European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2018 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Adonis]

At end to insert “but that this House regrets that the bill makes no provision for the opinion of the people to be secured on the terms on which Her Majesty’s Government proposes that the United Kingdom withdraw from the European Union.”

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I beg to move the amendment standing in my name. There are more speakers in this debate than the entire membership of the House of Lords for the first five centuries of its existence, and more than for any other debate in our 800-year history. That may not be an entirely comforting thought to the 193 noble Lords waiting to follow me, but it is symbolic. It is because of the magnitude of the issues at stake that I move this Motion. Just as the first say on Brexit was given to the people, so the final say should rest with the people once they see the terms proposed by the Government. Our constitutional role is to ensure, with the House of Commons, that the people have the final say.

I earnestly wish that the Leader of the House was moving this Motion or, failing that, my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition. However, neither the Leader of the House nor my noble friend—and I hold them both in high esteem—yet feel in a position to recommend such a course. I suspect the time will come when they do but, as a stop-gap, I feel bound to put this matter directly before your Lordships. I do not have time to get into the huge economic, legal and strategic issues raised by the Bill. Taking them at large, I simply invoke George Orwell and his brilliant essay, Politics and the English Language. Orwell wrote that, in times of crisis:

“Political language … is designed to make lies sound truthful … and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind”.


So it is with Brexit. The Prime Minister promises a “deep and special partnership” with the European Union when, in fact, we are leaving the Union and undermining our deep and special partnership. We are told that “frictionless” trade will arise, amazingly, from the setting up of thousands of trade barriers where they do not currently exist. And, on the future of Ireland, where Parliament ought to tread with especial care, given the tragedies of recent decades, the Government say they intend “continued regulatory alignment”, when their stated policy elsewhere is to discontinue alignment and promote regulatory de-alignment.

The House needs to try to reconcile rhetoric and reality in all these areas. We look forward to working closely with the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, in doing so. The noble Lord entertains decided opinions on your Lordships’ House. He told a Conservative Party gathering recently:

“The House of Lords is the epitome of the establishment, full of ex-foreign office luminaries and people who think that their view is much more important than that of common oiks … or the public as a whole”.


Now, speaking as an oik, I am in awe of the noble Lord and his determination to put us in our place but, not being in the least defensive, I say that the interests of the public as a whole do not lie in making Britain poorer. They do not lie in undermining the Good Friday agreement. They do not lie in diminishing trade and our people’s right to live and work across Europe. They do not lie in scapegoating Europe and foreigners for the social challenges we face. And they emphatically do not lie in weakening our solidarity with Germany, France and the other democracies of Europe in standing up to Vladimir Putin and others who now, and will in future, threaten our borders, our lives and our values. These are grave matters. We owe the House of Commons and the public our advice, and I believe that, in due course, we owe our fellow citizens the right to decide for themselves whether the Government’s Brexit terms should proceed.

Edmund Burke famously said:

“People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors”.


The greatest Leader produced by this House in the last century is the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, who is soon to celebrate his 99th birthday. He is the last man alive to have served under Churchill. Under Margaret Thatcher he was an outstanding Foreign Secretary and Secretary-General of NATO. When I arrived here as an absurdly young 42 year-old he told me not to be nervous but to buy a decent suit. He said to the House 50 years ago on Britain’s second application to join the European Union,

“my Lords, we are part of Europe … our civilisation, our heritage … our manners … are all European … The vision of a United Europe, of France, Italy, Germany and Britain united in common purpose and effort, must surely be something to stir the imagination of even the most phlegmatic and placid … What splendid possibilities for the future! What a lost opportunity for us and for Europe if we are deprived of the opportunity of making our contributions!”.—[Official Report, 8/5/1967; col. 1216.]

That is so true. Let us not throw it all away.