Brexit: Parliamentary Approval of the Outcome of Negotiations with the European Union

Debate between Lord Liddle and Lord Balfe

Monday 28th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by declaring my interests, as recorded in the register, from which it can be readily discovered that I am a Eurofanatic. I am, too, very pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, who I have known since we were both in different parties—although he has managed two moves to my one.

I have observed in the past that you can change your history but not your geography, and we will find out, in the years to come, that being 22 or 23 miles from Calais will not change because we leave the EU. We seem to be in danger of talking about the deal as if it settled everything. It settles nothing: all it does is begin the negotiations on getting where we want to get to. We are at a very preliminary stage, and, as I have said many times in this House and elsewhere, we are being totally unrealistic. There is no way in which we leave the European Union and get a better deal than when we are in it, for the simple reason that 27 countries do not want to be reduced to 26 and will make it jolly certain that we get as difficult a deal as they can get away with. That is where the history and geography come together.

I turn now to a couple of practical things. We talk about extending Article 50—let us remember, however, that the European Parliament has to agree to whatever deal is reached. The last sitting of the European Parliament is on Thursday 18 April; it does not return until 2 July. The whole of the week when it returns is a basically ceremonial time when it elects its president, its committee chairs and all the people needed for the negotiations. The European Parliament, therefore, will have to decide whether it wishes to maintain its EU committee and whether Mr Verhofstadt will continue in his role. The European Commission will have to decide whether Mr Barnier is to continue in his role, or perhaps to become the new president of the Commission—an outcome I see as highly likely.

There will also be a change of presidency: at the beginning of July the Finns take over the presidency of the European Union. The odds are that theirs will be a fairly active presidency. Perhaps the Minister can tell us how much discussion there has been between HMG and the incoming Finnish presidency on how they propose to handle the period from July to December.

We then proceed through the autumn, when the European Parliament has hearings for the nominated Commissioners. Every country will nominate a Commissioner. A presidency will be nominated in July and throughout the autumn there will be hearings of the new Commissioners on their new portfolios. The EU will not be in a great position to be doing any negotiation. So an extension of three months is pretty meaningless.

Let me consider the MEPs. The Prime Minister said in her Statement:

“It would require an extension of Article 50”.


This is when she was against it; I am not sure what position she is in today. She continued:

“We would very likely have to return a new set of MEPs to the European Parliament in May”.


We would not, actually. The MEPs could lapse and there is a long-established procedure that when a member state joins the EU, the parliament nominates the MEPs. There is no legal reason why an outgoing state could not nominate MEPs—or, for that matter, have no MEPs at all. As we enjoy shooting ourselves in the foot, that might be the choice. They can be appointed.

We are also told that a second referendum would set a difficult precedent. Of course it would. As Mr Speaker Bercow has shown, precedents are there to be broken. I seem to remember that we had two referendums on Scottish independence and two on Welsh independence—

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

On devolution.

[Lord Balfe]

On devolution—the noble Lord is absolutely right.

It is a case of how long you allow to lapse between them, not that you cannot do it. As the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, rightly said, we could have an election. Let me warn my party what is likely to happen. I think it is highly likely that the Opposition would win an election. To people who think that elections are about Brexit, I say, think again. If you want an example, look at the Soke of Peterborough, as it is called. It had an MP who campaigned vigorously for a no vote. He lost his seat. I am not sure that the person who replaced him is in full communion with the party that she was elected for, but none the less, he lost his seat. Mr Stewart Jackson joined the unemployed as a reward for campaigning for Brexit.

You might well get that result in an election. People have reflected on seeing me on these Benches, but I will have a far bigger laugh when I see the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, as a Minister in a Corbyn Government. As she will remember, we were together in Labour First, the right-wing pressure group within the Labour Party. I think she will make an excellent Corbyn Minister. Let us be aware where we are heading.

On Project Fear, all we get these days is, “The drugs won’t come through” and “The ports will seize up”. Of course there will be difficulty, but we will get over it. We are a resourceful nation. People in East Anglia, where I live, say to me—and, I am sure, to my noble friend Lord Lansley—“We heard all this before, Richard. It was rubbish. We had it in the run-up to the referendum: the world was going to collapse. It hasn’t happened. It won’t. We might have a bit of difficulty, but we’ll get over it”.

I counsel that the argument for Europe is a moral and philosophical one. It is not about a can of beans, even a delayed delivery can of beans. Please do not go on with Project Fear. The next step will be negotiations. After this deal, whatever it is, is agreed, there will be difficult negotiations.

Last Friday, I was in Madrid talking to Spanish politicians. It is clear that they are keeping their powder dry. Their demands will come through when it matters, which is when they start negotiating. That is when you will find the different countries of Europe asking for whatever they want for their particular interests, for what is known in Belgium as the Flemish Christmas tree. Virtually every country of Europe will want to hang a bauble on that tree. That is where the difficult negotiations are going to take place. We will look back on debates like this and think, “Wasn’t it simple? We only had to talk to ourselves. Now we have got to talk to all these foreign people about how we survive”.

So I say to noble Lords, by all means let us extend Article 50, but do not believe that another referendum would necessarily change the result; it probably would not. We have to move forward. This is a great country and whichever way we go, we will survive. I would prefer to survive within the EU, but I do not subscribe to the prophets of doom who say that we are going to collapse if we are not.