Further Discussions with the European Union under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, we have had an unhappy almost three years of the Tory Government supposedly taking back control, restoring parliamentary sovereignty, launching global Britain and respecting the will of the people. They have not achieved any of those things. “What control?”, you might well ask. The Prime Minister is in fact simply muddling through. She trots out the same tired old mantras and slogans which have been emptied of any meaning. There is a leadership vacuum, her Cabinet is totally divided, and her authority and that of her Government have thoroughly dissipated. The whole Tory outfit is dysfunctional.

Incredibly, they want to inflict that dysfunction on the country, continuing to hold, over 66 million people, the threat of a chaotic, catastrophic no deal which would slash GDP, public spending, jobs and security, while creating new red tape, costing businesses £13 billion, and big new hassles for individuals wanting to travel, which are spelled out in some detail in yesterday’s document. There are not enough adjectives, or at least not enough polite ones, to do justice to the lack of responsibility of the Government.

One commentator wrote this week that it was Nick Timothy who,

“persuaded the prime minister to trigger Article 50 so quickly and drew the red lines that defined the UK’s Brexit negotiating position, with his boss apparently unaware of the consequences of being so disastrously boxed in”.

That rings absolutely true, and as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said, alternatives such as the EEA were simply not explored. Has the Prime Minister been admirably determined, ignorantly stubborn or too vain to consult, listen and change course? I tend to the latter conclusion.

Some voters seem to think that no deal means that we stay as we are, in the EU, which seems to account for the high score that no deal gets in polls. But one other factor must be the sheer incredulity that any Government would inflict, or contemplate inflicting, such appalling destruction on their own citizens, let alone a Tory Government who have always asserted their claim to economic competence—I think that was the point made by Nick Boles MP in the Evening Standard the other day.

As for restoring parliamentary sovereignty, we have had three years of Theresa May’s Government trying to boss Parliament around, denying its proper constitutional role, and wasting taxpayers’ money fighting court cases, before kicking and screaming as they had to concede some power over the triggering of Article 50 and the withdrawal process. Even now they are resisting proper parliamentary involvement in trade negotiations. As the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, pointed out, the European Parliament has shown more muscle towards its Executive—the European Commission—than the House of Commons has shown towards its Executive.

A lot of this is the consequence of the excessive power that our defective first past the post voting system gives a British Prime Minister, and whatever happens with Brexit, it will have woken up a lot of people to the fact that the cause of political and constitutional reform is not some dry arcane fancy but a crying need to reflect a diverse population and liberate it from elective dictatorship.

It is now time for Parliament to take control, as I hope it has been doing. The Prime Minister cannot be trusted to put the interests of the country before her own and those of her party. There is a real sense that MPs are finally getting their act together in refusing to let this Government—or indeed the Official Opposition—drive us over a cliff. The Prime Minister has been forced, more or less, to take no deal off the table and to open the prospect of an extension to Article 50, which President Tusk rightly described at the weekend as a “rational solution”. Meanwhile, the leader of the Opposition has been forced, more or less, to concede that a people’s vote is the best way to resolve the impasse.

I very much welcome the prospect that MPs will vote on 14 March to seek an extension. That would be a fitting birthday present for me. As President Macron has said, there needs to be a real purpose to an extension, not more delay and prevarication. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister continues to play tiresome games, such as yesterday when she promised legally binding changes to the backstop. We all know that this does not reflect reality, as my noble friend Lord Campbell of Pittenweem pointed out. The Brady amendment’s purpose of effectively removing the backstop is not going to happen. The Prime Minister insults not only our intelligence but her own, if she thinks we believe that it will.

Similarly, a game of smoke and mirrors is being played about the Government’s position on no deal. The Minister could not tell us how the Government would want their MPs to vote on 13 March, if one takes place. One journalist has—legitimately, in my view—called Mrs May a post-truth Prime Minister, because you never know what to trust in what she says.

Global Britain was always a farcical slogan. We have had more international influence as a leading member of the EU in recent decades than since the height of empire. All that Brexit has achieved is to leave us remarkably friendless. In the UN General Assembly decision to refer the question of sovereignty over Chagos to the International Court of Justice, our EU allies deserted us; whereas, pre-2016, one of the strengths we enjoyed was reliance on their support in multinational fora. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, that Brexit reduces our national sovereignty.

Global Britain seems, in fact, to consist of making gratuitous insults and silly gestures, by pretending to be more powerful than we are, at enormous cost to our economic well-being. In the last couple of weeks alone, members of the Government have, in various ways, upset Japan, China and Bangladesh. Post-Brexit Britain will not have any trade links at this rate. As the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, unilateral abolition of tariffs deprives us of trade negotiating leverage.

The UK spent decades building a strong relationship with Japan as its principal economic partner in Europe, in the expectation that we would be members of the European Union and offer stable policies, including, crucially, seamless access to the European market—the gateway to Europe, as the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, put it. It was on this basis that Mrs Thatcher wooed companies such as Honda, Nissan and Toyota. The Government have now comprehensively trashed that relationship with the third-biggest economy in the world, while the EU forges ahead with its new free trade agreement with Japan. Japan was very upset—and made its feelings known—to get a letter from Jeremy Hunt and Liam Fox that told it to get a move on with a UK-Japan trade deal—the one we will need if we crash out on 29 March.

China is meant to be a big new trade opportunity, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, emphasised, even though EU membership should not have prevented us expanding trade with it. EU partners manage to have a bigger volume of trade with China—and, indeed, India—than we do, so EU membership is clearly not a constraint. Then along comes the Defence Secretary, Gavin Williamson, absurdly vowing to send our aircraft carrier to the South China Sea. There are real issues about Chinese encroachment there, but gunboat diplomacy is not going to solve them.

The latest example is Bangladesh. The Home Secretary decided to revoke Shamima Begum’s British citizenship on the assumption that she would be eligible for Bangladeshi citizenship, but apparently without consulting the Bangladeshi authorities about whether they wanted her as a citizen. They said that they did not, and the British Government thereby rendered her stateless and broke international law in enormously careless fashion. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, spoke knowledgeably and wisely about that.

Our relationship with our EU partners has hardly fared better. The disdainful way in which many Brexiters have treated the demands of the Good Friday agreement and the position of the Republic of Ireland has been a disgrace. Some of them have hurled absurd insults at Germany. We have given Spain licence to raise problems over Gibraltar and offended east European countries over the treatment of their citizens. Are we supposed to rely on President Trump—a protectionist keen to sell us chlorinated chicken and unreliable on the US NATO guarantee?

The extent of cross-party co-operation and the breaking down of tribal barriers that we have seen recently is very significant. We have seen the formation of the Independent Group, with defections from both the biggest political parties and the demonstration of muscle from some Ministers and shadow Ministers, all displaying that pluralist politics at last has a chance in this country. If this can happen under first past the post, imagine the possibilities for co-operation and common sense if we change the voting system.

To the Prime Minister, the will of the people worthy of respect has a very narrow definition, meaning only those who voted leave. It was amusing that yesterday, the Government stressed that the opinion of the ICJ on Chagos was non-binding, whereas they have treated the result of a non-binding referendum as holy writ. Those who voted remain have been shunned as citizens of nowhere: in effect, non-persons who can be ignored and belittled.

If the Prime Minister really wants to respect the will of the people, she must put her deal to a vote of the people, with an option to remain. That would show real leadership of a type that we have lacked. That is not to second-guess the 2016 referendum, as the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, claimed in opening. It would be the first opportunity to judge the real nature of Brexit. I am hopeful that such a vote will happen and I will win my £5 bet with the noble Lord.