European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill

Lord Grocott Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 5th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, for introducing the Bill. As has been said, a broad coalition came together to support this short Bill, which is simple and has a narrow focus: to prevent a crash-out Brexit for which there is no mandate. As Hilary Benn MP said, preventing a no-deal Brexit is the central most important question facing the country. The new MP Jane Dodds, who made her maiden speech yesterday, gave an illustration of what would happen to sheep farmers in her constituency.

I pay tribute to the responsible senior politicians from all parties who came together in the national interest. As we know, that included two distinguished Conservative former Chancellors of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond and Ken Clarke. What is notable is that many people have commented that it is an odd world in which an individual’s Conservatism is measured by how recklessly they wish to leave the EU. We are in a topsy-turvy world.

Supporters of the Bill are open about the fact that, beyond preventing the devastating harm and disruption of no deal, they have very different views on how to resolve the Brexit question. None of those options is precluded by the Bill, which, as I said, has a narrow scope. As Alistair Burt, one of the co-sponsors of the Bill, said,

“is the Bill a stumbling block to negotiations? No, it is not. The Bill does not prevent the Prime Minister or the Government from negotiating”.—[Official Report, Commons,4/9/19; col.224.]

It simply prevents no deal unless the Commons agrees to it and gives the Commons powers over the extension process—so it is taking back control to Parliament in action rather than in empty rhetoric.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

The noble Baroness talked about the coalition of people who have grouped together to propose the Bill, which essentially delays Brexit for a minimum of three months. Can she tell us what that coalition of people intend to do with those three months?

[Baroness Ludford]

I covered that point. The Bill does not prevent a deal, because a deal could be agreed within the extension period—that is specifically covered. I said that the coalition is perfectly open about the fact that it has coalesced on a specific, narrow purpose: to prevent massive harm to the people of this country. Beyond that, there will be further discussion about how to proceed.

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

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, the reason given for having the debate today—the 12th on the Government’s withdrawal agreement with the EU and the political declaration—was so that we could debate the proposal that the Government were putting to a meaningful vote in the Commons tomorrow and express a view on it. We are all too well aware that the views of this House are now not pivotal to the Brexit process. But, under the terms of the withdrawal Act, we are given a minor role: that of debating what is proposed—and that is what we were hoping to do today.

The plan was that the Prime Minister would make a Statement at the start of business in the Commons this afternoon, setting out the basis on which she was asking the House to reverse its decision to reject the Government’s agreement and, if successful, to proceed to exit the EU on 29 March. For this to happen, the Government were to secure changes to the Irish backstop that would make it palatable to the DUP and a large number of otherwise dissident Tory Back-Benchers. Having failed to make any progress whatever in achieving a breakthrough on this, and facing another overwhelming defeat tomorrow, the Prime Minister is allegedly travelling to Strasbourg this evening to try to make more progress in an evening than a bevy of officials and Ministers—with or without a codpiece—has achieved in recent weeks.

Whatever the Prime Minister’s chance of success this evening, this sequence of events renders today’s debate almost totally pointless, as we have absolutely nothing new from the Government on which we can express a view. Indeed, were it not for the fact that some 40 of your Lordships have spent part of the weekend labouring over their speeches, I would be arguing that this debate should be scrapped—if only to spare Ministers the hideous ordeal of trying to explain what is going on and hearing 17 speeches from their own Back-Benchers, no doubt expressing 17 versions of what the future should look like.

However, as we are going on with the debate, I wonder whether the Minister could answer a couple of questions. First, is it true that the Prime Minister is going to Strasbourg this evening? Secondly, if she is, what is she taking with her that is new? Thirdly, if she is going and taking with her something new, on what basis does she believe she will have more success this time than on all the previous visits to Strasbourg and Brussels by officials over recent weeks?

Fourthly, by what mechanism do the Government believe the EU could express a definitive opinion on any new proposals before the planned debate in the Commons tomorrow? Fifthly, if the Prime Minister means there to be a meaningful vote tomorrow, how can it be achieved given that, presumably, no government Motion can be tabled tonight in advance of any talks taking place in Strasbourg on which a meaningful vote can be taken? Sixthly, if, by some procedural sleight of hand there were to be a meaningful vote tomorrow, this could be done on a Motion that had been before the Commons for only a few hours at most. Given that this is the most important decision MPs will be asked to make in their lifetime, how can this be seen as anything other than an extraordinary abuse of process by the Government?

Seventhly, we believe that the Government may have the meaningful vote tomorrow. However, if the EU states that it wants to take a decision tomorrow or later in the week in response to this unknown proposal that the Prime Minister might be taking forward, when might we then have a vote?

Over recent months, we have seen the Prime Minister repeatedly rebuffed by both Parliament and the EU. We have marvelled at her resilience. But this failure to make progress, coupled with her complete unwillingness to confront the facts, means that the Prime Minister really has now run out of road. Imagine if she were a chief executive due to make a major presentation to the board, and she said on the eve of the board meeting, “I’m sorry, there are no papers for this board meeting because my original business plan has failed. I’m hoping to amend it. I’m talking to my major customers overnight. I’m not sure whether I will be able to amend it, but, given that my sales directors failed to get them to agree to anything different, the likelihood is that I will fail to amend it. I hope you will still come to the board meeting tomorrow in the vague hope that you might have a proposal in front of you”. What would people say of such a chief executive? They would not still be there the day after tomorrow. But that is the position we find ourselves in with the Prime Minister.

As for the rest of the Cabinet, they are like sheep without a sheep-dog. We are told now that only two of them actually support the Prime Minister, and one of them is Mr Grayling. That is not wholly reassuring. It has to stop. The Commons must take control of this process and the affairs of the country, because the Government have lost control of them. There must be a meaningful vote tomorrow and then, on the reasonable assumption that the Government will not prevail, on Wednesday as planned there should be a vote to reject leaving the EU without a deal, followed by a vote to extend the Article 50 period, as the Prime Minister promised.

However, this is not enough. If the Prime Minister is forced to go back to the EU and ask for an extension, it will understandably ask, “For what purpose?”. There can be only one sensible purpose, which is to give the people the opportunity to stop this whole self-damaging spectacle in a referendum.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

The noble Lord has been very frank about that. The purpose of having a people’s vote, as he describes it, is nothing to do with consulting the people as far as he is concerned; it is to reverse the decision of the people. The noble Lord and all his colleagues—I will give them this credit—have been absolutely committed from the day of the referendum result in 2016 to reversing it. Should there be a people’s vote and should the people decide, as I believe they would, to reaffirm their previous decision to leave the European Union, what confidence can I or anyone else have that he and his colleagues here will walk through the Lobbies with enthusiasm—because this House would have to confirm that vote, as would the other—to implement that decision to leave?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, every time I make this speech, the noble Lord stands up and asks me the same question.

[Lord Grocott]

I do not.

[Lord Newby]

He does. He may not have been listening, but I have said that, if the people decided in a further referendum that they wished to leave the EU, we would respect that decision. Would we go through the Lobbies with anything other than a very heavy heart? No, we would not. If we had another referendum and the people decided that the Prime Minister’s deal made the country better off, I would still not believe that to be the case. I would respect the decision, but that does not mean that I would suddenly say, “Oh, my word—for three years I have been mistaken”. The noble Lord knows that for a Liberal Democrat to lose a vote is not a totally new experience. If I lose another vote, it will not be new to me, but it will not mean that I stop thinking what I thought the day before I lost the vote—any more than the noble Lord, who has sometimes stood for Governments who have not prevailed, has stopped thinking that the Labour Party should remain in government. That is the nature of politics as I understand it.

We know now that the vast majority of young people believe that to leave the EU would be a bad mistake because it is bad for their future. We know that the majority of Labour voters, and the majority of voters in virtually every constituency, are in favour of having a vote and in favour on that basis of then remaining in the EU. If the Minister and the Government Front Bench are so sure that their deal is a good one, what are they worried about? Let us have a vote. Get on with it. We have had previous elections, as the noble Lord knows—

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

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

It seems to me that the crucial words are “short extension”. Can the Minister confirm that there is an imperative in the conclusion of any short extension—a date in June? Should that not be observed, we would be in the indefensible situation of having to fight European elections for a new European Parliament. Can he think of anything more insulting, not just to the 17.4 million people who voted to leave the European Union three years ago but to our democracy, if we were to say to them, “Sorry about that decision you made three years ago. We’re now in the process of electing a brand new European Parliament”? That would not be an economic cliff edge, but a democratic one.

[Lord Callanan]

Despite the chuntering from a sedentary position from the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, the noble Lord speaks great sense—as he does on so many things. It would make no sense whatever to have European Parliament elections because we will not be members of the EU going forward and, indeed, the legislation no longer exists on the UK statute book.

While these discussions continue at the European level, work continues domestically to prepare ourselves for all negotiated outcomes. The Government have undertaken extensive work to identify the primary legislation essential to deliver our exit from the EU in different scenarios. The Government are also making good progress on laying statutory instruments to ensure a functioning statute book for exit day. Over 450 statutory instruments have been laid to date, which is over 75% of all SIs required for exit day. Of these, almost half have been sent to the sifting committees of both Houses.

The Government are committed to ensuring that we have a functioning statute book for when we leave the EU, while also ensuring that legislation receives appropriate scrutiny. Once again I place on record my thanks, for their valuable and extensive work, to the committees chaired by the noble Lords, Lord Trefgarne and Lord Cunningham.

I can only reiterate that this Government stand firm on their commitment not to second-guess the result of the 2016 referendum by holding yet another people’s vote. Noble Lords will be well versed in these arguments now but, nevertheless, I will quickly recap.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Callanan]

The noble Lord speaks with great experience and wisdom, and he is absolutely correct: the important thing is for us to bring back to Parliament solutions to the backstop that the House of Commons can accept. While I do not want to go into further detail, I can assure him that discussions are continuing as we speak: the Attorney-General was in Brussels yesterday for further talks, which will be continuing at pace as we attempt to get the reassurances that the House of Commons has asked for.

The debate is taking place in the other place today, and I know that contributions made here will be of great interest to MPs and to those outside this House.

[Lord Grocott]

It is the way he tells them.

[Lord Callanan]

Absolutely true, of course. I look forward with interest to hearing noble Lords’ contributions this afternoon. I do not know who writes this, but that is good. I must pay tribute to the stamina of many noble Lords on the speakers list today who have spoken in many, if not all, of the Brexit debates we have had in the past few months. Yet again, the challenge will be to introduce new points that we have not heard before: I am sure that noble Lords will rise to the occasion. As usual, my noble and learned friend Lord Keen is champing at the bit in his enthusiasm and looking forward to the utmost to responding to the issues raised in his winding-up speech.

Brexit: Article 50

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

It is difficult to comment on that specific example without seeing it. I hope that departments want to work with the noble Lord’s committee to make sure that the quality of statutory instruments is appropriate and that the appropriate scrutiny is applied to them. It sounds from what he says as though the appropriate scrutiny is being applied.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, is there not widespread agreement among leavers and remainers that one of the principal motives of the 17.4 million people who voted to leave was that they felt that Parliament and the elected politicians—in our case, the unelected politicians—were not listening to many of their grievances and concerns? Should we now, two and a half years after the referendum decided that we should leave, propose a further extension of that period? Would that not simply reinforce and confirm the fears and concerns that leavers felt when they voted the way they did in 2016?

[Lord Callanan]

I can certainly say to the noble Lord that, on this side of the House, we are committed to listening to what the people told us in the referendum in 2016 and to implementing that result. I am sorry to say that a number of Members on opposition Benches believe that we should somehow ask the people to think again or to overturn that result, but the Government believe that the referendum result should be respected.

Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, at the heart of our negotiations with the European Union about Brexit has been a fundamental difficulty which, uncomfortable though it is, it is important to recognise. It is that the people voted in the referendum to leave but that we have in both Houses of Parliament, the institutions central to the process of leaving, a majority who want to remain—a considerable majority in the Commons and a very large majority in this House. This conflict has meant that, while this House quite rightly voted without dissent to hold a referendum and to invoke Article 50, which was universally understood to make inevitable the UK’s departure from the EU in March this year, there remain many Members who want to thwart or block that process.

First—it is a long time ago now—we were told that the referendum was purely advisory: that neither Parliament nor government was obliged to observe it. I cannot help noticing that those remainers who today want a second referendum make no mention of that one being purely advisory. Then we were told that the real choice was not between remaining and leaving but between a hard Brexit and a soft Brexit. That was clearly a false proposition, because we now have before us the Government’s proposed agreement, which is not just a soft Brexit but the softest of soft Brexits, yet still some remainers will be voting against it. They will say that the terms are not right. I think that the truth, which no one can deny, is that for many of them no terms will ever be right.

During the referendum campaign, I spoke to lots of people who were planning to vote leave. I can report to the House that not a single one said that they were minded to vote leave but only if we got an acceptable withdrawal agreement. Outside the Westminster bubble, there is no ambiguity whatever about the word “leave”. To coin a phrase, leave means leave. If you leave any organisation, whether it is the EU, a trade union, a political party or the darts club, you no longer have to abide by the rules and pay the subscription, and you most certainly do not need a withdrawal agreement.

Unbelievably, as we saw yesterday, some MPs are now saying, “Let’s postpone or even cancel the date of our departure”. We live in a time when public mistrust of politicians is at a level that few of us can remember. A majority voted in good faith to leave the European Union. We are now in the third year since that decision was made. Are we really saying to people that three years is not long enough and that, when they voted in June 2016, it meant that, yes, we would leave the European Union at some time but possibly not in their lifetimes?

The case against Brexit has been argued in this House ad nauseam. Although it gives me no pleasure to do so, I should add that the mere mention in our unelected Chamber these days of the 17.4 million of our fellow citizens who voted for it is often greeted with an audible groan. We have heard every possible doomsday scenario. We have been told that we will have to stockpile food, our doctors’ surgeries and hospitals will run out of medicines, and there will be great problems about taking holidays in France, Spain or Italy. We have even been told that planes taking off from airports in Britain may not be able to land in mainland Europe. It is only a matter of time before we hear about an impending swarm of locusts.

Unbelievably to me, I even heard of one remainer in this House, whom I will not embarrass by naming, comparing the situation that we are facing today with that faced by Britain in 1940. I am very wary indeed of wartime comparisons, but I will say this: if some of the people peddling these frightening scenarios had been in charge of the Normandy landings, the ships would never have left the south coast.

Now we are being told that we need to delay our departure date from the EU to have a second referendum. All I can say is that the mere fact that people are asking for a second referendum three years after the first reveals the fundamental absurdity of that proposal. If you think a second referendum should take place, what on earth is the objection to a third referendum, then a fourth, then a fifth—maybe one every three years? Please do not say that the circumstances have changed. Circumstances are always changing, and, my word, they most certainly changed during the 40-odd years that we were members of the European Union, an institution that, after 40 years, bore no resemblance to the institution that the public had voted for in the referendum in 1975.

The remainers, of course, claim that it is not a second referendum they are after but a people’s vote. I ask you. Rarely has any public campaigning organisation carried a banner with such a cynical Orwellian title because, of course, the so-called people’s vote campaign has one simple objective: to overturn the vote of the people.

Turning, finally, to the significance of today’s debate, quite rightly, the law requires this House simply to take note of the Government’s negotiations. It would be absurd and indefensible if our unelected House, on an issue of this importance, could veto not just any decision by the House of Commons but the 2016 referendum result.

Surely the responsibility of both Houses is the same. It is to implement the referendum result, in which, as I need to remind the House, the turnout was 10% higher than in all recent general elections, and tens of thousands of people voted who had never voted before. At a time when the gap between Parliament and the people is getting wider, they showed their faith in our democracy.

It is surely our clear duty to ensure that we do not confirm the powerful feeling of so many people that politicians do not listen by further frustrating our departure from the EU. It is not an overstatement to say that the integrity of our democracy—of the implicit contract between Parliament and the people—means that we do not just say that we respect their opinion, expressed in 2016, but that we will act on it, ensuring that we leave the European Union on 29 March.

Brexit: People’s Vote

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, like 66 million of our fellow citizens, I was unable to get along to the march on Saturday—I was watching Stoke play Birmingham. But had I been there, I would have wanted to ask a couple of questions at least of the organisers—questions that have not been answered by many of the proponents of the people’s vote today, or if they have they have not always agreed with one another. My first question would have been: what question will be put to the people? Sundry different answers have been given to that. At the very least, before you ask for a people’s vote, you should agree on what the question should be and what should be on the ballot paper. It is not much of a slogan to say, “What do we want? A people’s vote. What’s the question? Ask me later”.

Secondly, I would like an answer to the question: what is the difference between a people’s vote and a referendum? That is an important question to ask, because if it is a referendum let us say it is a referendum. My noble friend Lord Adonis, who is disarmingly frank on these matters and who is sadly not in his place at the moment, said that there is no difference: it is just spin. He may have been joking but, my word, he was spot on. I am amazed that the Table Office agreed to capitalise “People’s Vote” on the Order Paper. It is answering its own question, basically. A people’s vote sounds a wondrous thing even when it is a huge mistake, as I believe it to be.

What are the arguments in favour of having a second referendum, which is what it is? They say that people change their minds. Well of course people change their minds, but are we to have referendums every two years on the subject? I voted to leave in 1975. I had to wait 41 years for the chance to see my view reflected in a vote. Let us test the integrity of the people’s vote campaigners. Would they agree to another referendum two years after the one they propose? Let us check every couple of years—it would be never-ending.

Another argument is that a people’s vote would end the divisions in the country and solve the problem of a possibly frozen Parliament. It would not, of course, do anything of the sort. A people’s vote would exacerbate the differences in the country and Parliament is simply a reflection of the divisions. How patronising is the people’s vote campaign? It is effectively saying, particularly to those of us in the Midlands and the north who voted so heavily to leave, “You got it wrong last time. Unlike us remainers, you didn’t understand the issues properly”. In the finest traditions of democracy, EU-style, if you get it wrong you must keep voting until you get it right, as they know well enough in Ireland and Denmark.

If I say nothing else to this House I will say just this sentence: democracy is threatened when people with power say to those without, “We know what’s good for you better than you know yourselves”. I have heard that in numerous contributions to today’s debate. The truth is that the so-called people’s vote is not an isolated event. It is part of an unremitting campaign to reverse the result, which started the day after the 2016 referendum. The aim has been to delay, discredit or reverse the referendum result. It started with the argument that we have almost forgotten now which said, “Oh well, the referendum doesn’t really matter. It’s only advisory. Don’t bother about it. If the Government want to do something else they can please themselves”. I would love to know whether this people’s vote will be advisory. I have a sense from listening to people that it is pretty mandatory. It will be the last referendum we have as far as the people’s vote campaign is concerned.

Then we were told that the leave campaign was invalid and probably needed police investigation because too much money was spent. There is no mention of the £9 million that the Government spent, which I helped to pay for and which I deeply resent. By the way, what about the money that is paying for the people’s vote campaign? It seems to be a wonderfully wealthy organisation from what we see in the adverts, but do we see the accounts? Perhaps that can be answered at some stage. Then it was the Russians who tricked us all into voting to leave—apart, of course, from the much cleverer remainers, who saw through all that.

So now it is the last throw of the dice. Let us have a second referendum to reverse the results of the first one. As a lifelong Stoke City supporter, it would be wonderful if whenever we lost a match we could demand an instant replay. But I say to the irreconcilable hard-line remainers—and there is no polite way of putting this—you lost, get over it. Surely the responsibility of us as parliamentarians, particularly in this unelected House, is to say that we were the ones who asked the people to vote, so it is now our job to respect and implement the result. Unless we want the gap between people and Parliament to get even wider than it is at present, our job is to facilitate leaving the European Union, and to do it quickly.

Brexit: EU Commission

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Wednesday 10th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

Of course I agree with the Prime Minister: we are looking for a precise deal and a precise statement of what the future relationship will be.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, a couple of hours ago I went to a meeting in this House organised by the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations and the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, at which a paper was handed to everyone which said that Brexit presents a unique opportunity for Britain’s fishing industry and that the great advantage would be that UK policy on fisheries would be determined in the UK. That is a splendid idea; I think it is called taking back control and I wonder whether the Minister agrees?

[Lord Callanan]

As on so many of these matters, the noble Lord speaks great sense, unlike most of the rest of his party. One of the great advantages of Brexit is that we will leave the common fisheries policy, one of the great environmental disasters of our time. We will be an independent coastal nation and we will determine our own fishing policy in future.

Brexit: Negotiations

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

We are concentrating on honest and competent negotiating. In fact my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for DExEU is actually in Brussels today meeting with Michel Barnier. I have met the French Foreign Minister and she certainly did not say that to me. The Latvian Foreign Minister said that Chequers constitutes a good ground for trying hard to reach a deal, the Danish Finance Minister said it was a realistic proposal for good negotiations and Michel Barnier said he was also confident that we would reach a deal.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Will the Minister consider following an objective that I have stuck to for many years, which is never to take any notice whatever of anything said by George Osborne?

[Lord Callanan]

The former Chancellor speaks with great authority because of the excellent job he did in managing the country’s economy. We take his—and all—contributions extremely seriously.

Brexit: Parliamentary Processes

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

We hope that Parliament will not reject the deal, but if it does, clearly the Government will have to contemplate that and come back to Parliament with a statement on how we proceed.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, has the Minister had any advice from any of the remainers on the difference between a people’s vote and a referendum?

[Lord Callanan]

No, I have not had any advice on that, as the noble Lord will probably suspect. This seems to be some sort of spin put on to try to convince the public that there would be another vote, as opposed to a second vote on the same subject.

Brexit: Preparations and Negotiations

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Monday 23rd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, it seems extraordinary that the Chequers Brexit summit was little over a fortnight ago and that the Government’s White Paper embodying the Chequers agreement is a mere 10 days old. At the time, it all seemed so rosy for the Prime Minister:

“Chequers-mate: Theresa May ambush routs cabinet Brexiteers”,


screamed the Sunday Times, for example. Well, it does not look so rosy now. Although about the only thing that everybody seems to agree on is that the White Paper will not survive in its current form as the basis of any Brexit deal, it is by far the most detailed exposition of the Government’s Brexit policy that we have seen, and it lays bare the inherent challenges of Brexit. It is the first time that the Government have begun, albeit partially, to accept that you cannot have your cake and eat it—that you cannot have both market access and control of the rules, and that very many features of our EU membership are unambiguously beneficial to the UK.

The core of the document, of course, deals with trade. On goods, the Government’s policy is to be part of a free trade area, accepting all EU rules in perpetuity but seeking to retain the right to have our own trade deals by separately collecting UK and EU tariffs for goods trans-shipped through the UK. It also seeks to allow EU content in UK exports—most of the components by value in all cars, for example—to be treated as though they were manufactured in the UK. All this is to be made possible by a non-existent technology to be introduced over an unspecified timescale at an unspecified cost to both government and individual businesses. It is highly unlikely to be acceptable to the EU in its current form.

For services, no such closeness of rules or access is even planned. As the White Paper starkly puts it,

“the UK and the EU will not have current levels of access to each other’s markets in the future”.

This is a quite extraordinary policy, which explicitly acknowledges that the UK will willingly forfeit economic activity, jobs and tax revenue for the wholly unspecified benefits of flexibility. If anybody has any doubts about the consequences, listen to the CEO of Lloyds of London, which has operated here since 1686. Speaking last week, she said that Lloyds,

“will be moving at pace now”—

to Brussels, that is—and that,

“we will be full steam ahead”.

To a greater or lesser extent, that approach is now being adopted right across the financial services sector.

Reading the White Paper as a whole, however, you can see why the Brexiteers are so angry. On my reckoning, it lists no fewer than 62 EU bodies or programmes in which it wishes the UK to participate post Brexit, and it is clear why that is the case. All these programmes and bodies are crucial to our prosperity, security and well-being. To be outside them altogether would be extremely damaging. They do, however, all constrain our freedom of independent action, so it is not surprising that the Brexiteers see Britain under the White Paper as a Gulliver, shackled by the myriad constraints of the EU Lilliputians.

But that is not the correct analogy. Those who wish to retain the many benefits of our association with the EU without the cost are like the man who is in the process of divorce negotiations and who says to his ex-wife, “Will you be my live-in mistress afterwards, or I won't pay the alimony?” That is not normally a realistic or successful approach.

The White Paper, of course, has in effect been changed by the amendments to the customs Bill, which the Government accepted, at the hands of the ERG last week—as the noble Lords, Lord Forsyth and Lord Liddle, pointed out. One of them, on my reading at least, directly contradicts paragraph 17a of chapter 1 of the White Paper, in that it would require the EU to collect UK tariffs as part of the facilitated customs arrangement. I am sure that the whole House is agog to hear the Minister’s more detailed exposition of that position at the end of the debate—only another six and a half hours to wait. Another amendment would require VAT to be accounted for and to be payable when goods are imported to the UK rather than when they are sold. That would have severe implications for the cash flow of thousands of small businesses.

These amendments show the palpable weakness of the Government, but they do not fundamentally affect the broad options facing us, or their degree of support in Parliament. However, they have helped to shine a light on an extremely inconvenient truth—that there is now no Commons majority for any proposal that leads to Brexit. In reality it is clear that Brexit now could happen only in one of two circumstances. There is no longer a multiplicity of options; there are only two.

The first option is that we reach a deal, loosely based on either the White Paper or some EU-compliant variant of it. The second is that we reach no deal and simply crash out. As Boris Johnson’s policy-free resignation speech demonstrated, there is simply no third Brexit option on the table. The crash-out option is now being more aggressively planned by the energetic Mr Raab. I suspect that he will go down in history as the man who proved that “no deal” was simply impossible, because the more he seeks to make our flesh creep—by proposing to turn the M26 into a lorry park, forcing 250,000 small businesses to fill out customs returns for the first time, or readying the Armed Forces to move food and medicines round the country—the more people are bound to recoil.

That we should be spending vast sums actively planning for these acts of national self-mutilation, not as a result of war, pestilence or some external threat but simply as a result of a rift in the Tory Party, seems almost literally incredible, particularly to the rest of the world. Incredible or not, I do not believe that this option has anything like majority support in the Commons—if it came to it, it would be rejected.

The second option is based on the White Paper. As Gavin Barwell has already acknowledged, and the EU has made abundantly clear, the White Paper will not be accepted in its current form and further concessions will be needed—for example, by ditching the impractical facilitated customs arrangements and the financial services proposals. If, none the less, a deal were reached on terms that vaguely approximated to the White Paper, it would be even less likely to be accepted by the Brexiteers than the White Paper itself. I simply do not believe that Messrs Bone, Cash, Leigh or Rees-Mogg could possibly vote for it. By excluding services, and demonstrably costing jobs and prosperity, it would also break Labour’s red lines, so Labour could not support it, either.

So it is now pretty clear that neither of the only two remaining Brexit options can survive a Commons vote. In these circumstances, there is only one further option—and that is not to leave the EU. We might now call this the Greening option, because Justine Greening has correctly identified that, if there is no Commons majority for either Brexit option, the only way of breaking the impasse is to have a referendum asking the people how they wish to proceed. Traditionally, referenda have a single question. The Greening option would include three questions—the two Brexit options, and remaining in the EU. But whether we have one question or two, it is now likely—as yesterday’s poll in the Sunday Times suggests—that any referendum would result in a clear preference for remaining in the EU. No wonder the idea of such a referendum is hated.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Given that the noble Lord and his party did not accept the result of the national referendum in 2011 on changing the voting system, and given that he and his party have not accepted the result of the referendum in 2016 on whether we should leave or remain in the European Union, what confidence could anyone have that he would accept the result of any future referendum?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, it is very interesting that the noble Lord should ask that question. We are talking about the most important issue that the country has faced in my lifetime, and I can give him an absolute assurance, as I have said many times—including to him in response to identical questions—that, if there were such a referendum, it would lance the boil of this question. We would accept the outcome and go ahead on the basis of the referendum result.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Newby]

We are talking about what the options are. I am saying that there are three; perhaps the noble Lord believes that there are others. I believe that there are two relating to Brexit—no deal, or something broadly based on what the Government have produced. I believe the only other option is staying in, and the only way to get that accepted in the country, politically and morally, is through another popular vote.

As for timing, it would be perfectly possible to legislate quickly for such a referendum; it would be perfectly possible to get a very limited extension of Article 50 from the EU. It is typical of what happens when people are losing the argument—they come forward with administrative problems. Are we saying that we could not hold a referendum relatively quickly? Is it beyond our powers? Of course not. The truth is that, if we want to do it, we can do it. The arguments for not doing it are not administrative—they are political.

Finally, as this fractious Parliament takes its summer break, the position on Brexit is now clearer: there are only two options, neither of which can command a majority in the Commons. The only other option is to remain in the EU following a people’s vote, and the people would now vote to remain.

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords—

[Lord Newby]

No, I am not going to give way to the noble Lord again.

Sadly, we will now have to endure nine months of further tortuous negotiations, a bitter debate and loud recriminations before we reach this end point—but reach it we will.