almost comically against Brexit, carried a letter from a Polish authority reminding us of the reality: that the famous four EU freedoms and principles are certainly now much more an aspiration than a reality. That article in the FT said:

“The European Commission states that unfree services amount to almost 40 per cent of Union gross domestic product. Capital flows are famously imperfect, myriad barriers block the free exchange of goods”,


within the EU.

As for the free movement of labour, we now see borders being closed between member states—so much for the freedom of movement—in the face of impossible migrant pressures, which my noble friend Lord Heseltine rightly pointed to. Central Europe and now Austria simply rejects Brussels’s rule. Why is that important and should one draw any cheer from it? It simply tells us that those who insist that the EU will never, we are told, accept the British plan and will not compromise its sacred freedoms when confronted with a clear British compromise, as it will now be, are likely to be quite wrong. This kind of view takes no account of the immense changes, disruption and challenges going on now inside the EU—about which your Lordships have today been remarkably quiet, except in one or two cases—nor of the immense changes in recent years in the whole pattern and nature of international commerce.

Technology is racing far ahead and leaving politics far behind. The proposed common rules, which have been causing the hard-line Brexiteers so much agony, cover a relatively diminishing area of UK-EU trade, of which in turn only a tiny proportion—4% at the most, if that—will be checked for tariffs and destinations at border posts under the proposed plans. As for the so-called EU single market in services, which was so worrying to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, whose speeches I usually enjoy so much, in all the 40 years that we have been in the European Union that has never really taken off. The rules governing services, data and digital exports are anyway global, as is the market for them. The White Paper is quite right to keep them clear of EU restrictions, except of course for financial services, where a special arrangement to help not just London but all European interests—because of all the funds that are raised in London on behalf of a prosperous Europe—is entirely achievable.

The talk of Britain becoming a vassal state or colony, or in limbo, gets the situation completely upside down. It implies that the EU is an empire to which we would be in vassalage. Right now, with the EU in fact hard pressed to hold together at all, this is just about as far from the truth as one can get. Not only that, it seriously downgrades and underestimates the capacities and strengths of the British nation, which anyway has not been a vassal since the time of King John and never will be again. The whole concept is a ridiculous notion which we have had to endure.

In a totally transformed international order, Britain now needs a sensible, friendly and constructive accommodation with continental Europe, which we have been deeply engaged with, on and off, for the last 1,000 years. There never was a prospect of a clean break with Europe—that really was a dream—any more than there was a prospect of a permanent break with the Commonwealth network back in the 1970s, to which we are now at last mercifully returning as we realise where our true friends and our markets are going to be and as we find new networks to take us deep into booming Asia, rising Africa and, above all, China.

My hope, which I believe is well within realisation, is that Brexiteers and Europhiles alike—and all those on the Benches opposite who want to put, in the fine words of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, national interest ahead of party interest—will come to their senses. That wise advice from the noble Baroness applies just as much to her own party as to ours. This should now be matched by compromise on the other side of the channel which the EU authorities, member states and the great economies and great peoples of Europe would be foolhardy, to put it at its mildest, not to buy into and accept. That is the optimistic note on which I wish to end this evening from the Back Benches. Let us now see whether we hear the same optimism from the Front Benches.

UK-EU Security Partnership

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Thursday 17th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

Yes, I agree that we need to be transparent on these matters. As I said, procedures have now been put in place to avoid such a situation happening again. The paper should have been laid before Parliament, but it was not and I have apologised for that. It is important that we have a full debate about these matters. There have been extensive discussions in Parliament and I am sure there will be more in the future. Of course, these are proposals which we have laid out. I know that many noble Lords have called for us to be more up front and transparent about our negotiating positions and we are endeavouring to do that as far as possible. The noble Lord will have noticed that the Prime Minister has announced the forthcoming publication of a White Paper on the subject and I am sure we will have further discussions in Parliament on that. However, on the noble Lord’s central point, I agree that we should have been more transparent on this occasion.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, is not the answer to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, simply this: yes they did. It is in the Printed Paper Office and all we have to do is pick it up and read it? Does my noble friend also accept that, while this is an excellent paper, which talks about security relationships in Europe of unprecedented breadth and depth—as the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, said—the same principles and approach should also be applied to our close friends in Asia, Africa, Latin America and, in particular, the Commonwealth, because most of the action will be there over the next 10 years?

[Lord Callanan]

My noble friend is correct that they are in the Library now but, to be fair, his essential point that we did not put them there before they were published—which we should have done—is correct. Of course, we want ongoing security and defence co-operation with our many friends across the world as well as our friends in the European Union.