Brexit

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to join in at this stage in the debate and recognise the contribution that the House of Lords is making to showing that you can debate the issues of Brexit without the sort of bad temper and extraordinarily bad conduct that has existed in the other place and led to a serious loss of public respect for Parliament.

In the various exchanges that have taken place, I particularly enjoyed the contribution of my noble friend Lord Heseltine, who is of course an authority on good jokes in conference speeches. I seem to remember him on one occasion describing Labour’s economic policy as “all Balls”, in reference to the shadow Chancellor of the time, which the Conservative conference much enjoyed. I also very much agree with him that the failure to consult the Cabinet on recent issues is extremely poor and certainly should not be repeated. It is also a severe reflection on the present membership of that Cabinet.

I also believe that it was a very serious mistake to seek to prorogue Parliament when we did. There was no need for it and I certainly was opposed to it at the time. But that is probably as far as I go in supporting my noble friend. His enthusiasm for all things European was perhaps helped by the fact that he used to delegate to me the responsibility of going to all the Environment Council meetings in Europe, avoiding the problem of getting involved himself in some of those discussions—but I will let that pass.

The reason I am concerned about the paralysis we have had over Brexit is that we now live in an extremely dangerous world. Look around at the situation in Syria, Yemen or Afghanistan. Look at Iran and its activities. Look at the growing strength of China, the risk of American isolationism and the push from China at this stage, just after its great 70th anniversary. Russia and China both have 2 million men under arms at this time, in a dangerous and unstable world. There is the difficulty and embarrassment of Hong Kong, coming at a time of semi-paralysis, when the people of Hong Kong are looking to see what the United Kingdom might or might not be prepared to do and getting a pretty big lack of clear signals.

There are other challenges that are quite new to the world. Undoubtedly, there are dire warnings about climate change. There are the far too inadequately considered problems of population growth, which will lead to continuing mass migration, particularly out of Africa, and the changes that that will produce. There are the new developments of cyber and social media. There was the issue of drones even before we had the attack in Saudi Arabia, and the new, cheap weapons that are available around the world to terrorist groups and hostile Governments, for extremely dangerous activities. And at this time, here is the United Kingdom, paralysed pathetically and battling through this issue. Against that background, we have proudly used the phrase that the United Kingdom has “a contribution to make”. We talk about being a force for good in the world, but this force is paralysed and is not making the contribution that is seriously needed.

I come to this situation. I had the honour to move a Motion on the Address for the Queen’s Speech. That speech referred to the proposal for a referendum Bill. I said in that speech that I hoped we would remain, but also that there would be a substantial vote in favour of leaving. I represented the United Kingdom for six years in different Councils of Ministers, and I found that the strength of the United Kingdom’s position was that we did have reservations about Europe and that, if we did not bring some attention to the issues that we were raising, there was a risk that we might leave. We can talk about the budget rebate, about no thank you to the euro or no Schengen. But that card is now lost. I also see the developments happening in the European Union. I notice that it is seeking to appoint a new commissioner for the eastward progression of the European Union.

In making these very truncated remarks necessary to oblige all noble Lords today, I feel that we now have to accept that Europe is moving away. I used to represent the United Kingdom when there were nine around the table. With 28 and rising, and an increased pressure for a united states of Europe, now is the time to enter into a sensible agreement to remove from the European Union, but to set down straight away work to establish the friendliest relationships going forward with all those countries in Europe and the European Union itself.

Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, before we commence the adjourned debate, I observe that we have a lot of business to get through today, and I respectfully remind contributors from the Back Benches that the advisory time limit is six minutes. With the greatest of gentleness, I point out that when the clock shows “6”, this has a certain significance: it means time is up.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords, as we embark on the third day of our deliberations, and the House of Commons approaches its penultimate day, I think there is not a single Member of your Lordships’ House who would not agree with the Prime Minister’s comment today that we are in uncharted waters. I would take that analogy further and say that the ship of state is at the moment adrift in a dangerous sea, with storm clouds building and with some dangerous rocks around.

If I talk about dangerous rocks, I refer noble Lords to today’s copy of the Times: just look at the stories of the world in which we live. We have President Trump threatening to devastate the Turkish economy if they invade the Kurds. We have the al-Qaeda affiliate that has now occupied or is moving on Idlib and taking over that province, so that threat has reappeared on the scene. We have the continuing drama of the Sunni-Shia conflict and the conflict in Yemen, which so tragically continues, and the continuing drama involving Mr John Bolton, who is reported in the Times today to be considering that the United States might bomb Iran, in retaliation for an attack that it thinks was carried out on US facilities in Iraq.

At the same time, closer to home we have the rise of the far right. We have the AfD party in Germany, which I see has already decided to adopt the policy of abolishing the European Parliament and is considering whether to launch in its election campaign, for the upcoming European elections, a policy of Dexit—which I suppose stands for Deutschland exit and Germany leaving the European Union.

The instability all around could not be greater. It has coincided with the shutdown of the American Government. Many of your Lordships will have received an email today, as I did, to say that the US minister counselor in the US embassy is unable to come to the House today because, while the shutdown goes on, she is not now allowed to interact with public meetings. Presumably, the great diplomatic scale and force of the United States around the world at the moment is pretty well paralysed.

To top it all, we also have reports from a new activity, of which I had never heard, called Redfish, which appears to be a Russian-sponsored invasion of social media. Using the ignorance of those people taking part in it, Redfish promotes damaging videos and YouTube presentations that are watched by anything up to a quarter of a million people. It is, presumably, a re-creation of what actually happened in the US presidential election and also, I dare to suggest, in our own referendum campaign—namely, of Russian interference and trying to achieve their own policy objectives in that way.

At the same time, we move against an unchanging background of mass migration of people and the threat of climate change, which raise enormous challenges. Against such a background, it seems to me that it is a matter of urgency for this country no longer to be lost and uncertain and failing to give the leadership that we should to our own people and to our country. We need to come together to resolve Brexit.

Everybody will know that I am a remainer. I believe that the outcome of the referendum was a tragedy, but I do not believe that it is possible to go back now. Europe has moved on. We wanted a larger, but looser, Europe. It is not looser; it is enlarged, but it has continued to try and run in the same centralised way as before. There is more majority voting. We would be stuck with the freedom of movement, and I believe that, if we did try to go back, we would be under pressure to join the euro and Schengen as well.

I look across the Chamber and pay tribute to the noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition. She made a very good opening speech and managed to criticise everything that we are trying to do. We know that the Motion that she has tabled says that the Opposition are against no deal and against this deal. We wait to hear what they are in favour of—because there is of course a complete silence. That was cleverly and accurately identified by Mr Andrew Marr in the programme with Mr Jeremy Corbyn yesterday. Mr Corbyn was calling for an election, and Mr Marr immediately said, “Well, if you have an election, what are you putting in your manifesto about the issues over Brexit?”—to which there was a deadly silence.

There is plenty to criticise in the proposed deal. Anybody can find difficulties and issues that do not entirely meet the objective. However, overall, the main objectives have been met. When we discussed this in the days before, in the debate that was truncated, it was the worry about the permanency of the backstop that seemed to concern most people. There have been improvements on that, and perhaps we will hear a further Statement later today that will help to clarify that.

I want to make one point, in advance of my noble friend leaping to her feet. It is simply this. The best speech I have heard in these debates was made by the most reverend Primate, whom I am delighted to see in his place. He said that we have a moral responsibility. Of course it is right that the other place has to take the decision, but we have a moral responsibility to advise—and this time we want to go forward as a country. Too much anger and too much hatred have developed over this. We need to resolve this matter now. We need to respect the majority decision, but we need respect for the minority as well. I hope that those on the Benches opposite will see that the opportunity to come together, agree a deal and go forward is in the national interest. I hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, will pick up that opportunity.

Brexit: Preparations and Negotiations

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Monday 23rd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, who takes a great interest in these issues. I note that we have already had contributions in this debate from people who know a tremendous lot about all the detail of these matters. I have therefore decided to take on the role of the common man, the person who does not understand all the details of everything, but of some people who voted in the first referendum. An awful lot of people voted in the first referendum not beginning to comprehend some of the extraordinarily complicated issues that have been raised in these debates, some of which were misrepresented and some of which were never mentioned at all.

I make my position clear, to be honest to the House. I am what I call a conditional remainer. I should have liked us to remain in the European Union, but I was getting increasingly concerned about developments there. I was glad that we were becoming what I would call more of a country member, with our opting out of the eurozone and of membership of Schengen. I was concerned about what seemed to be an everlasting expansion of the European Union, having represented the United Kingdom in the Council of Ministers in various departments, as I did for six years, with eight other countries represented. I fail to see how 28 and rising can be managed in the same way without the larger but looser plan, which I understood was the original concept but which the European Union and the Commission seemed unable to adopt.

On the referendum, one particular remark of the leavers sticks with me: they say that this was the largest vote ever in the history of any vote in this country. I think that 17 million voted. I simply make the point that it was the largest vote against that has ever been registered at any election in this country as well. Relatively speaking, at 52:48, it was a completely split vote, as close to a dead heat as one might imagine. It is that situation and the serious division within our country that we all seek to address here today.

I certainly agree with my noble friend Lord Heseltine that I was under no illusion but that migration was one of the factors at the time. It coincided with that sudden burst of activity across the Mediterranean into Greece and up through the Balkans that gave such concern about the implications of free movement of people.

My particular concern is that this is taking place at a time when the world has undoubtedly become a much more dangerous place. We are obsessed at the moment with the Brexit situation; it is paralysing some of the work of government. That is at a time when we look at the absolute tragedy of what is happening in the Middle East, in Syria and neighbouring countries, with a population explosion in Africa which we see reflected in the migration figures, and with the reassertion of Russian power and influence. We saw only this weekend the allegations of Russian activity in Greece and North Macedonia, as it will be called.

Europe has of course changed in this time. In each country—in Italy, Spain, France and Greece—people are arguing about who will handle the migration figures. There is the rise of the far right in eastern Europe, a weaker Chancellor Merkel than we might have hoped to have had during this difficult time and, on top of all that, we have the slightly uncertain activities of President Trump, who now appears to be launching pretty aggressive actions towards Iran, disapproves of the common structures of NATO, the EU, the World Trade Organization and NAFTA, and is initiating some form of trade war. All of those are very dangerous developments in which we are involved.

It is against that background that I look for early action, because there is too great a risk of no deal and general agreement that no deal could be extremely damaging. I was struck by the comment of the German European Minister, coming out of the meeting on Friday in Brussels discussing the British White Paper, when he said that they do not want to punish the UK. We do not want to punish the UK. We do not want to punish Germany. We do not want to punish France, Holland, Denmark or, in particular, Ireland, if there is a breakdown. I draw support from that from the IMF, which stated that it would be a loss for both sides.

I add the comment that there is a lot of talk about not having a hard Irish border. From my experience of Northern Ireland, I will not tender to build that border. I should not think that there will be a firm Irish border, whatever statements may be made about it.

More positively, I look at the need for maintaining a good, constructive relationship with our friends. I was struck by a remark of José Manuel Barroso at a recent meeting when he said that the UK would always be a most important country for the EU and he wanted us to go forward as friends.

Some think that there might even be a referendum now. Obviously there cannot be, because we would fall straight into the trap that we had before of a referendum without people being properly informed and knowing the issues. For that reason, I strongly support the position of the Government now that there is a White Paper—a proposition on the table. I am encouraged by the start made by the new Secretary of State for Brexit, who I think may be slightly more energetic than his predecessor. I wish him good luck in his activities. I think his initial appearance on the Marr programme gave one some encouragement. We must see whether it is possible to reach an agreement and some understanding.

As for the alternatives: a government of national unity? Certainly not. I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Newby, that I find it extremely difficult to support the idea that the Greening concept—having three alternative propositions to vote for, so you might end up with a decisive result in which 40% was the victory vote—would build national unity. Having said that, there is urgency. As my noble friend Lord Boswell said, we cannot expect that if we hold them to it, the EU will feel the need urgently to reach agreement. Whatever the EU wants to do, its procedures will make that very difficult.

The situation now, as the Times correctly put it in its recent leader, is that the present proposition put forward by the Government is the worst plan, except for all the others. That is what we now have to proceed with, and at the end of the day, it will be up to Parliament and the meaningful vote to decide whether what comes out of this is acceptable. Parliament may then feel the need to enlist the support of the people, but only after it has had the opportunity to make a full and responsible assessment of the outcome of those discussions.

EU Exit: Future Relationship White Paper

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend recognise that this Statement and the White Paper do rather better than one or two of the statements that came out of Chequers in continuing to emphasise the point that frictionless trade is as important for jobs among our friends in the European Union as it is for jobs in this country? If that does not exist in any way, that would be hugely damaging to jobs in Europe as well as in this country.

[Lord Callanan]

I totally agree with my noble friend, who speaks great sense as always on these matters. Of course, free trade is in the mutual best interest of both parties; we cannot say that too often.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Report: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 30th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords, as somebody who has not so far spoken in one of these debates, I want to make a brief contribution. One sees how this debate has gone, with the Brexiteers on one side and the remainers on the other. I speak as somebody who has already spoken in this House as a remainer. I campaigned to remain. I now find myself in, as I would put it, the weakest of positions: a reforming remainer. We have had the referendum, the decision was taken and we are now embarked on the negotiations. My view on the amendment before the House is that one of the beneficiaries could be Monsieur Barnier.

My worry is that, as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said, we are cutting the feet from under the Government. In the present situation—which I did not choose and where I see many problems for the Government—we have to see how we can at least stand together to try to get the best possible deal for our country in this difficult situation.

Having said that, we will then get towards the end of the negotiations without being tied down by some of the very difficult dates included in this amendment. I agree with my noble friend Lord Howard in his reference to the unnecessary inclusions and the difficult constitutional crises that might be involved in it. We should come to the end of that process. I have never been in any doubt—having been in this building, I am appalled to say, for 48 years at one end or the other, with terrible consequence—that in the end Parliament is going to decide. Any suggestion that we must have this amendment with all its flaws to make sure that it happens, I regard as quite unnecessary, unwelcome and unhelpful. Everybody here, I hope, on whichever side—as I say, I am a remainer, but Brexiteers as well—wants to get the best possible deal and then Parliament will decide whether it is sensible to go forward. I stand for the sovereignty of Parliament. That is why I believe that this amendment should not be approved.

[Lord Fairfax of Cameron (Con)]

My Lords—

Brexit Negotiations

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

My Lords, we agree with the Shadow Chancellor and the Shadow International Trade Secretary that remaining in the customs union and the single market would be a disaster for the United Kingdom. They are not correct on many issues, but they are on these ones. It is taking so long to reach an agreement because these are difficult and complicated areas. Given the history of Ireland and Northern Ireland, it is particularly important that we get the discussions right, reach an agreement and respect the Good Friday agreement, but that we respect the referendum that took place.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My noble friend Lord Strathclyde referred to the Government’s commitment to Northern Ireland being part of the United Kingdom. That is also the commitment of the Government of Ireland, originally under the Anglo-Irish agreement and now under the Good Friday agreement, if that is the wish of the majority of the people in Northern Ireland. The Irish Government are completely committed to that. Against that background, both Governments are committed to there being no hard border. Is not the sensible thing now to get on with the negotiation about what sort of trading relationship we will have? Yes, in the present situation we need to agree our financial obligations and the issue of EU citizens here, but the second issue of exactly how we deal with the Northern Ireland situation is something that will emerge out of the agreement on the trading arrangements.

[Lord Callanan]

My noble friend speaks with the benefit of great experience on this matter, considering some of the previous jobs he has had. I completely agree with him. It is important that we get these talks finished off so we can get on to discussing the substantive area, trade, out of which will fall an agreement on the Northern Irish border.

Brexit: New Partnership

Lord King of Bridgwater Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

Is my noble friend aware that none of us has had a chance to read the White Paper yet? We have an advantage in this House that at least we have had it before the Second Reading and can properly discuss it.

Perhaps my noble friend can respond on one point that concerns me. I was involved when we had the presidency of the European Union for six months and I know of the great organisational pressures that are put on government at such times. I do not know what encouragement we can give to the other members of the European Union, but as I look at who the next presidencies will be after Malta—in the shape of Estonia, then Bulgaria, Austria and Romania—I do not think that I am the only Member of your Lordships’ House who will worry about the ability of the presidency to cope with the great pressures it will have at that time.

On a lighter note and just to warm things up a bit, is my noble friend aware that we are approaching the 100th birthday of Dame Vera Lynn? I do not think that I am the only person who noted how improbably appropriate her songs would be for this situation. They include:

“We’ll meet again, don’t know where,


Don’t know when”,

and:

“Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye,


Cheerio, here I go”.

The last is perhaps even more to the point:

“Say that everything will turn up right,


It hurts to say goodbye”.

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

My Lords, we will certainly be meeting again, here, many times. On the next presidencies, my noble friend raises a very good point. I think that I am right in saying—in fact, I am sure—that the Government have offered support for the presidency of the Estonian Government if it were required. We are obviously in conversations with all the nation states that he has mentioned. We have been supported by them in making sure that we will continue to have a role in matters of substance that come to be discussed by the EU until we leave the EU, thereby fulfilling our role as a full member until the day we leave.