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

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I feel almost guilty for disturbing the mood of despondency, but I confess I am actually looking forward to 29 March. I am looking forward to bringing home accountability, from Brussels to Westminster and the devolved nations, for major policy decisions affecting the minutiae of people’s lives here in Britain. I am looking forward to seeing people, Parliament and, indeed, your Lordships’ House being given more power, not less, and British democracy being strengthened as a result. But, most of all, I am looking forward to the people’s vote of 2016 being honoured. For what greater privilege could there be, as a parliamentarian, than to have helped put into effect the majority will of the British people to leave the EU?

After so many hours spent in debate, one could argue that all that remains to be done is for the UK to leave. We are so close and yet, with only 60 days to go, we are still so far away from respecting the result of that once-in-a-generation referendum. In fact, the closer we get, the more intense the battle to stop us leaving becomes. So much is being done to delay, derail and even deny what 17.4 million people voted for by a clear majority. Some 80% of voters may have voted for MPs who stood on manifestos to respect that referendum result, but if some of the amendments in the other place are anything to go by, who could blame those same voters for regretting trusting MPs to keep their word? As my noble friend Lord Dobbs said earlier, we can stretch their tolerance only so far. I agree. Their trust is not elastic.

So why are we doing this to ourselves, to the British people and to their faith in democracy? Is it because we are petrified of leaving on WTO terms—the so called no-deal option? It may be the least favoured option, but are we really suggesting that we would strengthen our negotiating hand by throwing our strongest card away? Do we really think the EU would give us a better deal after we had voluntarily sacrificed what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, rightly described as an “incentive”, and what I would say is the biggest incentive there currently is to reflect on the consequences for individual member states of the Commission’s continuing intransigence? Are some advocating removing the no-deal option precisely because they know that without our strongest card, we are far less likely to leave the EU in anything other than name only?

Of course, if someone opposes Brexit, it makes sense for them to want to take no deal off the table. If they are intent on thwarting the people’s vote of 2016, naturally they are going to oppose using the one thing which could bring the EU back to the negotiating table. After all, leaving on WTO terms would not be the end but the means to an end—that of securing a better Brexit. I understand the logic of the approach even if I disagree with it, but what I do not understand is this institutionalised timidity—this chronic aversion to risk, which invites defeat rather than success, poverty rather than prosperity, and corrosive mistrust in politicians rather than a restoration of faith in British democracy.

Although I have worked in the private sector, I cannot claim to have run a business. But as someone who lives with brittle bones and has had more than 50 fractures in my time, I can confidently claim that I have managed risk since the day I was born and I will do so until the day I die. That is just life. I damn well get on with it because I am British, because that is what we do. It is what millions of people the length of these islands do, day in, day out, and they are entitled to expect their parliamentarians to follow their example, hold their nerve and deserve their trust. Waging a concerted campaign of attrition against the people’s vote of 2016 does the opposite; it destroys trust. The EU Commission does not really do democracy. For it, referenda are exams people sit and resit until they get the answer right, so it is hardly rocket science that Brussels supports a campaign which seeks to subvert the people’s vote of 2016. What does surprise me is the extent of some parliamentarians’ collusion with Brussels, because the more they choreograph talking up the dangers of leaving the EU, the more they talk down our country.

That brings me to the question of certainty. Is it not a touch ironic and revealing that those who clamour most for certainty are those who most want to remove the one thing that is certain? It is in black and white and it is in law. It is this country’s leaving date of 29 March. Why? Because among them are those who never wanted us to leave, who still do not want us to leave and who are determined to do everything to thwart the result of the people’s vote of 2016.

The well-respected journalist Charles Moore is surely correct when he writes:

“Despite three and a half years of argument, this process has only just, at five minutes to midnight, begun”.


That is why it is so important, as the Prime Minister told the other place, that,

“we need to be honest with the British people ... when people say, ‘Rule out no deal’, what they are actually saying is that, if we in Parliament cannot approve a deal, we should revoke article 50. Those would be the consequences of what they are saying. I believe that that would go against the referendum result”.—[Official Report, Commons, 21/1/19; col. 25.]

In conclusion, if there was one lesson above all else that my years in charity campaigning before entering your Lordships’ House taught me, it was that you do not deserve to win a campaign unless you are prepared to take it to the wire. That is why we must keep the option of no deal and leaving on WTO terms on the table. Let us never forget that we are British so we will not be bullied. For the sake of democracy, we must honour the people’s vote of 2016 and leave the EU on 29 March, with or without a deal.