Brexit

Baroness Meyer Excerpts

Saturday 19th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, now there is no excuse for not approving the Prime Minister’s agreement. The new agreement is a big improvement on the previous one. For the first time, we have a deal that truly reflects the people’s vote of June 2016 to leave the European Union. It returns control of UK affairs to where it belongs: the British people. It also places Northern Ireland’s future where it belongs: in the hands of the people’s representatives in Northern Ireland. This is consent in action, a principle which has always been a cornerstone of the Good Friday agreement. Of course, the deal is not perfect for everybody. Each side has had to compromise, and red lines have disappeared—but that is negotiation, the price of an agreement.

The Opposition claim that the deal would result in the dilution of rights and standards in the United Kingdom. I have no idea which document they have read, but paragraph 77 of the revised political declaration says clearly that,

“the Parties should uphold the common high standards applicable in the Union and the United Kingdom”,

and,

“maintain environmental, social and employment standards at the current high levels provided by the existing common standards”.

That should be good.

Meanwhile, beyond the Westminster bubble, voters boil with frustration at Parliament’s inability to get this thing done. This, as I have said before, is how revolutions start. Yet, inside the Westminster bubble, the Brexit Party’s success in the European elections is forgotten, as if it never happened. Talk about ostriches with their heads in the sand.

Certain Members of both Houses are once again trying to delay and derail Brexit when their duty lies in the opposite direction. They, including those demonstrating in central London today, lay claim to a phoney democratic legitimacy by demanding a second referendum. But, as long as the result of the first referendum remains unfulfilled, the case for a second does not have a moral leg to stand on. Add to that the cost, the aggravation of still further political division and the bitter argument over which question or questions should be asked, dividing friends against friends, family members against family members. Who in their right mind wants to go through that again? Under the camouflage of promoting a confirmatory vote lies the real agenda: to revoke Article 50 and reverse the referendum result. This is what it is all about. At least the Lib Dems have had the decency to come clean.

The fear of no deal at the end of 2020 is new and spurious. How can it be crashing out if the withdrawal agreement is already ratified? This is surely another delaying tactic. The surest way to avoid no deal is to agree to this deal. As my noble friend Lord Howell of Guildford said, we should beware. Jean-Claude Juncker, President Macron and Prime Minister Varadkar have each already fired a shot across the bows of those who favour a further extension of Article 50. Remember that it takes only one member state out of 27 for an extension to be refused and to send us crashing out with no deal. This is the default position, whatever our Supreme Court may have ruled. Remember too that, while we are still members of the EU, EU law supersedes UK law.

We now at last have an agreement that justifies the name Brexit. It is our duty to honour it without any further delay. I pay my own tribute to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. I completely agree that the only way forward is to come together and go for this deal.

Brexit

Baroness Meyer Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, the Prime Minister is right: we need to get Brexit done. The longer the delay, the more divided we will become—if that is even possible. Last week, bloodletting in the other place plumbed new depths of acrimony and abuse. It was shocking, but hardly surprising. After three years of deadlock, remainers and Brexiteers have become more and more entrenched in their positions, allowing anger and resentment to replace reasoned debate.

Meanwhile, the frustration of our voters at Parliament’s inability to honour its commitment to the referendum result grows by the day. We have reached such a point that many outside the Westminster bubble no longer care whether we leave with a deal, without a deal, or with just half a deal. Surely the European elections were warning enough. Yet we appear to have learnt absolutely nothing from the dramatic success of the Brexit Party. Our heads are deep in the sand. This is how revolutions—like the one that destroyed my Russian family—begin. It beggars belief that, three years and three months after the referendum, Brexit remains undelivered. At the time of the last extension, President Tusk urged us to use the time well. Can we honestly say that we have done so?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

No.

[Baroness Meyer]

Exactly. Brexit delayed is Brexit denied. Yet, with the latest deadline looming, Members of this House and the other place are scheming, yet again, to frustrate the wish of the majority of the British people and to undermine the Prime Minister’s determination to deliver Brexit—and, may I say, with a deal; that is what he trying to do. This plotting is as calculating as it is unworthy. It is, to quote Sir John Major, “political chicanery”. This is not a struggle between two types of democracy: parliamentary and plebiscite; it is a blending of the two. It was Parliament itself that agreed the referendum, undertook to implement it and, by a thumping majority, voted to trigger Article 50. Because it makes Brexit more difficult and revoke more likely, the Benn Act is, in reality, a distortion of parliamentary democracy, not its triumphant assertion.

As for negotiation, to rob the Prime Minister of the option to walk away from the negotiating table is self-defeating madness. It is like playing the Wimbledon finals with a hole in your racquet. We have to ask the question: what is behind this Westminster scheming to get another extension of Article 50?

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

Would the noble Baroness agree that it is in fact like trying to play the finals while threatening to walk off if you do not win the first round?

[Baroness Meyer]

I could not agree with that because, if the Prime Minister is to be able to negotiate, he needs to know that his Parliament and this country are behind him. It is the only way to negotiate—if you play poker and you show your trump card in advance, how can you negotiate?

What is behind this Westminster scheming to get another extension of Article 50? We are told that it is to avoid a no-deal Brexit, however that may be defined. In reality, no deal covers several outcomes, none of which can be described as “crashing out”. The plain truth is that we cannot predict with any certainty the economic outcome of Brexit—whichever form it takes—for this country or for the European Union, because this has never been done before. There have been scores, maybe hundreds, of predictions and analyses. For some, no deal is the deepest pit of hell, for others the promised land. Not for nothing did Thomas Carlyle call economics the “dismal science”. I experienced that personally when I worked in financial services. Today, our crystal balls are cloudier than ever.

Some will say that the delay should be used for a second referendum—I am beyond my time, I speak too slowly. This is often wrapped in the pious hypocrisy of a “people’s vote”. But can we do this again? Does anybody in their right mind want to go through that again? I need to finish, because my time is up.

There are other people trying to revoke Article 50. I never thought I would say it, but we must be grateful to the Liberal Democrats. Their leader has given the game away by saying that if we were to vote leave in a second referendum, she would refuse to implement it. At least she has had the decency to come clean and persuade her party to support revoke. We need to move on; we need to try to come together and support the Prime Minister, who is trying to get a deal.

European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill

Baroness Meyer Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 5th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Earl, Lord Devon, because I completely agree with him. I have not prepared a speech, so what I say will not be in order. I am a European. My mother is of Russian origin, my father was French and I have lived in Germany, America and the United Kingdom. I am sometimes a little surprised by the word “European” because European countries are all very different and have very different mentalities. In my opinion, the European Union we are talking about is of the past. There was a union for various reasons, and I will not go through the history of the coal community—I cannot remember the name—that led to the European Union. One reason was to protect us against the eastern bloc and the political reason was because we were afraid of the resurgence of the Nazi movement. Then there was trade, which was very useful for all our countries.

The point I am trying to make is that Europe today is very different from the Europe we are talking about. I live in France and I go to Germany quite often, and their view of us is very different from what we think it is. We are friends and we can work together. I strongly believe that we can leave the European Union but remain Europeans in the terminology we are talking about. The United Kingdom is very different from Europe. We used to call it “the continent” in the old days because we are different. For better or for worse—I believe for better, because I love this country—we are in a different world. As the noble Baroness, Lady Deech —who is no longer in her place—pointed out, Europe is not a place I particularly want to remain a member of because I look at it as something that will not work long term. I find that a lot of Europeans are very disillusioned with the European Union and feel very remote from its government. One thing I observe is that people feel left behind. The resurgence of nationalism is a direct result of the European integration forced upon them. People want a sense of nationality.

[Baroness Ludford]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness. Since her remarks seem to include observations about anti-EU feeling in different states, can she give an example of a member state where a majority want to copy the UK in voting to leave? My understanding of the polls is that support for membership of the EU has gone up in every EU country.

[Baroness Meyer]

That is not the case in every country. It is certainly not like that among the eastern members. In France, there is quite a strong movement to get out of the European Union. Look at Italy; look at the gilets jaunes. I know it is not reported very much here but there is a strong feeling that people feel not part of the club—a club that was built many years ago. I think we have moved on. That is my opinion, but this is a place where I think it is important to share one’s opinion.

I go back to the point that we are where we are: I voted on one side and you voted on the other side, but somewhere along the line everyone in the other House agreed to hold a referendum. What I fear most, which reflects what the noble Earl, Lord Devon, was talking about, is that if we do not deliver what the people voted for, we will be in deep trouble. There will be a real reaction, and that is how revolutions are started. My grandparents were evicted from Russia as a result of the same sort of mentality. The centre, in the form of Russia’s royal family and the Government, had no idea of how the people in the streets were feeling; they were so remote that they were not inclusive.

If I had a choice, I would not go for this Bill. My reasons for saying that are, first, that we must give the Prime Minister a new—

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

The noble Baroness talks about revolutions, but does she agree that the EU has been hugely instrumental in keeping the peace in Europe since the Second World War?

[Baroness Meyer]

We are going back into the past and I think that the results of the Second World War were a little more complicated than that. The European Union was initially created as a body against the eastern bloc. I am not going to go into the causes of war—the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, gave us examples —but the European Union has not always been very cohesive in its defence policy. The world has changed. Cyber attacks are now dangerous, so we need to look outwards a little more.

The point is that people voted to leave in a democratic vote and we should respect their decision. I know that along with my husband, some noble Lords voted to remain, but we should not undercut the negotiating powers—some are saying that Boris Johnson has no negotiating powers—of a Prime Minister. He has to have the support of parliamentarians. His job is to deliver what the people wanted.

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. Does she accept that perhaps the major tragedy of this whole saga is that our political community has never grasped the reality of the fact that when the Coal and Steel Community and the Common Market were set up, while they were certainly about rational and necessary economic arrangements, right from the beginning they were a means to an end? Right from the beginning the purpose was political: to build a stable and peaceful Europe. When she describes the uncertainty in Europe at the moment, which is true, surely this is the time for us to be there, determined to build, together with others, the fortress that will keep Europe stable and peaceful. Why does she take this defeatist attitude?

[Baroness Meyer]

On the contrary, I take a positive attitude. This country can do very well on its own and we do not necessarily need the Europeans. People say that we have been chained by Europe. I take your point that, originally, we were worried about the eastern bloc, but I would say that the cancer is now inside Europe because it is disintegrating. If we leave the club, before it is too late, we may be better off. We now have this opportunity, so at least give the Prime Minister a chance to see if he can negotiate a deal that we can all agree to, and then we should move towards reuniting this country.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

Is not the reality, as we can see from the gilets jaunes and from what is happening in Italy, Greece and Spain, that, as the polls show, many people are thoroughly discontented with the European Union, but, thanks to Gordon Brown, who saved us from the euro, we are able to leave in a way that would be extremely difficult for them?

[Baroness Meyer]

Absolutely.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I do not know whether the Front Bench will be doing its normal practice of looking after the conventions of the House but I believe that only people who were here for the opening speeches normally intervene.

[Baroness Meyer]

Do you want me to stop talking? I think that I have made my point that we all have different opinions. I come from a different side. I just want this country to get together and move on. We can blame David Cameron for having called a referendum, but, for better or worse, the point is that it happened and we have to move forward. That is what I am trying to say. There is a future for this country on its own. We need to look at the rest of the world, where there are a lot of opportunities, and stop looking at the past and seeing the European Union as something that used to be fantastic—it is now changing. As my noble friend just said, when you look at what is happening economically in all those countries, it is not great. We will have more flexibility if we are out. That is my point.

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords—

EU Withdrawal

Baroness Meyer Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, this is my third time speaking and my third time doing so after the noble Baroness, Lady Bull. I do not know whether there is any significance to this.

Anyway, this Brexit debate is nothing if not a contest between two visions of the future. There is no surprise about that. However, the debate has become so dogmatic, dug-in and devoid of good old English common sense that it has also given rise to two versions of history. Just as the EU today claims moral ownership of the Good Friday agreement as if it had taken part in the negotiations and suffered thousands of casualties during the Troubles, there are some remainers who give the EU credit for ending the Cold War—so much so that, in our debate on 28 January, to the applause of others sitting opposite us, the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, gave the then European Community the credit for bringing down the Berlin Wall.

This is entirely false. I was living in Germany, married to a German. I was there in September 1989, the very first time East Germans—

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, if I can correct the noble Baroness, the credit I gave to the EU was for welcoming the states of eastern and central Europe into a state of democracy and freedom. We can argue about the cause of the fall of the Berlin Wall; I did not ascribe that, as such, to the EU.

[Baroness Meyer]

I will cover that particular point in my next paragraph. I will continue because I am not yet confident enough to speak without notes, but beware: it will happen one day, and noble Lords might regret it.

I was living in Germany. We were there in September 1989, the first time that the East Germans were allowed to leave East Germany. We ran to the border and saw people coming out on bicycle, on foot and in their little Trabants. The West Germans lined the street and welcomed the East Germans. It was an unforgettable moment—the celebration of freedom from a state of oppression. This moment remains in my mind and will do so for a long time. My children are half-German.

The EU had nothing to do with it. It happened because of the fall of communism, mainly because of its inadequacies. If any international organisation contributed to the fall of communism, especially of the Soviet Union, it was NATO, not the European Community, as it was called then. If any international statesman helped the Berlin Wall come down, it was President Reagan, who called to Mr Gorbachev in 1989, “Tear down that wall”.

If we cannot agree on the future of this country, the least we can do is not reinvent the past to gain advantage in Brexit debates. Let us not forget that Paris and London were strongly opposed to the reunification of Germany in 1990 for fear that it would become too powerful. Let us not forget that Chancellor Kohl told the German people in 1997 that EU integration and the adoption of the euro were the price that Germany had to pay to dominate Europe without alarming its neighbours. Let us also not forget that Kohl pledged to his people that the euro—which led directly to economic crises in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland, and to the impoverishment of Italy today—would be no less strong and stable than the deutschmark.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we all have our historical memories and interpretations of history. In 1990-91, I spent a lot of time in the transforming societies of eastern Europe—Poland, Hungary, Romania, et cetera. The first thing that their new Governments wanted to know was how soon they could join the European Community. It was partly the attraction of the European Community which had led those Governments, including that of Hungary—who were a good, progressive Government in those days—to believe that reform was possible. My participation in this was different from that of the noble Baroness, and I saw something rather different too.

[Baroness Meyer]

I completely understand what the noble Lord is saying and completely agree with him. In the east, they all wanted to join the European Community. It was seen as a symbol of freedom. This is not my point. My point is that it was implied in the previous debate that the European Union—when it was called the European Community—played a role in liberating the communists, and that this is entirely wrong. It had no role whatever.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My recollection of those days, when those brave people in eastern Europe were liberated, is that their leaders wanted to know, “How quickly can we meet Margaret Thatcher, who has done so much to give us this freedom?”.

[Baroness Meyer]

Absolutely—I have the same recollection.

The point I am trying to make is that people are over-exaggerating in all these debates. I know that some people say the Brexiters are exaggerating on one side, but the remainers and reversers are also totally over-exaggerating. They have a nostalgia for a European Union which is a completely different entity. The European Community that noble Lords may be idealising had 12 relatively cohesive members. We are now leaving a squabbling group of 28 members, where even the EU’s core democratic values are in question. The “ever closer union” has come to a halt and the economy looks to be doing the same. What is economically essential to complete the eurozone has become politically impossible, as President Macron has learned to his cost. As the BBC would say, despite Brexit, we are actually doing rather well economically.

Compare us with France and Italy, as well as with Germany, which is now falling into recession. We need to be realistic. We keep looking inwards at what is happening in this country; this is not happening in the rest of the European Union. The real threat to prosperity is not Brexit—as some noble Lords call it, “crashing out”—but uncertainty and indecision. If one message comes over loud and clear from businesses and people in this country, it is, “Get on with it”. This is another way of saying, “Just do as you were instructed”.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Baroness Meyer]

Are noble Lords democrats? Did we have a vote? Did the majority of people vote to leave the European Union? We have to deliver. It is insulting of us, because we are privileged—

[Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve]

In a representative democracy, we do not instruct our representatives.

[Baroness Meyer]

Of course. It is an honour to be here. However, first of all, we need to respect what our Prime Minister has said, as well as what the people have voted for.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

When the Government and Parliament of this country delegate a decision to the people, they have to follow the mandate that the people have given.

[Baroness Meyer]

We need to try to work together to find a solution and stop bickering and reinventing the facts. Do not delay; do not betray. Let us get on with it. There must be a solution somewhere that we can agree and work together on. As noble Lords keep saying, there is a future generation. They will not see us as very good if we keep on fighting, discussing and bickering. We need to look forward. I am sorry, I am a Conservative: we have a Conservative Government and we need to support our Government.

Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration

Baroness Meyer Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meyer (Con)]

My Lords, there are two harsh truths about this debate. First, there is little one can say about Brexit which has not been said before. Secondly, nothing any of us can say is likely to change the minds of people who think differently.

I have not changed my mind since I last spoke in December, but I do have a new perspective after spending two weeks in continental Europe in the company of the French and Germans. As I heard at first hand, both the French and Germans live in deeply troubled countries, politically and economically. The latest official figures, which came out just last week, show a sharp drop in industrial production in both countries. It is not surprising that they see Brexit as a hammer-blow to their interests. What is more, deep down, each fears to be left alone with the other in a European Union without the United Kingdom.

In our Brexit debates, we can be dangerously anglocentric, ignoring at our peril how things are seen from the other side of the channel. For instance, by the end of the year, there will be a new president of the European Council, a new president of a new Commission, a new president of the European Central Bank and a newly elected European Parliament, where the so-called populists are expected to be heavily represented. We will be negotiating our future relationship with a whole new cast of characters. There will be risks and opportunities.

As some of us British indulge in a shameful competition to come up with the most apocalyptic vision of Brexit, there are many on the other side of the channel and the Irish Sea who also have anxiety, some of it worse. It may seem old-fashioned and ripe for satire, but what Britain could do with right now is a large dose of the old wartime spirit: “Keep calm and carry on”. If the Prime Minister’s deal is voted down, there is no cause for panic or hysteria. It is certainly no cause for parliamentarians to throw their hands in the air, deny their responsibilities and tell the public that they got it wrong the first time and should please try again. Brexit is not a game of pass the parcel, however difficult the decisions to be taken.

As for no deal—a dishonest piece of deceptive shorthand, if ever there was one—it is ludicrous to run screaming from the room at the very notion. We should instead analyse the many different types of a so-called no deal, if push comes to shove and we leave the EU without an agreement on 29 March. As my noble friend Lord Lilley pointed out,

“WTO is a safe haven, not a hard option”,


and we will possibly,

“cash in, not crash out”.

I was horrified to read a recent tweet by one of our Members, who claimed that Brexit would leave us worse off, permanently. Does anybody have any idea what “permanently” means? Look at Galbraith, a well-known economist, who said:

“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable”.


Any student of economics knows perfectly well that there are too many variables in human behaviour to predict the future.

I have already quoted one American and I will quote another. President Franklin Roosevelt said that,

“the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”.

That is as true today as it was then. It is about time that we set an example to the nation and throw off negative, defeatist and abusive attitudes. I object when other people call us narrow-minded. We are allowed to have our own opinion. The whole point about this debate is that everybody should have their own opinion and we should be courteous to each other.

Brexit was never going to be easy—people who voted to get out knew that it was never going to be easy. After 60 years of membership, how could it be easy? But we know that people and business will adapt. When we became a member of the European Union, we also had to adapt. I believe that this country can do it. I am sorry to say it, but I would like us to be more positive and to stop the ongoing negativity. I find it very depressing.