Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, normally I would try to reflect speeches from across the House in my winding-up, but this evening I will concentrate on the Liberal Democrats. This is partly because the loss of our late colleague Lord Ashdown is much on our minds. Obviously the primary grief is felt by Jane and the family, but we too, his political family, are nothing short of devastated. We badly miss his voice. Tweets of Paddy’s from two months ago remain online; I am afraid they are not complimentary about the governing party, saying,

“and so our beloved country is once again held to ransom by squabbles in a Tory Party who give rats in a sack a bad name”,

and,

“the great unravelling begins. If you want a playbook for what next, look to the Tory civil wars of the Com Laws in 1846”.

The fact is that, unlike Liberal Democrats, whose hallmark is openness to the world, Tories have long been split between international and insular tendencies; that continues today. Some talk, admittedly, about “global Britain” but this seems more about resurrecting the Empire—or at least the Anglosphere—than a true spirit of international and multilateral co-operation. Modern Liberal Democrats can still subscribe to the words of the radical Liberal Richard Cobden, who cited among the benefits of repeal of the Corn Laws that,

“it would introduce through mutually advantageous international trade a new era of international fellowship and peace”.

That sentiment endures, both as the rationale for the European project after 1945 and in the DNA of the modern Liberal Democrat party; no wonder the two are so well-aligned. As my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire said last week, a global Britain should be within, not against, a global Europe. Hence one of Paddy’s successors, my noble friend Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, insisted in this debate last Wednesday:

“I am passionate about remaining in the European Union. I venture to observe that I am just as passionate about remaining as those who are passionate about leaving. I respect their passion and, in turn, I expect them to respect mine”.—[Official Report, 9/1/19; col. 2281.]


Another previous leader, Jo Grimond, in his book The Liberal Future 60 years ago, wrote:

“Liberals dissented from the original decision not to take part in the Iron and Steel Community. A Liberal foreign policy towards Europe would be based on the firm belief that Britain is a part—a leading part—of Europe”.


But it was not just Liberals in our Liberal Democrat heritage who carried the flame for Europe. My noble friends Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank and Lord Taverne came via the Labour Party and the Social Democrats. They reminded us in this debate how they were part of that brave contingent of 69 MPs who defied the Labour leadership and its three-line whip to vote to join the then European Community in 1971. My noble friends Lord Wrigglesworth and Lord McNally, also once SDP, stressed internationalist principles too. They were led by Roy Jenkins, later our Liberal Democrat Leader here in Lords. In the epilogue to his European Diary as President of the European Commission, Roy recounts the formation of the SDP, noting simply and unremarkably that,

“the SDP and its Alliance partner maintained a wholly committed European position”.

Roy Jenkins also harks back much farther in our political roots when, in his biography of William Gladstone, he quotes from Gladstone’s Midlothian campaign, when he was much concerned about atrocities in the Balkans against Bulgarians and Montenegrins. Gladstone, he records, spoke of a,

“nation called to undertake a great and responsible duty”,

in regard to “the peace of Europe” and the need for,

“right and justice to be done”.

These are uncanny echoes of Paddy Ashdown’s insistence that we had to take an interest in the Balkan wars of the 1990s and take on a responsibility to protect in particular the Kosovars and Bosnians being subjected to ethnic cleansing on our continent.

In her very generous comments about Paddy Ashdown in her debate on the western Balkans last Thursday, the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, said:

“During the Bosnian War in the 1990s, most politicians, including some from my own party, pontificated from a distance. Lord Ashdown went in and out of Sarajevo during the longest siege in modern history, across a risky mountain route and through a tunnel burrowed into the city”.—[Official Report, 10/1/18; col. GC 265.]


Hence, when my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire wrote a slim Penguin tome for the 1997 election called Why Vote Liberal Democrat?, in words he could repeat today, he wrote:

“Nostalgia for an imperial past, combined with hostility to closer cooperation with Britain’s neighbours, offers no credible way forward ... Liberal Democrats are internationalist by instinct and by intellectual conviction ... We believe that Britain can achieve more through sharing sovereignty and pooling power than by standing alone ... Britain is a European country. Our international interests and responsibilities start with our concern to promote peace, stability and prosperity within Europe, in partnership with our European neighbours”.


Another consistent theme of the Liberal Democrats is social justice. My noble friend Lord Steel of Aikwood, yet another former party leader, said in this debate:

“In the light of the last referendum result, the Government should also pledge themselves to remedying the real grievances in parts of the country that have felt neglected over many years”,—[Official Report, 9/1/18; col. 2249.]


while 25 years ago, in his book Beyond Westminster, Paddy observed how Britain—like now—was in,

“a profoundly depressed and bewildered state”,

with,

“a sense of hope that has died and a leadership that has failed”,

and,

“a dangerous mood of fatalism—a loss of national self-confidence and even self-respect”.

That is why on these Benches we insist not only that there is a better option than any kind of Brexit, which is to remain, but that British politicians should then turn our energies to remedying through our domestic efforts the grievances, loss of hope and anger at being neglected that Brexit will make worse.

We are outraged not only by the shabby treatment this Tory Government are meting out to the 5 million EU and UK “free movers” but by the extraordinary way the Prime Minister has trumpeted as her number one achievement that free movement will end. She seems totally unable to appreciate that she is tearing away from Brits, young and old, one of the greatest benefits of the EU: the ability and freedom to move around Europe to work, study or retire. That is, unless they are rich enough to purchase residence or a passport in another EU country, as perhaps some in this House are.

Liberal Democrats make no bones about it. We hope that in a people’s vote—a final say—the British people will choose to remain, with all they know now three years on. This party, our predecessors, our leaders and our members are united in believing passionately, as we always have done, that nothing can be as good as EU membership. To hijack Martin Luther, we cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here we stand, we can do no other. Indeed, we can do no other than support the Motion in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Keen of Elie) (Con)]

My Lords, I am pleased to close this debate on behalf of the Government. I thank noble Lords on all sides of the House for their contributions to this debate. It is a mark of the role of this House that even at this hour, the House is in its present form and so full as we conclude such an important debate on such a fundamentally important issue.

Trust and compromise. If we do not trust those with whom we engage, there really can never be room for compromise. If we have no means to compromise, we will find it impossible to achieve consensus. Trust and compromise. I am not a supporter of the idea of referenda. Like the noble Lord, Lord Stephen, I experienced at first hand the referendum on Scottish independence. It was attended by division, exaggeration and overstatement, and was immediately followed by demands for a second referendum that have persisted ever since. But this Parliament decided that the question of whether or not we remain or leave the EU should be put to a referendum. No one forced parliamentarians to do that. They passed an Act for the referendum by an overwhelming majority. They did not concern themselves overly at the time with the precise terms in which they were going to put that to the people—they were simply determined that it would go to the people.

Then they went to the people in a general election, and both principal parties put it forefront in their manifestos that they would respect the result of the referendum. Thereafter, this Parliament passed an Act to authorise the Executive to serve the Article 50 notice, which under international law would determine our membership of the European Union. Then, this Parliament passed the European Union (Withdrawal) Act, which defined the exit date for us to leave the European Union as 29 March 2019. So it was this Parliament which determined, both at the level of international law and in domestic law, that our exit from the European Union would take place on that date.

There followed two years of negotiations. In some places I hear those negotiations belittled. They were carried out by officials working to their instructions and performing to the best of their ability. Perhaps some would be prepared to acknowledge that, whatever the outcome of their actual negotiation. Without the withdrawal agreement I simply remind noble Lords that we do, under the law that this Parliament made and implemented, leave the European Union on 29 March of this year. That should be at the forefront of everyone’s mind.

We have heard reference to alternatives and mention of Labour’s six points. I was going to refer again to the lucid explanation of those points given by the honourable Member for Brent North, Mr Barry Gardiner, who is still the Front-Bench spokesman for Labour on the matter of trade—but I do not think I really need to repeat it. The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, gave a very adequate summary of Labour’s position on this. I would merely mention that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, alluded to a customs union which, as described by Labour, would be directly contrary to Article 1 of the treaty of Rome and would effectively confer upon the United Kingdom, were the EU ever to accept it, a veto over the EU entering into free trade agreements with third-party countries. It is admirable in its breadth but hopeless in its intent.

Of course, the Liberal Democrats did not go into the general election with a mandate to respect the outcome of the referendum and their position, as I understand it, is that they are determined to keep the United Kingdom in the European Union by any legitimate means. I see them acknowledge that and I understand it.

[Baroness Ludford]

Legitimate and democratic means.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

Legitimate means and democratic means—let us put it that way. They went to the country in the general election as well and returned with 12 seats in the House of Commons; the Scottish Conservatives returned with 13 seats in Scotland, a part of the United Kingdom that voted to remain. But then perhaps people had intelligently understood that the outcome of the referendum should be respected and that they should support those who were prepared to respect it.

We see reference to a second referendum. That would be seen by many as a constitutional outrage. The United Kingdom voted, by a majority of about 1 million people, to leave the EU. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, touched upon this point: people such as myself from north of Watford understand the meaning of “leave”. It is not a factual question; it is more philosophical. Their reasons for voting leave cover a spectrum, from the sublime to the ridiculous and from the laudable to the laughable. But it was this Parliament which decided that that was how the issue should be determined, so look to yourselves.

A democratic decision can be reversed. If you choose a party in a general election, you may decide that you are not entirely impressed by it and, at a second general election, decide on a new party of government.