EU: Police and Criminal Justice Measures

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, it is a pure joy to follow the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and also to be able to say that I agree wholeheartedly with everything that he has said. I declare an interest as a member of Sub-Committee E of the European Committee.

We are dealing with 130 different measures. Whether that figure is exactly right—whether it is 128 or 132—matters not. We are dealing with a body of measures that essentially constitute a potpourri. There is no family or monolithic consistency to them. They spread over a huge range of possibilities. Some of them are vital to the national interest. Some are highly relevant and useful. Others, at the other end of the spectrum, have fallen into dissimilitude. Many of them have never been relevant at all. Others had only a most minimal and marginal impact upon our interests. If anybody therefore concentrates upon one, two, three, five or 10 of those, one is doing the whole issue a disservice. One can look at them only as a totality. Looking at all of them together and asking where the United Kingdom’s interest lies—whether it is a disbenefit or an advantage to take course A or course B—is surely the only possible way that reasonable, fair-minded and balanced people can look at this situation.

This has now been going on for five years; we have had a long time to think about the matter altogether. It seems to me that the Government can never say that from any point in time have they had an open mind on the matter. If they were able to show that, I would gladly withdraw that serious accusation. However, I do not think that there can be any question of their having looked at the matter in an objective, cool and statesmanlike way and having asked, “What is our duty towards this kingdom in the circumstances?”.

In fact, there is a howling fallacy in the government case and it is as simple as this. If one looks at the Motion tonight or the matter that was placed before the House of Commons, the Government’s argument is on two levels. As far as 95 matters or thereabouts are concerned, they say nothing in justification of their being ousted for ever. As far as 35 matters are concerned —the ones to be rejoined and readopted—they say that there is a test of the national interest. The question that I very humbly ask the House is: why should the test of national interest be applied to one group but not the other? Why should the test of national interest not be applied to each and every one of the 130? However, that is not the test. In so far as the question of ousting some 95 or so is concerned, the test is a knee-jerk one. It is Europe. We do not like Europe. One can almost hear the words of Cato in the Roman Senate—not “Carthago delenda est” but “Europa delenda est”. That is the clarion call. Europe must be defeated and challenged at every point. That is the real issue.

If one looks at the statements made by the Government over the past few years, it is abundantly clear that there has never been any objective, open-minded approach to the question. Mr David Lidington, the Minister for Europe, in December 2011 made it quite clear that as far as he was concerned all the evidence would be produced, all the discussions would be reported and Parliament would be assisted in every way to come to the most mature and objective conclusion with regard to this matter. Then, on 15 October last year, we had the Home Secretary making clear that there would be a general opt-out—it had to be en masse; there was no other way—but that the 35 would be regarded in the light of the national interest. However, three weeks previous to that, as we have already heard, the Prime Minister had seen fit to speak to journalists in Rio de Janeiro and had said that we would exercise the opt-out.

The situation, therefore, is that the opt-out is a fact and a reality. It is an irrevocable legal consequence once it occurs; but in so far as rejoining is concerned, that is an aspiration. We may be able to achieve that in respect of all 35, but we may not be able to, as there may well be conditions that we will find impossible to accept. There may well be a hiatus. I cannot remember now whether hiatus is a second declension noun and therefore whether “hiati” is the plural, but there may be several hiatuses and it may very well be utterly destructive as far as many institutions are concerned, including the European arrest warrant, Europol and Eurojust and so on. Therefore, a high price may well have to be paid. What for? For nothing at all. The Home Secretary made it clear on 15 October last year that some of these 95 matters never applied to us in the first place. Many were redundant and many were minimal in their effect. What earthly motivation can there be to take a risk just in order to wipe the slate clean of such irrelevant matters?

I believe that the Government are acting here with less than total sincerity and honesty. Somebody asked Cardinal Richelieu, at the end of this life, why he had been so successful in the government of France. He said, “My son, I lied, I cheated, I dissembled, I misrepresented and I swept it all inside my cardinal’s robes”. The Government here have hidden a very great deal about what their actual selfish motivation is and swept it all into the silken robes of the union jack.