European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Hague of Richmond Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hague of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is an honour to be asked to set the first example of sticking to six minutes before the 178 speeches that follow. I declare my interests, non-financial and financial, in many organisations with an interest in EU membership: as chair of the Royal United Services Institute, as a director of Intercontinental Exchange, as an adviser to Citigroup, Linklaters and Teneo, and as a speaker for many organisations for a lot longer than six minutes.

I voted to remain in the European Union but I support the Bill, because the referendum was decisive. It was decisive because there was such a high participation—more people voted to leave the European Union than have ever voted for any British Government in history; because so many parts of the UK, although not all of them, voted that way; and because people were promised a referendum in the manifesto of the governing party of the country, and were promised that it would be decisive. Attempts to refight that referendum, which have begun a little in the last few days, are a great error. To ask people to “rise up” to fight Brexit—the words a few days ago of the former Prime Minister Tony Blair—is a great mistake. I have enormous respect for him—more than many in his own party have—particularly as he roundly defeated me in the 2001 general election. But if, nine months after that, I had asked people to “rise up” against the result, Mr Blair would not have been amused. He would have told me to listen to the voters and to abide by the result. The same advice can be given to him in these circumstances.

If there was a real chance of rising up successfully against leaving the European Union, it would open up the most protracted, bitter and potentially endless conflict in British society and politics that we have seen since the decades of debate on Irish home rule, and possibly even longer than that. It is not in the interests of our democracy and the governance of our country to do so. If there is no or little prospect of that succeeding, to ask people to rise up against it serves only to strengthen the hand of some in the EU who believe that if they make the negotiations difficult enough, we will somehow lose heart, which does not help a successful, negotiated outcome.

In any case, a country cannot go round in circles. Opinion will vary over the next few years. Opinion polls will say that people do not agree with leaving the EU any more, and then, six months later, that they do agree. But we cannot leave the EU in 2017, remain in it in 2018, and leave it again in 2019; by 2020 we will be too confused to know what we are doing. A country cannot go around in circles. A decision was made in the referendum. I take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Newby, saying that people “expressed a view” in the referendum. That has a casual connotation to it, suggesting that they sauntered by the ballot box on 23 June and “expressed a view” about whether we should be in the EU. They made a decision in a process that was intended to be decisive and which was agreed at the time to be decisive. Therefore, as someone whose preference was to remain in the European Union, my second preference—given that my first is not available—is to leave it with some degree of unity, good order, confidence and determination, and for the country to seek advantages from leaving the EU, since we will inevitably have the disadvantages of doing so.

The case for invoking Article 50 is therefore overwhelming, and the case for doing so now is inescapable. There is a need to end the uncertainty—I go a long way with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, on this. There are immensely complex negotiations to undertake. There is no reason to delay the start of those negotiations, as some have argued, because there are elections in Germany, France and the Netherlands. It is in the nature of the process set up by Article 50, with a two-year timetable, that the real bargains, compromises, trade-offs and deals will be made near the end of that process, allowing time for the consideration of this Parliament and the European Parliament. Therefore elections across Europe over the next six months are no reason to delay that, as that is not when those decisions will be made. I conclude that it is necessary to do this, and to do it now. Real democratic accountability comes from the Government being able to go to a general election in 2020 and be judged on how they conducted this process, as well as in Parliament beforehand.

If those two things are true, what form should the Bill take? It should take as simple a form as possible. Again, I go a long way with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. I have negotiated in the European Union many times on behalf of this country, and I know that anyone involved in this negotiation will want this legislation to be as simple and straightforward as possible without additions to it that undercut and undermine Ministers’ positions. This Bill is pleasingly and unusually simple in its construction and content, and that should be welcomed. I fear that amendments of process to the Bill will turn out not to be so well thought out in two years’ time and that amendments of policy will undermine Ministers’ positions as they seek a successful outcome. Therefore, it is right to invoke Article 50 and to do so now with the simplest Bill that it is possible to bring forward, and I commend Ministers for doing so.