Budget Statement

Lord Taverne Excerpts

Friday 12th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taverne (LD) [V]]

My Lords, one glaring omission from the Chancellor’s Budget speech was an assessment of the likely economic consequences of Brexit. The early signs are not encouraging, with dramatic falls in trade between Britain and the European Union. There has been a drop of some 20% to 70% in exports and imports to and from Germany, France and Italy. Of course some of that is due to the pandemic, but there are strong complaints from business about the effects of red tape and a variety of bureaucratic obstacles. Borders, including that between Northern Ireland and Britain, are anything but frictionless, as we were promised.

Good relations with the European Union are essential. However, the Financial Times wrote a scathing leader about the abrasive approach of the Cabinet Minister in charge of our EU relations. Even more important is trust. Why should the European Union trust a Prime Minister who is prepared to renege on the withdrawal treaty and to do the same for the agreed new checks on trade with Northern Ireland? The former French ambassador to the UK has publicly described him as an inveterate liar, and much the same has been said by one or two of Biden’s close allies.

For all these reasons, we are likely to face a serious deterioration in our trade with the European Union and a consequent drop in the value of the pound, a rise in interest rates when we are deeply in debt and, to say the least, very little chance of Boris Johnson’s dream of sunny uplands.

European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Lord Taverne Excerpts

3rd reading & 2nd reading & Committee negatived & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taverne (LD) [V]]

My Lords, when Chamberlain came back from Berchtesgaden with a piece of paper proclaiming “peace in our time”, he was greeted with almost universal acclaim. When Johnson came back from Brussels with his free trade agreement, he was greeted with adulatory praise from most of the Conservative press and his party. It was, he announced, the realisation of the claims made for Brexit in the referendum and in the last Conservative manifesto. Well, will it really be the journey into the sunlit uplands? Not according to the vast majority of economists, for reasons powerfully argued in this debate by several speakers. I believe that Johnson’s Panglossian optimism will prove no more justified than Chamberlain’s belief in “peace in our time”.

We will probably continue to wallow in nostalgic complacency: “We are the best, especially when we are fighting alone”, “We won the war”, “We have a special relationship with the United States and the Commonwealth —who needs the Europeans?” As a result, we are likely to fall behind our European colleagues in economic growth; we already have the lowest productivity of any advanced European country. The great deal that Johnson has will be no help to our services industry, which makes up 80% of our wealth. There is great uncertainty among manufacturers about the new bureaucratic delays at borders. In addition, we may well find that Johnson has created an irresistible desire for independence in Scotland, which wishes to remain part of the EU, and may set Northern Ireland on the path to a referendum for a united Ireland. Part of Johnson’s legacy could well mean the end of the United Kingdom, leaving us as a relatively small, chauvinistic and isolated country with very little influence in an increasingly hostile world. Is that really what Brexiteers voted for?