Brexit

Lord Birt Excerpts

Saturday 19th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, I am as nervous as I ever have been about the consequences of Brexit for our economy and our union. If there is a pathway to a further referendum, I will take it. But, if there is to be a choice between this deal and no deal—and I am fearful that that now is the choice—I will choose this deal, for it satisfies the key demands of those who, unlike me, voted to leave: ending freedom of movement, reclaiming the right to forge bespoke trade deals around the world, and eliminating the jurisdiction of the ECJ.

More positively, the political declaration offers, in notably generous language, the prospect of a speedily negotiated deal with our closest neighbours and the world’s most powerful economic bloc, with the prospect of an agreement in place in a little over 12 months’ time. The scope of that potential deal set out in the political declaration is wide. It offers the prospect of free trade, with no tariffs or quotas; regulatory equivalence for the City; free movement of capital; data transfer; air connectivity; a continuing interconnection of power supply; mutuality in public procurement; co-operation on nuclear; a partnership on security and cybersecurity, and on crime, defence and intelligence. Someone once quipped that the British were only ever half in Europe. In future, we may in practice be only half out. That is my hope.

The backstop in the previous deal raised justifiable constitutional concerns. This deal delivers no hard border in Ireland and allows Northern Ireland to participate in both the UK and the EU customs unions—welcome news indeed for Northern Ireland’s unsettled business community. Checking goods in transit from the UK mainland to the Republic via Northern Ireland seems an insignificant price to pay for such an arrangement. If Northern Ireland does not want to pay that price, it can, by a majority unavoidably now involving both communities, withdraw its consent—although I cannot conceive why it ever should.

The objection that this deal will reduce labour and other standards appears to me to be weak. The political declaration is emphatic about the UK signing up to a level playing field of standards, and of not seeking unfair trading advantage. Moreover, future Governments of whatever party will be free to legislate on these matters, if and when they choose.

I would far rather remain in the European Union; that is the best deal of all. However, if we are to leave, embracing this deal offers at least the prospect of a fruitful and healthy future relationship with our closest neighbours. Rejecting the deal risks damaging that relationship even further, and risks a further descent into ever more torrid political chaos, with incalculable consequences.

I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. It is now time to decide. It is now time to jump.

Brexit

Lord Birt Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, we are mired, the road to our present misfortune littered with miscalculation and error. A referendum called to resolve a party division has torn that party apart. Remain was the anticipated answer, but after a clear-sighted, if misleading, campaign on the one hand and a somewhat clumsy and unconvincing one on the other, a country unsettled by the 2008 financial crisis, flat incomes, public sector austerity—and, as we know from surveys, a rapid rise in immigration—gave an unexpected answer. In advance of the negotiation with the EU that followed, red lines were drawn around our future trading relationship with by far our biggest trading partner without any serious national consideration of the alternatives. Article 50 was triggered without any prior agreement with the EU on the framework for negotiation: a disastrous decision which further weakened our already poor negotiating hand.

All that could then be agreed with the EU were the divorce terms: the critical issues about our future trading and other relationships were deferred. Thus cornered, we have arrived in the bizarre position of having to agree a backstop arrangement covering the most sensitive land border in Europe in the event that future trade negotiations may fail. Northern Ireland is where the Brexit rubber truly hits the road.

The Brexit process intensified division when every attempt, however difficult, should have been made to promote reconciliation. It was not. As a result, we are more divided now as a nation that we have been for hundreds of years. In the nearly seven years since David Cameron gave his Bloomberg speech, we have been transfixed by this single issue and have given scant attention to all the other matters that press on us.

As a nation, we need rapidly to recover our composure and speedily to resolve the way forward on Brexit. We must now, I fear, enter the realm of least worst options. At all costs, we must avoid a car crash Brexit. As Sir Ivan Rogers memorably declared, there is no such thing as a no-deal Brexit—the noble Lord, Lord Marks, made essentially the same point a moment ago. For, the day after we leave, we would still have to negotiate a trade deal with our neighbours, the biggest economic bloc in the world, in circumstances where our hand would be weaker still and where feelings would be even more bruised than they are now. Our nightmare could well continue for another seven years.

So, like it or not, the least worst option is likely to be Theresa May’s deal reinstated, with perhaps a few face-saving tweaks—as the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said. The non-binding political declaration is a perfectly acceptable basis for future negotiation, and we may have to swallow the risk of the backstop or some variation of it—however unpalatable—for fear of something worse if today’s alternative offered by the Prime Minister is not accepted.

We should know within weeks or even days if this Government can produce a deal that a majority in Parliament can stand behind and that the EU will accept. But if this does not happen, a general election cannot be the response. It would waste yet more time and the outcome is profoundly uncertain, as Sir John Curtice opines and as Theresa May, from her own experience, can surely testify. Nor is impeaching the Prime Minister the way forward—that would be a massive distraction and would not begin to answer the exam question before us.

We are in 1939. If a deal is not forthcoming in the short term, parliamentarians must forgo manoeuvring in their party interest—this happens in all parties—and act only in the national interest. In the absence of a deal, after a vote of confidence a temporary national Government should be formed, made up of members from all the main political parties, with independent leadership and constituted for only one set of purposes: to negotiate a Brexit deal, hold a confirmatory referendum and call an election immediately the result is known.

I hope there will be a confirmatory referendum for, whatever the answer, it will be emphatic and will put an end to our misery one way or another. I see nothing at all wrong with the notion of a second referendum. In every other walk of life—on a company board, for instance—an initial decision in principle would return for ratification once due diligence is complete and the terms of the final deal are set. It is the natural process for any important and complex matter.

There is one bright light shining in the murk. In 1688, the Bill of Rights asserted the supremacy of Parliament over the tyranny of kings. More than 300 years later, a combination of a bold and courageous Speaker and the calm lucidity of our Supreme Court has once again established the supremacy of Parliament, this time over an overreaching and divisive group within a single party. The Speaker and the Supreme Court have together made history, and they may well prove our salvation.

Brexit: Preparations and Negotiations

Lord Birt Excerpts

Monday 23rd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, I voted remain but I none the less share the widespread acceptance that the verdict of the referendum must be honoured. It is unfortunate, to say the least, that it has taken the governing party, racked by internal division, two years to produce a White Paper on the form of Brexit—a White Paper which is long on generalisations and short on detail, particularly, as others have observed, in respect of the mainstay of our economy: services.

In the Times last week, Sam Coates, an excellent journalist, convincingly delineated 14 colourfully labelled factions in the other place, each with its own distinct outlook on Brexit, from “Paramilitary Brexiteers” to “The Known Unknowns” and “The Sammy Wilson One”. Self-evidently, Britain remains bitterly fragmented and divided on how precisely Brexit is to be delivered. Yet the challenge we face is truly monumental, as the Government’s own excellent context papers compellingly illuminate.

Britain is trying to unravel and reorder an existing relationship of extraordinary complexity with our nearest neighbours—our biggest trading partner and by far the world’s largest economic bloc. This is a divorce negotiation, not a marriage contract. UK financial services have £1.4 trillion of EU assets under management. Nearly half of all EU equity capital is raised in the City. UK banks underwrite half the debt issued by EU companies. Negotiating a new regulatory dispensation for the City in a period of months is a very tall order, and WTO rules have limited application for this sector if there were to be a car-crash Brexit. In aviation, we are Europe’s biggest player by far, flying to 370 cities. Eight out of 10 of the leading destinations are in the EU, but international travel is governed by bilateral agreements between countries, not by the WTO. We have but months to negotiate new arrangements. Finance and aviation are but two sectors among many.

The long, bitter division that we are experiencing has cost us time; it has lost us momentum; it has provoked disenchantment within the EU; and it has placed us in a perilous position. Moreover, absent a compelling incentive, it seems highly unlikely that the EU will agree to extend Article 50 and allow us more time. Some in Parliament, of course, welcome the prospect of an early hard Brexit, but we are ill prepared for that eventuality, which would deliver an enormous shock to the UK economy. Moreover, we have nothing in the locker to withstand such a shock, as our public finances have not yet fully recovered from the global financial crisis of 2008.

Whatever our reservations, our only immediate hope is to support the Government’s White Paper as the basis for an urgent, full and detailed negotiation with the EU. Plainly, the EU’s negotiators are lukewarm about the White Paper, but let us hope that the gallant President Macron, the wise Chancellor Merkel and other country leaders will recognise that our Prime Minister, as we all know all too well, has very little room for manoeuvre, and that they will show some flexibility, rather than themselves face the disruption, pain and disharmony that a hard Brexit would bring us all.

If, in the event, the Prime Minister cannot fashion an economically sound deal with the EU then I doubt, as I think others have said already, that Parliament will ratify an immediate hard Brexit. Our political nightmare will then intensify. Political realignment across the spectrum may well result, but even if that occurs, only a referendum on the true and limited options then remaining will resolve uncertainty and begin to end Britain’s long-lasting division and trauma.

EU Exit Negotiations

Lord Birt Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

My Lords, of course, if our manufacturers export to the United States, they have to accept American legislation; if they export to China, they have to accept Chinese legislation. Once the agreement is made, there will have to be some form of arbitration, but that is to be negotiated.

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, if we reach a successful accommodation, as we all must hope, in phase 1, we have to move phase 2—a negotiation of unparalleled complexity. The Prime Minister will have heard today a clamour from British and European business for clarity about what the endgame is, yet we understand that the Cabinet has yet to meet to discuss what it wants to achieve from this second-phase negotiation. When will the Cabinet meet, unite and decide?

[Lord Callanan]

My Lords, I shall not comment on internal government discussions, but it is very clear that we want a full and comprehensive free trade agreement with our European partners.

The Process for Triggering Article 50

Lord Birt Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I entirely agree with my noble friend. As I said before, a second referendum would lace a situation that the noble Baroness spoke of a moment ago—in which people feel uncertain—with even more uncertainty. This is absolutely not what we wish to have.

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, may I return to the role of Parliament? The Government failed today in the Supreme Court in their first attempt to circumnavigate Parliament at the first stage of this lengthy process. I entirely agree that Article 50 must be triggered; I also agree that the Government must be allowed the freedom to negotiate, but does the Minister accept that that cannot mean that Parliament—as the country is faced with the most challenging set of issues since the Second World War—has no role? There must be a role for Parliament over these next two years in meaningfully discussing the many different choices that this country faces.

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. I disagree somewhat with his characterisation of our approach. We were not trying to circumnavigate Parliament: we believed that there was a case for using the royal prerogative to trigger Article 50. At any rate, we are where we are: Parliament is now going to have a vote. In regard to the role of Parliament going forward, there will obviously be that vote; there will be the vote, as I said a moment ago, on the great repeal Bill, and there will be votes on the subsequent pieces of legislation, of which, I expect, there will be a considerable number, both primary and secondary. Then, as my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said in her speech last week, there will be a vote in both Houses on the treaty. Meanwhile, there is nothing to stop your Lordships from having other debates. I very much look forward to being at this Dispatch Box on Thursday, to have a debate with the noble Baroness on similar subjects to those that we have been discussing this afternoon.