Queen’s Speech

Lord Flight Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, I want to talk about the constitution of Brexit, but I first make the point that my noble friend Lord Lilley is one of the few Members of this House who has been involved with all the technical issues, going back to our early days of membership, and, I think, knows more than most people and is well worth listening to. I agree very much with everything that he had to say.

Forty-five years ago, the Wilson Government introduced an important change to the unwritten British constitution. The first major referendum helped to address politically the then divisions on Europe, at the time within the Labour Party. More importantly, it established the precedent of putting an issue of major national importance above party politics for the people to decide upon directly by a referendum. Since then, Scotland’s position vis-à-vis potential independence and changing the voting system to a PR basis have also been decided by referenda. It seems, therefore, unfortunate that the elitist remainer cabal has chosen to ignore the constitutional position of referenda and the role of the referendum of three years ago, in which the British people decided by a clear majority that they wished to leave the EU.

Membership of the EU has already undermined our historic, unwritten constitution, such that we will need to codify how we are governed to protect individual rights and liberties and to ensure that democracy can no longer be routinely subverted or disregarded by an arrogant, know-it-all elite. This will be a key component of a rebooted, post-Brexit, newly again independent UK. We should never again accept the dysfunctionality that has overshadowed the past three years, with many MPs trying to cancel the most important referendum decision in modern English history and the Speaker creating a rival, useless Executive. We do not want a US-style Supreme Court, its members being encouraged to turn themselves into yet another set of legislators. Our catastrophic membership of the EU, the leftward shift of the UK governing classes, the Blairite legal reforms—including the 1998 Human Rights Act—the emasculation of other forms of local government and the creation of a separate Supreme Court have all conspired to undermine our unwritten constitution. This also requires leaders of political parties to allow unwritten laws to guide their behaviour; a principle which remainers have trashed.

The first and most important reform should be the repeal of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011; and, secondly, the power to conduct international treaty negotiations needs to be left solely to the Executive. The Speaker needs to be bound by clear rules. An MP who wants to change party should be obliged to call a by-election. Too many decisions have been taken by the courts rather than resolved by democratically elected politicians; the courts should not be unelected legislators. We need to allow direct and indirect democracy to co-exist, with voters able to force referenda as in Switzerland and the US, and with outcomes being legally binding.

During this period, we have also had the description of David Cameron’s period as Prime Minister in his recently published book, which, ironically, sets out a powerful case for Brexit. Cameron started out as a Eurosceptic who thought that the irritations of the EU were a price worth paying for the free trade advantages. In power, he soon found out the EU horrors to which we had become exposed—the directives, the stitch-ups and the knives out for the City. He voted against a eurozone bailout package, which threatened to cost Britain dear, only to see the rules changed so that the UK veto would not count. This is in contrast to Germany’s unfailing ability to get what it wants. Britain’s ability, by contrast, has been non-existent. We have opposed only 70 pieces of EU legislation during our membership, none of which has been accepted. The process under which Juncker became the EC President shocked Cameron. He also appreciated that the EU process of powers being transferred to Brussels is a formula to trap democracy, using complex laws and regulation to suck in powers which are never given back.

In short, Cameron learned how the EU grasped and exercised its powers and became the strongest candidate for reform. He never explains how, after so many failures, he thought he could possibly achieve the necessary EU reforms. It is even more difficult to understand how Cameron thought he could win the fight for reform by backing remain. Nothing in his book explains why he thinks that EU membership is a good thing; nor is there a single example of anything emanating from Brussels that benefits Britain.

The best possible outcome of Brexit would, I believe, be a Canada-style free trade deal applying to the bulk of mutually traded goods, together with a clean exit, restoring full British sovereignty. As Cameron’s book exposes, the latter is perhaps the most important. Britain’s great democracy has been squeezed inside an unaccountable EU bureaucracy, where no one else in Europe has been willing to challenge this or give their voters the chance to escape. The risk is thus that, to achieve a deal, full British sovereignty is not restored. Here, I believe that it would be better to leave without a deal. While the remain cabal continues to plot and abuse the constitution to seek to frustrate Brexit, it is extraordinary that it does not seem to realise that an even bigger and growing majority of citizens who voted leave in the referendum would not accept remaining in the EU.

European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 5) Bill

Lord Flight Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, is it not a question of weighing the short-term inconveniences against the long-term picture? The whole point about the long term, given the appalling economic record of the EU, is that our economy is likely to grow much less while we are part of the EU or closely related to it than if it is free.

[Baroness Ludford]

That is not the consensus of reputable economists, who all say that we will do worse outside the EU. Some of those who say that we will be fine under no deal are not the vulnerable people who will suffer in a crash-out situation. They do not have millions stashed away.

Clause 2 would enable exit day to be changed by the Government subject only to the negative procedure. We agree with the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee that it would be better if the clause was removed from the Bill. We dealt expeditiously with the change from 29 March to 12 April in the statutory instrument, and there is no reason to think that we would not be able to do so again if required. It is a domestic law issue; if we get an extension, it is not a question of whether we are in the EU but a question of necessary housekeeping, and it can be done.

I do not want to go on about a people’s vote, but the noble Lord, Lord Howard, referred to the will of the people. It is time to update our knowledge of the will of the people. Three years on, it is not reasonable or reliable to rely on what a different electorate said in 2016. We hope and expect that the Prime Minister will seek an extension, but she should use that extension to get an update of the verdict of the people.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Flight Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey]

I am grateful to my noble friend. Perhaps I should rephrase what I said: we were silent on amending the legislation to provide for a second referendum. Therefore, the Electoral Commission changed the wording, which was accepted to get the clarity that we need.

I fear that if we go down the road of trying to send Ministers to Brussels against the backdrop of a number of these amendments, we would not be sending Ministers with whom Brussels will negotiate. We are sending a second 11: we are sending delegates, not Ministers. As someone who has been in a prolonged negotiation, I know that it requires a stretch on the part of both parties. If you were sitting in Brussels and were minded to try to reach an agreement with our Ministers, why would you stretch yourself outside the four freedoms or take a big leap if you thought, first, that you were not dealing with people who could make agreements with you and, secondly, that you would be shot down because there were people in this Parliament and in this country who could undermine you after you had made the effort to reach an agreement? There are a number of amendments along these lines. We need to think carefully of the mechanics and atmosphere around the negotiating table.

[Lord Flight (Con)]

On the territory about which the noble Lord is talking, I cannot understand, if negotiations have gone on for two years or more and we have finally agreed all the thousands of things that need to be agreed, how we could possibly then put it to a vote. The whole process of negotiating the deal with the EU will not work if we have a vote at the end.

[Lord Empey]

One way of dealing with it would have been to make it clear that we were going to put things to a vote at the end. But now we are in a position of risking getting any kind of meaningful negotiation from Brussels because we would be sending people there who are incapable of making an agreement. We understand that it has to be approved by Parliament. Let us not forget that the European Parliament has to approve it—anyone who has had experience over there will know that that will not be a pleasant experience. I caution the noble Lord, although I understand what he is trying to say.