European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill

Debate between Lord Howell of Guildford and Lord Framlingham

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

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

That statement—“the only way”—again reveals the Manichean approach. There are already controls on livestock and weapons down the Irish Sea. They already exist. There are controls all around the invisible border to Northern Ireland, so this constant either/or is misleading us and guiding us away from sensible compromise solutions, which a calmer atmosphere would soon reveal and resolve.

[Lord Framlingham (Con)]

I am afraid the arguments today are already becoming as circular as ever. Is the truth not that remainers will not accept the position, just as leavers have their views too? What my noble friend is saying is absolutely true: those who really understand it know there are ways of doing this, but the baying leavers will not accept it. I urge my noble friend to save his breath and move on to something else.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I thank my noble friend for that encouragement. I turn now to a matter addressed to my own party, which will possibly produce more agreement opposite. The so-called Cummings purge is a major political blunder. These blunders happen at the end of a sequence of earlier blunders. You can watch how earlier mistakes and errors, blunder after blunder, lead to a point where, suddenly, there seems no choice and the new folly is committed. The new folly of my party is to reduce its membership by 21 and exclude two ex-Chancellors, an ex-Deputy Prime Minister and my dear friend Sir Nicholas Soames. I just hope it will pass. I hope Rory Stewart’s view that this will pass is right, and that they are restored to the party. This is again part of the Manichean tone in which matters are presented, when everything is either right or wrong, in black and white.

Delay of the Bill will solve nothing, although it seems a way out. In another three months, we will be back to exactly where we were before. The referendum so beloved of the Lib Dems, even if we get it through, will not solve anything either. An election is bound to come sometime, but I say to my noble friends that, whether it comes or not, normal times will never return. We are living in a completely different digital age, in which populism is in power. Both parties—mine and the great Labour Party—will have to reunite and change on entirely different terms. Neither can build on the basis of the old dogmas. If that is the one lesson that emerges from this unhappy situation, let us at least take account of it.