Brexit: Parliamentary Approval of the Outcome of Negotiations with the European Union

Lord Desai Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Desai (Lab)]

My Lords, I have not spoken on Brexit more than about three times in the past two years—I think that I deserve a prize for that. I spoke last on 5 December and more or less what I said then I will say again, but with a few more caveats.

My principal view is that people voted for Brexit. I voted remain; people voted for Brexit. It does not help to say, as did the noble Lord, Lord Newby, “Only 37% voted, so it does not count”. No victor in a general election has ever been chosen by the majority of voters. If we were to use a 51% rule, it would mean that all our Governments were not legitimate. That will not do. A referendum was called. People chose to vote. A lot of the young people who we now hear are very pro Europe chose not to vote. If you choose not to vote, you take the consequences. Some 34 million people voted; there was a majority of 2 million. It is up to us to deliver on that as best we can.

The deal negotiated by the Prime Minister is not the best deal, not the second best nor even the third best, but it is the best that we can get. It is not possible within the time that remains, or even if we elongate the time, to get a better deal as we like it. Both Houses of Parliament have proposed better alternatives, as if we were in a shopping mall and could pick up anything we liked, saying, “I will have this Brexit”, “I will not have that Brexit” or “I will not have a Brexit at all”. That choice is no longer open. We have started a process. We are only 60 days away from the end of it. Sooner or later, the House of Commons will have to come to its senses. Plan A equals plan B, equals plan C equals plan D: ultimately, it will have to vote for the deal; nothing else is available. There is no going back to Brussels. The sooner the penny—or maybe the euro—drops, the sooner we will realise that the deal is the deal and there is nothing more.

To those worried about the backstop, I say let us think about it this way. All the backstop threatens is that it will not be reversed in an anticipatable time—it may not take two years; it may take four or five. In the long run, that is not a serious objection to having a backstop. We know that whatever trade relationship we negotiate with the EU after Brexit will take five or six years—that is the norm. Liam Fox did not know about free trade treaties, but that is neither here nor there. Those with a public school education cannot be expected to have any knowledge of anything real, but that is their problem.

I have a question for the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, who is going to follow me. If it takes five years to negotiate a free trade treaty, how come it takes only two years to get out of it? The Lisbon treaty should have said, “Having invoked Article 50, you are allowed five years to sort out the mess”, because we have realised that any kind of Brexit that we negotiate is extremely complicated and will take a lot of time. The backstop and the transition period are giving us extra time creatively to get out of the free trade treaty that we signed, so we should take every advantage of it. We do not even have to negotiate a postponement, because after 29 March all is not over. There is a transition period; all sorts of opportunities are available.

Eventually, sense will prevail and we will see the realism of the deal. On the possibility of no deal, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, that the problem with Brexit and business right now is uncertainty. We do not know what the final shape of the beast is going to be. But once we know what the beast is, we will adjust. We will be able to adapt under whatever circumstances, deal or no deal. I am confident that the British economy has tremendous flexibility, and its people have great character—they can innovate, adapt and win in the end. Of that I have no doubt.

If we are in a no-deal scenario, I would adopt a suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Hannay: we should declare ourselves a zero-tariff country. That will considerably simplify the problems of the no-deal arrangement, because, apart from problems of health and other requirements, at least we will not have the trouble of stopping people to collect tariffs from them. If we go to a no deal, attention should be paid to how much we can unilaterally ease our lives, and we should get the imports to come in as quickly as possible. They may or may not need our exports, but we need their imports. Therefore, we should concentrate on our needs.

The much-maligned Prime Minister has shown remarkable stamina; I am astonished. She is shrewd enough to know that if she plays this game long enough, ultimately everybody will get bored and agree with her.