Queen’s Speech

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice (LD)]

My Lords, I do not intend to focus all that I wish to say solely on the question of Brexit, but there is one question that I would like to put to Her Majesty’s Government on that subject.

Before the referendum, I spoke on a number of occasions in your Lordships’ House and in other places about my fear, as a supporter of and as someone committed to the European project, that people’s minds and hearts were turning away from that project, and that if there were not serious efforts by those of us who are supporters of the European Union and those who are functionaries of the European Union, that disenchantment would continue and become more serious. Sadly, it has been so. There was not the kind of reform that might have changed the course of history in the last few years.

We are now in a position where in this country there are now really only two realistic positions as far as most people are concerned. One is the position of my party: although we accept that people voted by a small majority to leave, we remain committed to the European Union and wish to persuade people to change their minds on that, and, if we were in government, we would revoke Article 50. That is an honourable and intellectually credible position. The alternative position, held by those committed to Brexit, is also honourable and credible, although it is not one with which I agree and the arguments against it are substantial.

Given the background that I come from, I have become increasingly concerned about polarisation in the community.

[Lord Dykes (CB)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I apologise for interrupting when he has just begun his speech. A lot of people refer to the need for reform in the EU but never say what they mean or suggest individual details of that reform. Would the noble Lord care to enlighten us?

[Lord Alderdice]

I have given a number of speeches setting out exactly what I would suggest, and have suggested, over the years. I suggest that I continue with what I have to say, rather than focusing entirely on the question of Brexit and matters that have been gone over repeatedly.

My concern is that our country has become increasingly polarised by focusing on this question. It is not just in this country with Brexit. It is the zeitgeist all around the world: countries and communities are becoming deeply divided and polarised. This is a very serious situation. Therefore, my question to Her Majesty’s Government—which I have discussed with some of my own colleagues—is this: whatever the outcome, remain or leave, what are we going to do subsequently to bring our people together? Whatever the outcome, a large percentage of the population will feel deeply unhappy. That is not a satisfactory situation. There is now no widely accepted public narrative in our country. We must work hard to recreate it. It will not happen automatically. I look forward to hearing what Her Majesty’s Government believe they need to do and can do if they have their way on Brexit.

That leads me to the wider questions laid out in a remarkable speech by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, early in the debate yesterday. He mentioned a whole series of issues including the Kurds, Ukraine and Hong Kong. He described how we as a country cannot look with any great satisfaction or pride on our own role—or, in some cases, lack thereof—in those areas where we ought to have been able to take responsibility and have effect.

It is important not just to regret things but to try to understand why they have happened. One of the reasons is that, in today’s world—as is right—it is no longer acceptable to use overwhelming force against those with whom you disagree. It is also not effective. The United States has involved itself in a whole series of wars in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in assistance to us in Libya and in Syria. None of them has been successful. All have made the situation worse.

We must therefore really begin to reflect in a serious way on how the rules have changed. The rules of politics and intervention have changed. How we govern our world is changing in ways that we do not understand. In the Prayers at the start of the day, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry laid out from the scriptures how those who behave with integrity and virtue will be blessed. Yes, at times that has been the case. However, I think that the words of the psalmist in Psalm 37, verse 35, are more appropriate:

“I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree”.


It looks as though wickedness, arrogance and abuse are getting further than virtue at the moment.

We need to think about what is going on and why this is happening. The character of war has changed. We now have hybrid warfare, in which the old, accepted rules of international engagement have disappeared. New technology is being used in unprecedented ways. People are not in a position where they think rationally about decisions because they are so moved by how they feel, affected by social media and fake news. There are other changes in warfare coming down the track that are not even being discussed.

There was a time when this House would have preoccupied itself with the prospect of nuclear war, and rightly so. It is back on the real agenda, if not on the debate agenda. I was talking recently with a friend from Mumbai who said he was shocked and dismayed to hear many thoughtful middle and upper-middle-class people saying that a nuclear war with Pakistan would solve their problems; they had no concept of how global the problems would become. And it is not just India and Pakistan; it is Saudi Arabia and Iran, the situation with North Korea—and, of course, all China’s neighbours are becoming increasingly anxious about how that is developing.

Neither we nor the public have been debating these issues, so preoccupied have we been with the problem of Brexit. That is not good leadership because, frankly, if we find ourselves in a war of that kind—we are already in a global cyber war—so many of the issues that we debate will ultimately become secondary.

So how do we address these kinds of problems? We do not address them by simply trying to reinforce the old ways. My noble friend Lord Campbell pointed out how NATO, upon which we depend, is falling to pieces. The Minister referred to “our ally Turkey”; well, “our ally Turkey” is doing things that we absolutely disavow and do not agree with at all. “Our ally Saudi Arabia”, as Her Majesty’s Government have referred to it, is consistently doing things that we do not identify with or support at all.

The situation is changing, and we must think carefully about that. What are Her Majesty’s Government going to do, inside this building and beyond, to enable us to think and reflect on the changing character of war and the importance of engaging with that? It is not about how many ships we have, how many people we have in GCHQ or how many people we are devoting to fighting the old wars, but about how we can get a debate.

Before the referendum, I was asked by my colleagues if I would conduct a pro-remain campaign in Northern Ireland. I said, “No”. They said, “Do you not believe in it?” I said, “I do”. They said, “Well then, why do you not want to do this?” I said, “Because I know what will happen. If I, as a former Alliance leader conducted a pro-remain campaign, the Alliance Party, Sinn Féin and the SDLP would all vote ‘Yes’, the Ulster Unionists and the DUP would vote ‘No’, and I would have contributed to deepening a division that I have spent much of my life trying to heal”. They said, “So what are you going to do?” I said, “I am going to get together with colleagues to conduct a public conversation where we will let all sides have their say, and encourage people to think and engage with the problems”.

We did that. We gave a platform to Mr Farage, and the more times he came to Northern Ireland, the more the remain camp increased. Yet he and his colleagues felt that they were being given a platform and given respect. We need a public conversation, and not just about Brexit; we have come to a point where I do not think there is much enlightenment to be had on that. We need a public conversation on issues of war and peace—issues which could bring not only our economy to a shuddering halt but our civilisation to a disastrous end.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Dykes]

My Lords, it is always a great honour and pleasure—I say that deliberately and with emphasis —to follow such an excellent speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Quin. She is one of our champions of the cause of Europe and we thank her for all the work she has been doing in the campaign for us to stay in the European Union, which she would prefer, as I would. We may have to face an alternative outcome but, none the less, what she said was, as usual, very wise; if only the Government could listen more wisely to that and her points, we would be in a better state. Unfortunately, the Government still seem to have not only a lack of democratic support in all their antics and activities, but also a closed mind about this matter of our membership of the European Union.

I agree with the meaning of what she was saying about the union flag. We are all proud of the national flag, but it is not the only thing we are proud of. We can be proud of going down to our village or our town, our county, our region, our country—one of four in the United Kingdom, England being the biggest and with, perhaps, sadly, more of a Brexit component in its voting propensities last time than in other parts in terms of percentages—and proud of the European Union, which has been one of the greatest achievements of all. I think the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, was reflecting the majority of speakers in this debate. If you go through the list, you will see how strong, once again, the majority for remaining in the European Union is in the House of Lords.

“Never since the second world war has Europe been so essential. Yet never has Europe been in such danger. Brexit stands as a symbol of that. It symbolises the crisis of a Europe that has failed to respond to its people’s need for protection from the major shocks of the modern world. It also symbolises the European trap. The trap lies not in being part of the European Union; the trap is in the lie and the irresponsibility that can destroy it. Who told the British people the truth about their post-Brexit future? Who spoke to them about losing access to the”,


huge EU internal market?

“Who mentioned the risks to peace in Ireland of restoring the border? Retreating into nationalism offers nothing; it is rejection without an alternative. And this is the trap that threatens the whole of Europe: the anger mongers, backed by fake news, promise anything and everything.


We have to stand firm, proud and lucid, in the face of this manipulation and say first of all what Europe is. It is a”,


massive,

“historic success: the reconciliation of a devasted continent is an unprecedented project of peace, prosperity and freedom. Let’s never forget that”.

I would like to say that those are my words but, sadly, they are not. I have to confess that they were the wise words of the President of the Republic of France, Emmanuel Macron, in an opinion piece in one of our more sensible newspapers on 6 March this year. That wisdom is needed now in this country as well. People have to answer those questions and search their minds, asking what people really think.

However, the dark clouds are there not only in the guise of the Prime Minister and the Government but in the British press, which we have to suffer. It has a very strange mixture of journals, as we know. Following the sinister and ruthless raid on the decent British press by Murdoch years ago and, subsequent to that, the activities of other non-UK personal-tax-paying owners—how convenient—many years ago as well as now, we have a cluster of increasingly neo-fascist comics masquerading as newspapers, with only a few credible papers left. The Daily Mirror has had to be a dramatic, colourful tabloid to keep up with the threat of competition from the Sun, but it has very sensible general, economic and political standing and opinions, and it is very keen on the European Union. Therefore, we have the Daily Mirror as a tabloid and at, I suppose, the other end of the spectrum the Guardian and the Financial Times, but we do not have any others.

It is one of the tragedies that the press’s effect has been so massive, understandably, on very disgruntled voters in this country. They voted as they did in the referendum mainly because they were disgruntled, fed up with their lot and wanted to give the Government a kick in the teeth. That is a natural habit of all voters in referendums, and it has been experienced in other countries across the world. That was the main thing. It was not really anything to do with the intrinsic nature of Europe, although that was part of it; it was mainly that they were just fed up with their lot, fed up with austerity and fed up with the then Conservative Government and their austerity programme. I could quote from other respectable papers.

We are now suffering from Boris Johnson and all his antics and activities, and it will get worse before it gets better. He appears to have become more reasonable in the last few days because he has had to surrender—what a terrible word—to the pressure and wisdom of the EU negotiators, who have pointed out to him the realities of the modern world. However, the Prime Minister,

“is not a consistent upholder of proper process at all. On the contrary, he is a shameless and serial abuser of it. This week, the damage being done to this country by this most untrustworthy of prime ministers is scattered as far as the eye can see”.

I agree with that and, again, I wish that those were my words but they appeared on 8 October in one of the more sensible papers that I have just mentioned. The next paragraph of that article continues:

“Only two weeks ago, do not forget, Mr Johnson suffered probably the most humiliating constitutional reprimand ever inflicted on a British prime minister, when the supreme court unanimously dismissed his five-week prorogation of parliament as unlawful. The judges found that his move breached the principle that a government must be held to account by a sovereign parliament. The embarrassing implication was that Mr Johnson misled the Queen”.


I do not know how others in this House felt about the State Opening on Monday. I thought it was depressing and sad. I felt very great sympathy for Her Majesty. I must not bring her into any political context at all, but she looked very sad and unsmiling. I felt sympathy for her too with this problem that we have in this country, which must now be dealt with properly and with proper action. The main things that we need to focus on again are the advantages of our membership of the European Union and what it really means.

I once again say to the House: what is the Brexiteers’ ridiculous, old-fashioned, 100 year-old obsession with getting back so-called national sovereignty? It is totally meaningless in the modern world, the world of interaction and interchange, with multinational, multiracial countries —as we are too, and becoming more interesting because of it—rather than the old-fashioned island we were even after the Second World War.

What is the intrinsic meaning of such old-fashioned sovereignty—150 years old, even—which no longer exists for any country, even the United States? I suppose that China might possibly think that it has that kind of sovereignty because of its huge growth and development in recent years. In reality, every country has to work with the others. The European Union provides that apparatus, machine and structure for giving rational interaction between member countries for the good of everybody. Sovereignty in the EU goes up as people make collective decisions within the system of sovereign countries working within integrated institutions that agree mainly through treaties and other things such as majority voting, with COREPER making decisions as well—all those things down below at the various stages. That is not losing national sovereignty and control of events in this country.

European Union legislation is only a minority of our total picture: most of our legislation is still national. The European issue was not really at all high on the barometers of this country until Cameron made the fatal mistake of becoming obsessed with it because he was terrified of UKIP—the Brexit Party more recently. That was his mistake. When he first became an MP, we had a long conversation—we were both Conservative MPs. He told me emphatically that any Tory leader must make sure that they did not get overly obsessed by the European issue. Look at the mistakes made by Cameron, May and—now, on a gigantic scale—Boris Johnson. We see the whole tragedy unfolding once again before our eyes.

There is only one solution. It is not even to say, “Let’s maybe accept some kind of gradualist deal”, as the noble Lord, Lord Butler, said—I sympathise with some of his arguments—but to say, “No, we resist this”, and see what the public say. The national march on 19 October will show a huge number of people who want to stay in the European Union. That is the only viable future for Britain.

Brexit

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dykes (CB)]

My Lords, I very much thank the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, for his remarks. I agree with every single comment he made. We thank him.

I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi. I think he is the only person I have ever seen getting up late in a debate—I have never seen it before. I forgive him because he made a very amusing speech.

I am also thankful for the speeches by the noble Lords, Lord Livermore, Lord Monks and Lord Taverne, as well as by the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, for showing once again that the madness is still carrying on but will not last forever. We know that it is coming to its nemesis. No one knows when, but I think and hope that it is fairly soon.

I liked that, on 5 September, the front page of the Daily Mirror—a very strongly pro-European newspaper —said “Britain’s worst PM”, with a large picture of Boris, of course. It then said: “(since the last one)”. I still very strongly blame Theresa May, who had the wonderful opportunity in the election on 8 June 2017 to say, “I have lost the mandate that I was seeking. I had a 20-point lead when I launched this campaign. That no longer exists. We must therefore have a national consultation in this country about the way forward and what we do, involving everybody”. She did not, but repeated the absurd mantra, “Brexit means Brexit”. The nightmare continued.

We still have the nightmare, with an even worse Prime Minister—I think I help Theresa May a little bit by saying that—in the form of Boris Johnson. He is a person who has only a glancing relationship with true facts and says that he definitely did not do something but cannot actually remember, which is a unique new way for him to say, “Once again, I am indulging in a terminological inexactitude, as I am accustomed to do”. What a pity that we have this nightmare continuing and it is taking longer than we were originally hoping—those of us who wanted, after the 8 June election, to see a change and common sense beginning to prevail.

The Conservative Party used to be a wonderful and encouraging party of moderate views. I was a member of it and an MP in the House of Commons for many years. As the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, said, there were very excellent, eminent people—Harold Macmillan, Edward Heath and others led the party to great success. Macmillan was a convinced European, partly because of his memory of the First World War.

The lead that we get in the Lords now is because the Lords has a built-in majority for Europe, which is always very comforting for us who join that majority in these debates. We thank above all the Liberal Democrat group in this House, who have the maximalist attitude towards positive views on Europe. They believe themselves à outrance—for others, of course—that there should not even be any further contest and that we should go straight into the withdrawal legislation and then decide to extend the date.

This stance that we have now in the Lords also mirrors the striking change in public opinion away from the 2016 referendum. We need to remind ourselves that it was advisory—giving an opinion. Cameron deciding to say, “I will immediately accept the result of that referendum” was a matter for him—yet another mistake by a Tory Prime Minster in more recent times. We are living with the effects of that. His book has not convinced many people of his wisdom as a Prime Minister.

We now have this change in atmosphere, public opinion and views. The people’s marches have gone from 100,000 originally to 700,000, and to 1 million last time—in October last year. I am sure that we are due to see more than that at the march on 19 October. Nearly 70% of the voting public have become anti-Brexit. People may think that that figure sounds too high, but it is not. It is true from all the analyses given by the various polling examinations and private research.

The Prime Minister—known for his lack of wisdom in all respects, I am afraid—was supported by 97,000 original votes, mostly from elderly, disgruntled Tory association members. I think that the total Tory membership is now 130,000—there may be one or two hangers-on from the previous Brexit Party formation, UKIP and so on, but I would guess that that is the rough figure. That is fewer than the Liberal Democrats, who have 140,000 members. We see Labour with more than 500,000 members, most of whom are much younger people who, as other speakers have said, regret the tragedy of losing free movement in Europe above all—for their careers, holidays, working, meeting other people, learning languages, all the precious things that the younger generation in this multinational and multi-ethnic country want in the future.

Instead we have this: the majority against Europe is only in England. The majorities in Northern Ireland and Scotland, and now in Wales—it has changed there—are strongly pro-Europe. That is the reality. We must show this phoney PM with his phoney views that the time is now up. The DUP remains the most unpopular and unsavoury party in Northern Ireland. Its views are dismissed by more and more people there. Brexit is absurd. England needs to grow up and live in the real world with the other countries of the United Kingdom.

Brexit: Positions on the Pound

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Monday 30th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

The noble Baroness speaks with great authority on this subject. Of course, there is no evidence for anybody to report, but if they have evidence, there is regulation on short selling, which is enforced. But I am not aware of anyone providing any evidence beyond scurrilous rumours.

[Lord Dykes (CB)]

Would the Minister, with his great interest in the history of currencies, care to comment on the long-term record? At a time when the euro is only three points behind the United States dollar as the international leading currency and is shortly due to overtake the dollar for the first time on a long-term basis, does he agree that it is rather sad that, in comparison, the pound sterling has been devalued nine times since the war—three times by government action and six times in the marketplace?

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.

British Citizens’ Rights

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

I agree with my noble friend. We have published a whole series of technical notices—over 100—about how businesses can prepare for no deal. Government preparations are continuing and, as I have said many times at this Dispatch Box, although no deal is not something that we want or desire, we recognise that it is a possible outcome.

[Lord Dykes (CB)]

My Lords, will the Government explain carefully why the views of millions of British citizens in other EU countries have less weight and value than those of 140,000 mostly rather elderly members of the Conservative Party who are trying to keep us in the Brexit mould?

[Lord Callanan]

The noble Lord is confusing two issues: the leadership election in the Conservative Party is a different event from the rights guaranteed for citizens. We are communicating, as I said, with UK citizens abroad—over 1 million of them—and we are endeavouring to ensure that other EU member states provide them with the same guarantees that we have provided to the 3 million EU citizens in the UK.

Brexit: Cross-party Discussions

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Dykes]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they expect to report to Parliament on the outcome of discussions on Brexit with the Official Opposition.

[The Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government and Opposition are continuing discussions to try to find a way forward on EU exit that could command a majority in Parliament and which would allow for the UK’s smooth and orderly exit from the EU. Meetings with the Opposition have been constructive, with many areas of consensus. The Government have committed to bringing forward the withdrawal agreement Bill in the week commencing 3 June.

[Lord Dykes (CB)]

Did the Minister notice the huge dismay that greeted Theresa May’s astounding proposal to prolong the Brexit agony—a dismay which was led by her own MPs? Rather than leading this miserable and unhappy country through further parliamentary nightmares, is it not high time that the Prime Minister had the wisdom to restore national morale by promising either the revocation of Article 50 or a people’s vote with the Electoral Commission in charge?

[Lord Callanan]

As I have responded to the noble Lord on this issue a number of times, let me repeat that we are not in favour of revoking Article 50 and we believe that any second referendum would be divisive without being decisive.

Brexit

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

I thank the Leader for repeating the Statement. My guess is that it was through gritted teeth, given that we are not leaving this Friday. However, that Statement leaves us no wiser, no more confident and no less ashamed to be led by a Government and a Cabinet unable to lead, to unite, to listen or to put the national interest first.

But first, a confession: 10 days ago, when we were debating the Private Member’s Bill of my noble friend Lord Grocott to end by-elections for hereditary Peers, I noted that I was not here by virtue of the achievements or wisdom of my father. Perhaps I misled the House, because I learned from my much-loved father—and maybe it was his wisdom that, in one way or another, got me here—a tale he told me when I was eight or nine, which has stayed with me. It was about a passing-out parade—he was in the military—where one proud mother, viewing the march, sighed, “What a shame that my son is the only one in step, and all the others have got it wrong”. It does not take much imagination to hear the remaining supporters of our Prime Minister echoing the same: “What a shame that only she is right and all the others have got it wrong”.

Who are the others? They are the Church, business, the CBI, the TUC, the Government of Wales, the people of Northern Ireland, your Lordships’ House and, significantly, the EU, its Commission and 27 leaders of member states. That is quite a roll call to dismiss. The 27 Prime Ministers or Presidents from across the continent are experienced in governing, politics, negotiating and consensus-building. The Archbishop of Canterbury—whose task of uniting 85 million Christians worldwide the Prime Minister has made look like a walk in the park—has launched five days of prayer as we approach Brexit. Business—the people importing and exporting—knows the cold reality of tariffs, non-tariff barriers, checks, delays, transport and handling costs, and also the need for legal, banking and contract certainty. The TUC and the CBI, which we normally call two sides of industry, have quite exceptionally joined together in the light of the “national emergency”, in their words, to warn that a no-deal,

“shock to our economy would be felt by generations to come”.

The First Minister of Wales is imploring the Prime Minister to work on a cross-party basis to amend the political declaration, not the withdrawal agreement, and then to negotiate with the EU to adapt the framework. Gibraltar and UK citizens abroad will feel the reality of a no-deal exit in hours or weeks of departure. Your Lordships’ House is staunchly against no deal and repeatedly in favour of a customs union. The Opposition have spelled out our alternative approach and are open to continued EU trade via a customs union and single market alignment. The Commons—the elected Members steeped in their own communities, their businesses, people, trading and academia—are knowledgeable about the realities of a chaotic or ill-designed Brexit. The Prime Minister’s senior colleague Philip Hammond says that a no-deal Brexit,

“would cause catastrophic economic dislocation in the short term and in the longer term it would leave us with a smaller economy, poorer as a nation relative to our neighbours in the European Union”.

But the Prime Minister ignores all these. She continues to threaten no deal and, instead of talking to them, invites to Chequers Jacob Rees-Mogg, Steve Baker, Dominic Raab, David Davis and Iain Duncan Smith—the very people who have been writing her script for two years and now will not support her deal. Oh, and I forgot Boris Johnson, who seems to think we have an implementation period without a deal. No, ex-Foreign Secretary, no deal means no transition period. He does not even understand that—and these are the people who our Prime Minister heeds.

Now, to avoid no deal, we need the Prime Minister to listen to those she has ignored and to amend the future framework, even at this late stage. The FT’s Jim Pickard commented today:

“It’s March 25, 2019 and MPs are about to have multiple votes on what kind of Brexit we might have. If you’d told people this two years ago they’d have thought you were out of your mind”.


We do, however, have a breathing space, the Prime Minister having been thrown a lifeline—albeit just 14 days—by the European Council. It will be only a breathing space, and not a suffocating pause, if we open a fresh approach to our future relationships with the EU, an approach shorn of the Prime Minister’s disastrous red lines. We know that this is possible: Michel Barnier said that the political declaration that sets out the framework for our future relations could be made more ambitious in the coming days, if a majority in the House of Commons so wishes.

The Prime Minister, however, appears bent—we have heard it again just now—on trying to flog her very dead horse. For some of us her deal, which has been overwhelmingly rejected twice by MPs, is the Monty Python parrot. Here we are, however, in the last chance saloon, so our MPs must be heard and their preferences set out. This is in the national interest and is the democratic way forward. Despite the most extraordinary view of the ERG’s Steve Baker, who claimed that “national humiliation is imminent” through these indicative votes—his way of listening to elected politicians—

[Lord Dykes (CB)]

I am very grateful to the Front Bench, particularly as the noble Baroness forwent her speech in the earlier business. Does she not also very strongly commend the extremely important utterance, promise and suggestion by the Labour deputy leader, Tom Watson, at Saturday’s huge march, that no deal, or Mrs May’s deal, should be linked to a people’s vote later on, which would meet the wishes of the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, and other noble Lords who want that to happen?

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

The noble Lord used the words “later on”, so perhaps he could wait until I am later on in what I am going to say.

It is extraordinary that a former Minister could use the words “national humiliation” about listening to elected politicians, and Mr Fox said today that the Government could ignore MPs’ indicative votes if Parliament’s stated choice went against the Conservative manifesto. So there we have it: the Conservative manifesto—that of a Government who failed to win an outright majority—is more important than anything else. Furthermore, the Statement that has just been repeated uses the excuse that, “Well, perhaps the EU will not accept it”, to fail to promise to heed the decisions and the views of MPs. Of course, the Prime Minister may not be able to deliver on what is asked, but surely she should have committed to making that her new objective—either her negotiating aim, or, if it was something else, to do that. It is shameful that the Government refuse to heed the elected House.

We know the dangers of no deal, and so do the Government: that is why that nuclear bunker under the MoD has been reopened, so that the Armed Forces are prepared, while the Cabinet Office is readying itself by working with local authorities, airports and businesses for what will be a calamity, and briefing privy counsellors accordingly. The Government know the risk of that.

I had been about to say that today’s political chaos is completely unprecedented. However, as I see that the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy—our national treasure of a historian—is here and about to speak, I will leave it to him to judge whether this is really the worst political mess that this country has found itself in.

We hear about this best from the people—up to 1 million of them on Saturday’s magnificent march. When I last looked, there were 5.5 million signatures to a petition to revoke, and dissatisfaction with the Government is at an all-time high: just 11% “satisfied”, and 86% “dissatisfied”, a net minus 75% dissatisfaction with this rudderless Government, headed by a Prime Minister with no authority.

We have to find a way forward. There are probably five ways out of this. The Prime Minister could try to get her own party behind the deal—I wish her well with that, because it does not look as if she has succeeded so far. She could get the deal changed in the way that I have outlined. It could be that Parliament takes over. It could be that the people take over with a new referendum—or perhaps the people could take over with a general election. However, the Prime Minister’s Statement gave me no confidence that she was willing to rise to this challenge, that she is in charge, that she is willing at all costs to avoid no deal or that she is willing to move to encompass the national interest. We have to wish our colleagues in the other place strength and determination, because it is they who must now grasp the situation and act accordingly.

Further Discussions with the European Union under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

The noble Lord is asking me to comment on what happens in the other place. My understanding—it is no more than that; I have not spoken to him—is that Alberto Costa resigned following the long-standing tradition that members of the Government and PPSs do not table amendments to government Motions. I also understand, however, that the Government are accepting the amendment put forward—such is the logic of government.

When we held the referendum, the Government pledged to respect the result, whatever the outcome. We repeated this commitment once the result was delivered, and this Government, as well as the Opposition, were elected on a manifesto maintaining this same commitment: to uphold the result of the 2016 referendum. Even though the Opposition seem to be U-turning on their manifesto commitment, we still stand by ours. Indeed, as the PM said yesterday, it is,

“the very credibility of our democracy”,—[Official Report, Commons, 26/2/19; col. 168.]

that we jeopardise if we break our explicit promises.

[Lord Dykes (CB)]

I am grateful to the Minister, who is struggling not only with a bad cough but with some very bad arguments; I sympathise greatly. At the beginning of his remarks he emphasised that the Prime Minister had been badgering people endlessly in Brussels, the Middle East and elsewhere, and had spoken to the Heads of Government, or whoever was appropriate, of the 27 other member states. How many of those member states agreed with the Prime Minister’s bizarre arguments, and how many thought them a load of rubbish?

[Lord Callanan]

The noble Lord will not be surprised to know that I have not seen read-outs from all those conversations, but I know from speaking to other Europe Ministers at various gatherings that there is considerable sympathy for many of our arguments.

It is imperative that the British people are able to trust in the Government to respect democratic processes and deliver effective outcomes for them. For that reason, it is our firm belief that even to consider holding a second people’s vote would set a damaging precedent for our democracy and the principles that underpin our constitutional order.

Brexit: Options

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Monday 18th February 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Dykes]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the different options Parliament has in relation to leaving the European Union.

[The Minister of State, Department for Exiting the European Union (Lord Callanan) (Con)]

My Lords, the Motion passed on 29 January in the other place seeking legally binding changes to the Northern Ireland protocol is the only way to deliver a sustainable majority. The Government will continue to pursue this to ensure that we leave with a deal on 29 March. If MPs do not vote for the deal, the default legal position is that the UK will leave without a deal at the end of March.

[Lord Dykes (CB)]

Surely the Government could also do something useful at the moment, such as sending Ministers to urgent anti-self-harm corrective therapy sessions. However, should they not also now promise the House to extend Article 50 and start preparing for a people’s vote as well in case things go wrong on 27 February?

[Lord Callanan]

I can tell the noble Lord that, instead of sending Ministers to self-help therapy sessions, we are sending them to Brussels.

EU Withdrawal

Lord Dykes Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dykes (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Saatchi, is well known for providing some very interesting ideas. We thank him for many of his suggestions. I am glad that he comes to the same conclusion as I think most Members of this House will do in this debate, have done in previous debates on this subject and will continue to do in the future.

Fortunately and agreeably for this House, it is only a minority of Members who do not seem to understand the functioning of the EU. Such people therefore produce a lot of criticism which is unfounded and inaccurate. Let us take once again the huge concept of sovereignty and what it really means. At the moment, the EU is a collection of 28 genuinely sovereign countries. All of them have their own intrinsic sovereignty, none of which has been reduced by membership of the EU, except by decisions of those sovereign countries working through integrated institutions and treaties decided by unanimity to limit some of their separateness in sovereignty to increase the general strength of the whole Community. The general sovereignty of the whole Community and the Union grows as a result of those decisions gradually and step by step. Treaties are freely entered into without any major aggro or difficulty. There are always lots of discussions and arguments about detail, but some of those matters of detail do not have to be decided by unanimity. As we know, they can then be subject to the subsidiarity effect of majority voting and the directives that allow a sovereign member state to produce its own legislation on a particular agreed policy.

I cannot understand what the anxiety is. A colleague such as the noble Lord, Lord Cavendish, is an example of someone who misunderstands all that and is fearful of a lack of sovereignty. There is no such lack; it is a gradual, total increase all the time of both the national sovereignty of the more important member states as a result of their collective membership of the Union and the Union’s collective sovereignty, which grows at the same time. Why do the other 27 never express any anxiety about this concept of sovereignty? It is very logical, based on common sense and unique in the world, which is why it is magic to many people. It is a pity that people here—not many, but some—wish to live in a past of old-fashioned, pretend sovereignty or pictorial sovereignty, which has no substance in the modern world. The modern world is interconnected and international, with all people of all kinds working together. Foreigners are in different countries in ever greater numbers. The more there are, the better and more exciting it is. As Ken Clarke famously said, we need more foreigners because they make British society more exciting. That is a perfectly acceptable remark. I hope that colleagues who do not have such anxieties about sovereignty might explain it better to those still worried about it.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, for his remarks. He is not here at the moment, but his speech mirrored amazingly the remarks that he made eight months ago, in July last year, when he said that we are heading for crashing out unless things are taken into control and brought into proper order.

I was in the Commons for 27 years and, after an interval of seven years outside Parliament, have been in the Lords for more than 14 years. I can honestly say that I have never before had the sad misfortune of witnessing the outrageous behaviour of a Prime Minister in exceeding all norms of civilised conduct and intelligent restraint in the ruthless pursuit of the narrowest part of their own party’s interests. It gives me no pleasure to say this, but it is true. I have never experienced it before over all those years of all the Prime Ministers that we have had of whatever party.

Of course, some people would say, maybe fairly, that Mrs May was entitled to pursue “Brexit means Brexit” immediately after taking over from David Cameron following his colossal mistakes, in that period after what is now viewed by many as an imperfect referendum process—that was not the public’s fault; it was that the construction of the referendum exercise was totally flawed and mistaken. She had the right to do that only until the fatal and fateful 8 June 2017 election result. At that stage we need to remind ourselves that she completely and utterly lost the mandate of “Brexit means Brexit”. Already people in the country were experiencing second thoughts anyway. Instead Mrs May, amazingly and unbelievably, launched an outrageous and squalid deal with the most unpopular party in the Commons, the right-wing extremists of the Ulster unionist clique in the DUP, to create an artificial majority. In civilised countries with a written constitution, that would mostly have been ruled out of order by the relevant constitutional court or council of state anyway; but not in this country, because we have bandit politics because of no written constitution, as we know. The Government created an artificial majority with right-wing extremists from Northern Ireland who, incidentally, oppose all modern human and civil rights for modern women; and there was a huge £1 billion bribe as well. As one famous magazine, the New Statesman, said on 28 January:

“Mrs May could have used this crisis as an opportunity. Having secured no mandate for her Brexit policy, she could have reached out to parliament and sought to forge a cross-party consensus with all the opposition parties. Instead, she bought the support of the reactionary DUP and indulged her party’s Europhobes”.


Only after a historic defeat and at this perilously late hour has Mrs May now finally at least pledged to pursue a cross-party approach, which now looks totally insincere and ungenuine. It is now already too late for her to do this.

What Parliament must do now is to secure an extension of time beyond 29 March. Kenneth Clarke, when it was all first promulgated, always thought it was a fundamental mistake to have the date put in at that stage and objected to it, and quite rightly so. Then there was the famous amendment by Dominic Grieve. We now need to work for a people’s vote to sort out this catastrophic shambles, because the whole world is unfortunately and tragically laughing at Britain.

Staying in the EU would end the historical mistakes and our condescension over Ireland—I thank the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, for his contribution in this respect today. That has been one of our tragedies in this country. I am glad that the condescension in people’s voices towards Irish people when they addressed them and so on has now at long last disappeared—from most people, anyway. Commitment to the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland must unshakeably be maintained, because it is a solemn and sacred promise and there would be mayhem and trouble if it were not.

On all the intelligent analyses and examinations of recent figures, the various polls now show a huge change in public opinion, especially among the large number of younger voters—not just the ones who still support the Labour Party, despite Jeremy Corbyn’s mistakes, but others as well, including our British citizens living in other EU countries who have been there for more than 15 years and were arbitrarily denied the vote in the last referendum; that is a shameful fact. If the public accepted the final verdict of Parliament in this mayhem and confusion, that would be a marvellous result from the point of view of restoring the authority and sovereignty—yes, sovereignty—of the British Parliament, mainly, of course, expressed in the House of Commons. But if that is not enough because of the terrible, tearing crisis that has been caused in this country to people’s confidence in politicians and the political class, we need to get on to the concept of a people’s vote.

Finally, I quote Dominic Grieve, who has been very brave in all this in the House of Commons. Writing in the Evening Standard on Monday, he said:

“The next weeks are likely to be decisive in this respect”—


the respect that I have been discussing. He continued:

“The opportunity exists for the House of Commons to rise to this crisis and show the common sense that could get us out of difficulty. But that means putting aside the shallow considerations of party political advantage and having the courage to be honest with others as to what is happening. Insisting that all will somehow be well if Brexit goes through now, rather than insisting on a pause and a measured reconsideration, is an abdication of our responsibility”.


If the MPs can rise to the occasion that Dominic Grieve wants to see, that will be, in our history, the second of our finest hours.