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

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Desai. I cannot answer his question on how long negotiations for a free trade agreement will take from outside, but, like him, I would not have started from there. I would have started during the process, agreeing a framework for the future relationship, which is what the treaty says we should have been doing, and thus got some way down the road during the two years of negotiations on the first agreement.

I thought I would try very hard to say something new today. It is time we talked about time. It is running out, and we are going to need more. There are 60 days left, and plan B is exactly like plan A: sticking with the November agreement, which the Government would not let Parliament vote on in December; sticking with the agreement that Parliament rejected by a record majority in January; and sticking with this hopeless and humiliating request that the 27 acquiesce in some sort of legally binding formula contradicting the feature of the agreement which the Attorney-General highlighted in his letter of 13 November, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem—namely, that the backstop will last as long as the EU 27 want it to last.

The Prime Minister told us she would change that in December—it did not work. She told us that again in January—it did not work. Mr Johnson, the former Foreign Secretary, tells her in today’s Daily Telegraph to,

“stiffen the sinews and summon up the blood and get on that trusty BAE-146 and go back to Brussels”,

to kill off the backstop and to replace it with a “freedom clause”. The content of the freedom clause is as yet unspecified. Reading this, I was reminded of “Beyond the Fringe”, and its splendid wartime RAF sketch, in which squadron leader Peter Cook declaims that, since the war is going rather badly:

“We need a futile gesture … Get up in a crate … pop over to Bremen … don’t come back”.


What, conceivably, could Mr Johnson’s motive be in saying “Don’t come back”? Presidents Tusk and Juncker could not have been clearer when they said in their letter of 14 January about the backstop:

“We are not in a position to agree anything that changes or is inconsistent with the withdrawal agreement”.


As the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, said:

“These people mean what they say”.


There is no more time to waste challenging them.

As for “no deal”, I do not believe that our Prime Minister, whom I believe is a serious, responsible, honourable person, would drive the country over the cliff in 60 days’ time. I do not believe it, and I do not believe that anyone believes she would. Her Cabinet may be divided, but they are not deranged. The consequences of no deal for the country have been spelled out every day ever more clearly, as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, said. The logically and physiologically rather odd argument that it would weaken our hand in Brussels if we were to stop threatening to shoot ourselves in the foot now looks even odder, given that there is no serious negotiation going on, because we have tabled no serious proposition.

I will reflect on the interesting analogy with nuclear deterrence that my noble and learned friend Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood regaled us with. The flaw may be that Trident deters the Russians and does not damage us, whereas a no-deal Brexit would delight the Kremlin, and the risk of it is ravaging the British economy right now, as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, pointed out. The choice cannot be between the November deal and no deal. That makes no sense, and the Spelman-Morgan amendment in the other place tomorrow deserves support.

Talleyrand defined statesmanship as foreseeing the inevitable and accelerating its occurrence. The Government must already know that we are going to need an extension under Article 50(3). They must know that the Reeves-Benn-Grieve amendment tomorrow is sensible. They would do well to embrace it.

What are the arguments against seeking an extension under Article 50? I have heard three. It is said that it would betray the referendum result if we were still in the EU on 30 March. I cannot see that. The date was not on the ballot paper, and I do not think anyone knows why the Prime Minister subsequently picked it and started the two-year clock with no proposals tabled in Brussels, no strategy agreed in Cabinet, no attempt made to find consensus in Parliament, no consultation with the devolved Governments, and no consultation with the Dublin Government.

Mr Johnson, the former Foreign Secretary, says that 29 March is an “iconic” date, which it would be humiliating to miss. Why “iconic”? I do not know. Maybe he was thinking of the Battle of Towton, fought on 29 March 1461, which did, after all, produce a change in leadership. However, I doubt it. Towton was the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil, and Mr Gove is still around.

Maybe he had in mind the Treaty of St Germain, signed on 29 March 1632, when we gave control of Quebec back to the French. Could he be planning to reverse that, in a maximalist version of Canada-plus? I rather hope not, but enough of Mr Johnson. Let us be serious.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

Could it be that he considers the date iconic because such a huge majority of the House of Commons voted for the legislation that set it in stone?

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

That is perfectly true; the date is in the legislation. The date was taken out of the legislation in this House by quite a large majority— I think it was 78—on the recommendation of the amendment of the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington. I think that the House of Commons was extremely rash to put the date back in again, but the Letwin compromise ensures that there is no particular problem here. It can be taken out again without primary legislation.

The second objection I heard is that the House of Commons has decided on that date. If it wishes to, the House of Commons can change the date, on the Government’s recommendation, by the stroke of a pen. That is not a serious objection.

The third objection I have heard is that the 27 might not agree to an extension. However, they do not want no deal either. Nobody wants no deal. While it is much worse for us, it is bad for everyone, and the 27 have always been clear that a better deal—better than the November deal—could be envisaged if the Prime Minister were ready to move on her four red lines, which were so rashly laid down for party management reasons at the 2016 party conference. A move might involve considering a real customs union, unlike the partial, unequal, temporary, bare bones version in the backstop. It might even, two years late, involve working out a real, legally binding framework for the future relationship, as envisaged in Article 50(2), which would be directive and determined, unlike the present loose aspirational declaration. That would require time for real negotiation, but we know that the 27 would allow it, and we have always known that they would allow time for an election or a referendum in this country. It is clear that Brussels, shocked by the disarray in this country, now knows that more time may be needed and is waiting for us to signal that. Provided that we have a real proposition to discuss—not just the plan A, plan B, “Beyond the Fringe” nonsense of seeking contradictory assurances—it is clear that the 27 would give us more time, if we ask for it. Therefore, the Cooper amendment tomorrow in the other place makes sense and should be supported.

Our debate is only the overture to tomorrow’s drama over there, but it is right that we should show that we are just as concerned as they are and ready to do our bit to stop the country sleepwalking into disaster. I now believe that that will require stopping the clock.