Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration

Lord Knight of Weymouth Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, I feel like a rarity in this House, in that this is my first speech in the Chamber on Brexit. It is hard to know how much value my six minutes will add among over 130 speeches in the latest of so many debates on this subject. However, like the noble Lord, Lord Low, I think that it is time to stand up and be counted.

The first thing to say is that I do not think that Brexit should be the most important issue facing us right now. I also think that most of the electorate feel the same. The global outlook economically is poor; our public services are in a dreadful state after 10 years of austerity, with a huge staffing crisis facing both the NHS and our schools; the Government’s welfare reforms are in pieces; everything the Transport Secretary touches goes wrong; our prisons are in a dreadful state; and we are going through a mental health crisis, especially among our young people. I could go on. I am desperate for the time and money currently diverted to Brexit to be returned to rebuilding this country.

That said, I believe passionately in the importance of the free movement of goods, services, capital and labour. Our nation’s history as a great trading nation, a great financial centre and a true global heavyweight depends on those principles. They are also the founding principles of the EU and the reason I voted to remain back in the referendum.

And what a catastrophe that referendum has turned out to be. To be fair to the Prime Minister, she was dealt a rubbish set of cards by her predecessor, and, unlike most of the men implicated in this disaster, she has not shown the same sloping shoulders and shed her responsibilities. I believe that she has shown commendable resilience in keeping at it and trying to deliver the mandate to deliver Brexit. That said, she has made an appalling job of playing the cards she was dealt.

It has always been predictable that Brexit needed to mean more than Brexit and that, once it was defined, the divisions in her party would make life very difficult for her. Things could have been very different if Mrs May had chosen to engage across the parties for the last 30 months. As it is, only the inexplicable position on Brexit of Jeremy Corbyn has allowed the Prime Minister to remain in office.

Her political strategy of kicking the can down the road for as long as possible has, however, run out of road. We now have her withdrawal agreement and the accompanying political declaration. We now know what Brexit means. I would like to say that we now have political certainty, but of course we do not. The only certainty that we have is uncertainty. In my commercial work I see the huge damage that this is causing our economy, and this damage comes as we see worrying signs of the next global slowdown just around the corner and few, if any, policy levers available to anyone if that turns into a crash. This uncertainty is at the heart of the Government’s failure and it is why I will support the second Motion in the vote on Monday.

Others have analysed the weaknesses of the agreement better than me, and I particularly value the insights of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, but I am especially appalled by the political declaration. How can we agree something that is so vague on our future relationship with the European Union? Our economy, our environment and many parts of our society depend on a close future working relationship with the European Union, and we are offered just 26 pages of good intent in future negotiations.

The other big uncertainty is the current political situation and the likelihood of the withdrawal agreement being defeated next week in the other place. What happens then? As we all have, I have thought long and hard about this. In agreeing to Article 50 being triggered, Parliament respected the referendum result, and both the main parties again respected it with their manifesto positions in the 2017 general election. The Government formed from the Parliament elected have negotiated an agreement with the European Union, and the European Union says that this is the only agreement that can be negotiated—so far so good.

Our problem is that Parliament is unlikely to agree that the agreement is in the national interest. That is not out of disrespect for the democratic process but because representatives are carrying out their duty to,

“act in the interests of the nation as a whole”.

They and we are obliged by oath to vote for what we believe is in the national interest. For reasons debated at length in your Lordships’ House, it is clear to me that the withdrawal agreement is not in that interest.

If Parliament defeats the agreement, I believe there is only one possible next step that respects democracy: we must accept that Parliament has failed to agree terms with the European Union and the question should be put back to the country as a vote of the people. This would not be to repeat the question or to test the view on a no-deal Brexit. Parliament seems clear that no deal is in no one’s interest, and I therefore do not believe that it would legislate to allow it on the ballot. We should instead ask the people whether the withdrawal agreement is better than remaining in the European Union on the current terms—yes or no. That respects the work that the Government and the European Union have done in defining what Brexit looks like, and it respects the will of the people. If they vote yes, we proceed with Brexit on the withdrawal agreement terms; if not, we withdraw Article 50.

I hope we can get there quickly, and that we can then remain in the European Union and drive change from within. Most of all, I hope that we can then get on with fixing so much that is broken in Britain following the catastrophic legacy of David Cameron.