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

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a not unadulterated pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs. I too have a piece of the Berlin Wall. I just wish that he and others, in celebrating the fall of that wall, would recognise the role that the EU has played in giving democracy, freedom and the right for people you disagree with to demonstrate to those who were previously suppressed both by the fascist Governments in Spain, Portugal and Greece and by the communist regimes in eastern and central Europe. That is one of the great legacies of the years that we have been in the EU and we should celebrate it, not deplore it.

As a conscientious member of your Lordships’ EU Select Committee, I usually try to be constructive and pragmatic in these discussions on the Brexit process. However, today I am afraid that I am feeling just exasperation. We will hear later from the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, who, I am sure, when he helped draft the Article 50 process less than 10 years ago did not really envisage that we would be engaged in this long drawn-out process in the way that we have been.

It is two and a half years since the referendum. One can admire the Prime Minister’s fortitude and resilience but the fact is that we have seen a period of totally misguided and incompetent negotiation. We have seen a fractured Government and, as others have remarked, a nadir in people’s respect for this Parliament. It is not really a great time for politicians to take back control. Whichever way they voted, the people are bemused and impatient but they are also angry, and businesses, small and large, have moved from worry to desperation, as we see in the letter from food retailers today.

We here in Westminster can look forward to the deliberations in another place tomorrow and hope for an outcome, but let us register that the time for parliamentary and internal party games is over. It is time that Ministers confronted the Brexiteers and the media snapping at their heels who pretend that they can get a significantly better deal on the withdrawal treaty from the EU. To put it at its mildest, it is unlikely that the EU will make significant changes in the legal text of the treaty. Had the Government behaved more constructively, it would have been possible to get better wording in the political declaration. The EU has already indicated that it wishes, within a limited number of years, to reach a trade deal that would supplant and withdraw the need for a backstop. Meanwhile, the backstop guarantees what the Government say they want: near-frictionless trade within Ireland and between the UK and the EU.

Then we have our domestic situation. For months, I, along with others, have been asking the Government to set out how we are going to pass the legislation that we are required to pass by 29 March. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, and the Leader of the House herself referred to the onerous legislative task in front of us. We need a little more time to deal with that, let alone for the Government to go back and sensibly negotiate a marginally better deal.

Therefore, I support the Motion in the name of my noble friend Lady Smith, which calls for a time extension. I am not talking about years but months. In that period, you might get an agreement closer to one that the Prime Minister could get through the House of Commons, and you might also reach a deal that is acceptable to the European Union. You will not do that in 60 days. So let us say that we need a little more time, difficult though that is. If even then the Government fail to get a deal that the Commons would accept, or that the EU would accept, we will have to face the harsh truth that the politicians of this generation have comprehensively failed the public and this country. In those circumstances—the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, comes half way towards me on this—there is no alternative but to return the verdict to the people. The people must judge their parliamentary representatives, their views on Brexit and their performance in this Parliament.

I would go further. In the eventuality of a failure to reach a deal after an extended period, we should have both a general election and a referendum on the same day. The people can then judge their politicians on the lines they are taking on the referendum and judge whether they wish to proceed with Brexit. We have failed the people over the last two and a half years. We will have to put it back to them and return a Parliament that can enact their wishes.