Queen’s Speech

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean (Lab)]

My Lords, the outcome of the Prime Minister’s decision to hold a general election specifically on Brexit now poses a real question about what is the overriding authority in relation to Britain’s membership of, or future relationship with, the European Union. I pick up very much on the theme that the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, has just outlined. Is that authority still last year’s referendum, with its clear but very far from overwhelming result, to leave the European Union—48% versus 52%? Or is the overriding authority now the result of the election on 8 June, where the British public failed to support the Prime Minister’s approach on Brexit, failed to give the Prime Minister what she specifically asked for, a strengthened hand in her negotiations with the EU? I think we have to consider very carefully now where the British people really want to go on the question of our future relationship with the EU.

In doing so, we have to think about three very specific and very immediate issues. The first is the European Union itself. We hear a great deal about Britain’s negotiating position. We hear a great deal about whether we should be going for what is called “soft Brexit” or so-called “hard Brexit”. What we do not hear a great deal about is the position of our EU negotiating partners. I do not believe that the British position is going to be the driver in these negotiations. The EU has been very specific on three issues. First, it said that it would not negotiate with the United Kingdom until we had triggered Article 50. However we tried to manoeuvre, the EU stuck to that, and that is exactly what happened. It also put forward its ideas about the timetable for sequencing the negotiations. It was a timetable with which the Government disagreed. Indeed, the Brexit Secretary, David Davis, went so far as to say this was going to be “the row of the summer”. On the first day of negotiations last week, the row of the summer did not even last until lunchtime. The UK side caved in and the EU held completely to the position it had stated. The third and most worrying point the EU has put to us is that whatever does come out of these negotiations, it will worsen the UK’s trading and investment relationship. I believe it will stick to that as rigidly as it has stuck to the other points I have mentioned.

The second issue, which is immediate and urgent, is Ireland. Everyone rightly says that we must find a solution. Of course we have to find a solution. But we have heard nothing concrete from the Government about what that solution might be. So far we have heard only from Sinn Fein, which of course wants a united Ireland—something that, self-evidently, the Ulster unionists will not agree to. There are some vague ideas about what might or might not be done through the use of sensitive technologies but the fact is that nothing concrete has been brought forward. So there is a real issue lying at the heart of our leaving the European Union which nobody has properly addressed. Moreover, it could be said that it has been made worse because of the Government’s relationship now with the DUP, a relationship which many people believe undermines the Good Friday agreement and one which will have to be addressed—urgently.

The third issue is, self-evidently, the economy. For some people in this country—and I take it that the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, is one of them —the price of withdrawal from the European Union is neither here nor there. It is an objective in itself. But that is not the position of most people in this country. Prices are rising. The most recent inflation figure was 2.9%. Our currency is falling. That will impact our economy but, more significantly, it will impact household budgets. People will not be able to do what they have done heretofore.

We all know that we have some very challenging times and thorny negotiations ahead of us. Some of us have negotiated with the EU and know just how tough those negotiations are going to be. But I believe it is our job in this Parliament—in this House—to remain as positive as we can and to do what we can to ameliorate the position, but I am not as starry-eyed as some of the Brexiteers appear to be. I think that we have to stay, if we possibly can, in the single market and the customs union, and I think that for the sake of our young people. It is their future that we are bargaining with here—not ours. We will not be here to live with the consequences of the decisions we are taking. It is the future of our children and our grandchildren that lies at the heart of this, and it is their prosperity and security that will determine a lot of the votes among many of us when we come to the really hard issues in the coming weeks.