Brexit: Appointment of Joint Committee

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dykes (CB)]

My Lords, I am disappointed that the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, is not going to support the Motion. It is always a pleasure to follow her. As I think she implied, she is probably the only Member of Parliament in either House to speak Danish. It would therefore be important to register that point.

The words of the noble Viscount, Lord Trenchard, were very interesting. When he talked about the possibility of a euro crisis, I mused that the euro is now, in international banking payment transaction terms throughout the world, the strongest currency in the world; it is three points behind the US federal dollar and likely to overtake the US dollar fairly soon, although no one knows exactly when. With Christine Lagarde to be the new president of the European Central Bank, we will see how strong the euro is in comparison with the sad reality of the pound sterling. Since the end of the war, it has been devalued nine times, three times by government action and six in the marketplace. The comparison is too painful to go on further about.

Turning to another speech, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, for his fascinating speech, with which I agreed entirely—and he said it all through the words of Boris Johnson. Because it was so good, I forgive him his temporary lapse when he said he was in favour of a soft Brexit after all to be a candidate in the European parliamentary elections, which happened recently, as we know. I am sorry that he did not get in, although it may have been for that reason.

It is important to support the Motion, and I thank the Leader of the Opposition for putting it forward very cogently and clearly. It is essential that we do this and persuade our colleagues in the Commons to co-operate and work with us. The emergency atmosphere will now accelerate enormously and rapidly. I like the phrase “costs and implications” in the Motion because, as we know, both are enormous, damaging and devastating.

Like others, in future I will read the many books written about this tragic period since the 2016 referendum and the huge damage bestowed on the body politic, not only by former Prime Minister Cameron but by the following Prime Minister, Theresa May, after an advisory-only referendum in which millions of people were not given the facts about all the pain and agony and the ruination of this country. The Bullingdon-isation of British politics, wreaked on an innocent public by the self-seeking Tory candidates to be Prime Minister, is ongoing. There is still no shame or contrition. As one newspaper recently remarked about Boris Johnson, among his various qualities,

“Mr Johnson is a vacuous and irresponsible dissembler whose Islamophobia is uttered with a wink and a smirk”.


Theresa May having lost the so-called mandate after the 8 June election result, the notion that the Government can just go on with their bandit tactics is abhorrent to more and more people. The Government have admitted several times that Labour is bound to win an election, so we must avoid one. Presumably, as others have said, the phoney deal with the DUP has expired, at least for all decent observers, and is too painful to contemplate further.

Meanwhile we have to thank Mr Speaker, John Bercow, in the other place, for many things over the years, including his sturdy defence of the rights of the House of Commons and of individual Members, but particularly for flatly ruling out the misuse of Prorogation for crude party advantage.

Perhaps the most reckless and awful behaviour by these bandit politicians was to reduce the crucial importance of the Good Friday agreement and the value of our international presence among our 27 ever-sovereign fellow member states, which themselves are not worried about losing sovereignty, as they gain international and collective sovereignty as well as individual sovereignty by being strong, united members of the EU. Why can we not do the same? I was very struck by the words of one of the D-day veterans at a recent ceremony. A very wise 94 year-old, Mr Eric Chardin, was interviewed by the BBC and asserted that we have gone to so much trouble to collect the big European nations together that, “To break it all up now would be a crying shame”.

On Northern Ireland and Ireland, it is painful for me to remind the House that yesterday, on 2 July, with John Humphrys on BBC Radio 4 in the morning, the spokesman for the DUP in the other place, Sammy Wilson MP, said words close to this: “The Irish will always push you around if you let them, but if you stand up to them they will co-operate”. How can an official spokesman with a portfolio say such a thing in a broadcast to, I suppose, 7 million listeners?

These things are really dire now. The no-deal crash-out effects would be catastrophic for the highly technical just-in-time inter-trading of manufacturing and for services companies helping the manufacturers and their suppliers, as well as a whole host of other small companies. Also, if we crashed out with no deal, the ill will in the European Union would be massive, and the hatred among the 27 members for the damage we had done to them and to ourselves would last for years. The public would be more and more shocked and appalled by what was going on. It is scarifying that the only real alternative to a no-deal Brexit is a hard Brexit. People forget that.

Turning briefly to Ireland, in the Irish Times yesterday, Fintan O’Toole said, with some meaning:

“Brexit is nothing. It was always a negative proposition. Most British leaders, even those who wanted to stay in, never created for their people any positive vision of the European Union. It was spoken of grudgingly, and engaged with defensively. The remain campaign in 2016 essentially presented staying in as the lesser of two evils: the EU is bad but leaving it would be even worse”.


What a sad position for this great country to have reached. Now, no deal must be resisted, strongly. I am anticipating the outcome of all the discussions and jumping far ahead of today’s Motion, but at least it is a starting point to rescue this country from total perdition.