EU Withdrawal

Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Altmann (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Dinton. I have enormous sympathy with just about every word he uttered. Like others, I contribute to the debate yet again with a heavy heart and deep regret that we find ourselves in this position. Once again, I find myself supporting the noble Baroness’s Motion and urging my noble friends on the Front Bench to accept it without putting it to a vote.

We are here to take note of the ongoing discussions—not negotiations, just discussions—taking place within the EU following our Article 50 notification. Why are we noting anything about discussions? The EU has made it clear that negotiations are over, on terms agreed and signed off by the Prime Minister and our team. What are we to make of this? We seem determined to break bonds with our nearest neighbours, to all our costs. We persist with apparently running down the clock, threatening no deal up to the last day, expecting the EU to cave in to whatever we demand. It is just not going to happen. The Prime Minister’s Statement says that she continues,

“to work with Members across the House to do everything we can to help build a country that works for everyone”.—[Official Report, Commons, 12/2/19; col.732.]

If that really is the aim, persisting with a no-deal route, keeping business in the dark about its future and risking people’s jobs and livelihoods by refusing to listen even to Parliament’s instruction that we must not leave without a deal is totally inconsistent with those aims.

Yes, it is true, as the Prime Minister says, that opposing no deal is not enough to stop it. But securing a deal is not the only way to stop us crashing out without one. We have the unilateral power to revoke Article 50. It is within our control. The Prime Minister says that public faith in our democracy will be damaged if Parliament ignores the result of the 2016 referendum. How could anyone seriously pretend that we have ignored that result? What is being ignored, to the detriment of trust in our Government and parliamentary leadership, is that the promises made at the time of the referendum cannot and will not be delivered. Yet the premise of the course that we are set on is that this is the will of the people. How do we know that this is what the majority of the country actually wants?

The Prime Minister says we must all hold our nerve to get the changes Parliament requires and to deliver Brexit on time. But the EU has made it clear that it will not drop the backstop. Indeed, if border checks are solved by technology, as the ERG has repeatedly suggested, what is the fuss about the backstop? It will never be needed.

Plan B, the Malthouse compromise, has been roundly rejected by trade experts. They have had to explain—as has the parliamentary Library, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, pointed out—that WTO law does not allow the UK and the EU to keep trading as if the UK were still in the EU.

[Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve (CB)]

The noble Lady asked what the fuss was about the backstop. Perhaps I may explain in one sentence. It is a constitutional point, not a point about customs. Any change to the constitutional status of Northern Ireland has to respect the terms of an international agreement, the Good Friday/Belfast agreement. That agreement specifies no constitutional change without consent. I do not know what conversations are going on, but if the noble Baroness reads the present version of the backstop agreement, she will discover that it does not respect the Good Friday agreement. This, in my view, has been an error both by our Government and by the EU.

[Baroness Altmann]

I bow to the noble Baroness’s superior knowledge. However, it has been constantly and consistently the issue that, unless there is a frictionless border in Northern Ireland, there is a problem.

[Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve]

Nobody is arguing for a return to what is somewhat confusedly referred to as a “hard border”. There is agreement between the EU, the UK and the Republic of Ireland that there should be what is confusedly called a “soft border”. That is not the problem. The problem is about the constitutional status of a part of the United Kingdom. That is why people are so angry and so worried about the backstop, and why there have already been a good deal of incipient attempts at violence in Northern Ireland, which mercifully did not kill anybody.

[Baroness Altmann]

Perhaps we need to pursue this further but my understanding is that if there is technology which can ensure a frictionless border, the practical problems could be dealt with.

However, the Malthouse compromise—plan B—also falls foul of this problem: that it is impossible under WTO law for the UK and the EU to keep trading as if the UK is a member state while negotiating a free trade agreement for the future. On that basis, I am afraid that my noble friend Lord Cathcart appears to be mistaken.

Like many other countries we are in the grip of populism, whose success is based on promoting beguilingly simple soundbites and solutions to hugely complex problems. Populist leaders know that they cannot actually deliver these simplistic slogans. All that they need is for people to believe slogans such as, “Take back control”, “More money for our priorities”, “Free trade deals, easy peasy”, “Make Britain great again” and “Have your cake and eat it”. The referendum promises were never honest; they were designed to seduce people into a fantasy world of sunlit uplands, and they succeeded, but those running the leave campaign had no actual plan for how they would manage the country after Brexit. Indeed, the whole Brexit programme is based on a fundamental misunderstanding and misrepresentation of how the commercial world operates. Is this naive ignorance by politicians who have never run businesses or conducted trade negotiations, or do they just not understand or care about the legal realities?

I cannot believe that the principles of the Conservative Party—pragmatism, supporting business and jobs—are being sacrificed on the altar of an ideological fantasy, with its sacred duty to break 40 years of success. We have reckless brinkmanship and there is a reliance on railroading Parliament into acquiescence, even with the prospect of no deal. The path we are on is conducted by people who have got everything wrong so far about Brexit, about how the EU works and about how international trade operates. David Davis claimed that he could get a free trade agreement by going to Berlin, where they would be desperate to protect BMW. Liam Fox claimed that he would have 70 deals ready to roll on 30 March, on the same terms as before. The public were assured that we could have a final deal on the future relationship agreed in two years. The ERG insisted that we could leave the customs union and single market, and still have no hard border in Northern Ireland. None of these was ever realistic. Even the claims that the withdrawal agreement and political declaration will mean taking back control of our borders, laws and money cannot be relied upon, with all the difficult decisions being left to future negotiations after we have left.

The only aim seems to be to leave the EU, whatever the cost. The Government’s own figures prove that leaving the EU will make the country poorer, while leaving without any agreement will demolish our industrial success. We will lose thousands of businesses and jobs. It is not too late to go back to the British people with an honest reassessment of the false promises which they have been led to believe. It is not too late to give the country the chance to confirm that people are happy to proceed or have changed their minds. This is about not just trade but our whole way of life: our children’s future, our freedom and rights, our national security. So much is at risk. I am in favour of co-operation and partnership. But we must take care that at this crucial stage in the negotiations we are not just railroaded into leaving the EU, come what may, without checking back with the British people.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration

Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve (CB)]

My Lords, I spoke at the beginning of December so I really shall try to be brief. At the start of today’s debate, a number of noble Lords said, “Nothing has changed”. I think some things have changed and not for the better. There is more bitterness, polarisation, hostility and tension; we saw signs of that with Monday’s reports of remarks made to Members of the other place. There may be some issues here of common concern to remainers and Brexiteers, and of common interest.

At the other end of this Palace we have what my noble friend Lord Hennessy called a great showdown in the House of Commons. The showdown seems to have a common assumption behind it: that it would be a good thing if there were, somehow, a vindication of democratic process. The assumption comes in two varieties: noble Lords on the Liberal Democrat Benches hope that a second referendum might be a solution; and some noble Lords on the Labour Benches are hoping not for a second referendum but that a vote of no confidence might lead the way to a general election and that that democratic process could rescue us from this situation.

I wonder whether both assumptions are mistaken. We are seeing a quite unprecedented challenge to democracy itself, not because of Brexit but because of the impact of digital technologies on electoral process. What we realise now is that the democratic process is being undermined and hijacked by those technologies; non-citizens are influencing votes systematically and all over the place, not only in this country but in many others including the US, in its elections.

These are serious issues. We need to realise that democracy is now being manipulated, not merely by rich individuals, but by companies, interest groups and states, including their security apparatuses. In this situation, when our fellow citizens are being digitally micro-targeted by means not apparent to them, we need to think very carefully about saying that more democracy is the solution. More democracy may not be attainable. We need to work out what we ought to do.

I have a question for the Minister. Does he have any views about what the Government could do to ensure that these technologies are not used to subvert democracy in further processes that bear on Brexit? I think the same questions arise for the Lib Dems and for Labour. Are we sure that democracy can be kept safe in present circumstances? I am losing my voice, so I shall stop.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Tuesday 7th March 2017 Lords Chamber

My noble friend has made it plain that he does not intend to push this to a vote, and I am glad about that. The amendment is in the spirit in which the Good Friday agreement was conducted—which is all parties, on all sides, in all parts of this island as well as all parts of the island of Ireland, advising each other as we see fit on the best way to avoid big traps and to ensure the prosperity of Northern Ireland and of the Good Friday and Belfast agreement.

[Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve (CB)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hain, for tabling this amendment although I think that things may not be quite as difficult as he imagines. For many of us—I declare an interest here—our right to Irish citizenship is not contingent on the Belfast agreement. It goes back much further to the establishment of the common travel area. In order to set my own mind at rest, I checked with the Irish embassy after the Brexit vote to make sure of my own status. I was born in County Antrim during the war years and the answer was, “You are a citizen. You have birthright”. That did not continue indefinitely but many of us in the north have citizenship by virtue of being born, I think, when there was still a territorial claim to the entire island. I see the noble Lord, Lord Empey, nodding. That is very important to us. The numbers we are talking about are rather different from the suggestion that this is a Belfast agreement creation.

However, the underlying problems are every bit as severe as noble Lords have suggested. There are three. One is obviously the movement of people. I know that many in the Conservative Party think that ID cards are a no-no, but many noble Lords carry mobile phones which constantly give away far more about their identity. We should grow up and realise that in the present age identity and identification is absolutely routine. We need to get it right and enable people to travel. However, the issue is not only to identify the persons who have, under whatever dispensation we reach, no right to cross into the UK. I am afraid that this duty to identify ourselves would fall on all of us—probably when we do crucial things, such as register with a GP’s surgery, start a company or buy a property, and not merely when we travel. That topic really needs to be explored in full.

The second topic, which I believe is the most awkward, is the question of tariffs. Of course it depends on the negotiation that we have been talking about at some length today—what sort of issue that has to be, and how much of it can be electronic—but make no mistake: the economies are interwoven, and it cannot be thought that we will have a long queue at 260 border crossings across 300 miles. That is not a solution.

Thirdly, and I think this is a neglected but important topic, we may expect in the event of a negotiation that the agricultural support systems north and south of the Irish border will diverge. That creates new incentives to do something that has long been done—about which amusing stories can be told, because it is not only oil tankers that were put into fields but, of course, beasts. It is extraordinarily important that we address issues of biosecurity very early on in the negotiations. The economies of both the Republic and the north are highly integrated in some respects, particularly dairy, and it is very important that those supply lines can be maintained without any risk to biosecurity. Of course, it is not just the looming possibility of foot and mouth but also other horrible diseases that animals get, such as swine flu and Asian flu. You name it, it is possible. I hope that we can address that one soon.

[Lord Eames (CB)]

My Lords, it is an opportunity, because of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hain, to once again concentrate our minds on an aspect of our long debates on the EU and Brexit, and to realise the significance of a cameo within the bigger cameo. It is a question not just of addressing the issue of the United Kingdom and the EU; within the United Kingdom is a border that will become the frontier between the United Kingdom and the EU.

The border, which is a part of folklore as well as part of the political story of Ireland, is much more important, as I said at Second Reading, than a line on a map. It represents something in people’s minds, aspirations and memories of the past. I believe that the value of what the noble Lord, Lord Hain, has said to us this evening is this: the border represents perhaps the most important facet for the people of Northern Ireland that is represented by Brexit. Northern Ireland will be affected by Brexit more than any other part of the United Kingdom simply because of geography. However, more than geography, it will be affected by cultural and economic changes and, of course, the security question.

It is important to emphasise what lies behind the words of the amendment; I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Hain, will not press it to a Division. It is a reminder that this part of the United Kingdom will be the first to feel the effect of Brexit. The second part will be the ongoing consequences. As the noble Baroness has reminded us, there is the tariff question, the economy and the proverbial oil tankers, and horses and cows in the field.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey]

I am not opposed to the concept, of course. We have already said that it is going to be ratified by Parliament. I make the point that if these amendments are inserted—and there are others on the Marshalled List to be dealt with at a later sitting—we are going to send a team of people to negotiate on our behalf. Clearly people in Brussels will say, “These people do not have the juice to do a deal so why would I take a political risk as a Brussels negotiator to stretch out towards them”—which is what is going to be needed on both sides—“because they know that they have no chance of getting a deal at the end of the day?”.

[Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve (CB)]

My Lords, we have already seen this afternoon in our very serious debate about the implications of the present situation—let us put it neutrally—for Northern Ireland that the referendum was, in fact, about a matter of the greatest constitutional importance and about the integrity of the United Kingdom, a great worry to any of us who come from Northern Ireland. However, although I agree with my noble friend Lord Empey that we should not tie the hands of negotiators, that a referendum at the end is a bad idea and that one constitutional error cannot be remedied by another constitutional error, nevertheless something needs to be said about the possibilities of no deal or of a bad deal. Those are two realistically possible outcomes. I think that at this stage it should be possible for the Government to say a bit about their plans in the event of either contingency.

[Lord Warner (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment. I thought that the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, and the noble Lord, Lord Newby, set out the case pretty well. I do not want to go over that ground again about a second referendum. However, I am a strong believer in the sentiment that those who giveth can also taketh away. It seems that that is an underlying principle: if the people have spoken but they are given new information, they can change their views at the end of the process.

I will say a bit about why I put my name on this amendment because the reason is a theme that will keep coming up on some of the other amendments. It will certainly come up on Amendment 8, which is in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Oates. Do we actually trust the Government to conduct these negotiations unsupervised after what we have seen of their behaviour so far? We are entitled to be fairly sceptical. We also have no reason to believe, if I may say so, that in Whitehall—and I speak as an old Whitehall warrior—there is this crack team of negotiators who we are going to send across the English Channel and who are going to do a fantastic job without any involvement in Parliament. We have no reason to believe that they will come up with a solution at the end of this process and we will all sit here and nod very sagely and say, “Fantastic. You have hit every particular button”. The world, on the whole, does not work that way.

We all have views about how to conduct negotiations. Many noble Lords have had a go at conducting such negotiations, and we will all have our own approach. Sometimes I have actually thought it quite useful in negotiations not to have too much flexibility—that I have got a mission that I want to deliver. It is quite good to be able to shelter behind that kind of instruction about the way in which I conduct the negotiations. As a former senior civil servant, I certainly did not want a lot of Ministers telling me to go out there and do my best. I would like to have a bit of guidance. I would have thought the same applies to Ministers. I have been a Minister and wanted to know what the Government and public were likely to accept while I did those negotiations. Therefore, I see nothing wrong in principle with the approaches in the amendment.

The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, knows as well as I do—he has been a Chief Whip—that it is often the case in Committee that we put down an amendment that may be technically a bit defective. We are trying to have a debate about a principle or an issue and we often withdraw them and come back at a later stage in the Bill with a rectified amendment that meets the concerns expressed. That does not mean it is wrong in principle to put these issues before the House and see what people’s views are. I support the amendment. We should think very seriously, as we discuss further amendments to the Bill, about whether we really believe that it is safe to send the Government into these negotiations without any requirements about the involvement of Parliament with that process.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve (CB)]

My Lords, I wish to declare an interest. Noble Lords may be rather surprised that on a Bill of this length one could declare an interest, but it is the following: my father, Con O’Neill, negotiated the UK’s entry into the Common Market. I do not, of course, know how he would have judged all the later developments of the European project, but I think that some aspects of his experience may be relevant to the negotiations that will have to be entered into if and when the UK invokes Article 50.

The Bill we are discussing is, of course, minimal—incredibly minimal—but it is also quite opaque and obscure. Clause 1 simply confers on the Prime Minister the power to notify under Article 50(2) the United Kingdom’s intention to withdraw from the EU. That much seems clear enough; it is only a matter of notifying the EU of an intention. The rub comes later, after notification has been given and the UK seeks to act on this intention and negotiate withdrawal. This may be where my father’s experience might be in some ways relevant.

It is obvious that in negotiations one does not always get the deal one wants. Folk memory in the UK has it that the UK got a harder deal on entry than it might have done otherwise because of the action or attitude of the French and, in particular, of General de Gaulle. My father had a more complex view. While he thought that the negotiations had achieved less than might have been achieved if we had got serious about entering the EU earlier, in his view the difficulties were not solely or wholly to be attributed to de Gaulle or to France.

I do not think that we have reason to think that negotiations to exit the EU and form a new relationship with the 27 after Article 50 is invoked will inevitably go more smoothly or that they will deliver everything that is desired, or everything that would be in the interests of the UK, any more than in the past. We often hear enthusiasts for Brexit pointing out how many EU states and EU companies have strong interests in specific sorts of engagement and trading relationships with the UK. That is surely true. However, such interests are often dispersed and are not shared by all member states or by all companies. Indeed, some member states and some companies will have considerable interests in securing the exclusion of the UK or of UK companies with which they would have to compete. They may seek to obstruct that solution. In short, there is likely to be the most enormous co-ordination problem in these negotiations because so many interests will not be widely enough shared to make agreement simple or obvious. As the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, said, we are now dealing with 27 not six other parties.

The negotiations may not go smoothly despite the fact that many have an interest in reaching an agreement and it would irresponsible of us not to be clear about that reality from the start, so I wonder whether the Minister could take time in winding up to state what happens in the event that negotiations lead to no deal or that the only deal on offer is unacceptable or very harmful to the UK. What happens in the event of no deal and what happens in the event of a bad deal? I do not think that we know, but it is something that has to be understood when invoking Article 50.

Two different possibilities are mentioned. By one account, if there is no deal, nothing has changed and we are still a member of the EU. By another account, though, we will have left the EU with no agreement in place. That is one pair of views on the matter. If the latter, then on some views we would be able to trade on WTO terms, but on other views WTO terms are not an automatic default, since our membership of the WTO hinges on our relationship with the EU and a failed negotiation would not deliver WTO terms. Again, this needs to be clear not merely to Members of your Lordships’ House but to our fellow citizens. It is important, before the Bill passes, to understand the situation in the event of either no deal or an evidently bad one. That is why I hope that the Minister will set out the Government’s present understanding of the situations in the event of no deal or a conspicuously bad deal.