Brexit

Lord Mancroft Excerpts

Saturday 19th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, the last three and a half years have been the most divisive, frustrating and unpleasant I have known in over 30 years’ membership of your Lordships’ House. However, as most speakers will recognise, we have an opportunity today to put that behind us and take an important step forward. We can leave either with or without a deal. As the noble Lord, Lord Birt, said, today’s debate enables us to leave with a deal. I realise that a significant majority of your Lordships, like the noble Lord, would prefer not to be leaving the EU at all, but the mandate of the 2016 referendum, supported by the two main parties at the last election, is to leave, like it or not.

As my noble friend Lady Noakes said, we have heard repeatedly that the withdrawal agreement could not be re-opened, but it has been. We were told that the backstop could not be dispensed with, but it has gone. We were assured that the Irish would not deal directly with the Prime Minister; not only has the Taoiseach negotiated directly with the Prime Minister, but it was his intervention that unlocked this deal.

In my experience, it is very difficult to do a deal unless there are two willing parties, with a degree of good will on both sides. I have observed the past three years of negotiations only through the prism of the media and through your Lordships’ House, neither of which is without bias, as your Lordships may have noticed. While there has been deplorable weakness and naivety in the Government’s negotiating positions and tactics over the past three years, it is difficult to conclude that there was much good will on the other side. Whether a deal was ever possible in those circumstances is doubtful, but the conduct of those who have consistently sought to undermine the Government’s position and have, even within the past few days and weeks, effectively conspired with a foreign power against our national interest, is quite unprecedented. In these circumstances, to have successfully negotiated a deal, as the Prime Minister has, is an extraordinary achievement. To reject today’s Motion, and thus effectively support our leaving the EU without a deal, which this House has strongly opposed, would be bizarre, to say the least.

Mrs May’s deal was unacceptable to the House of Commons because of the backstop, which could have prevented the UK leaving the EU at all. It has now been removed, which means that, whatever else, this deal ultimately will deliver a complete end to the UK’s membership of the EU. By removing the backstop and replacing it with a virtual customs border between Ireland and the rest of the UK, this deal presents some very real problems for the DUP. I understand that. While I am a passionate supporter of the union, I do not pretend to understand all the intricacies of the politics of Ireland. However, I am more than aware of the sensitivities. At the same time, I marvel at the progress made since the Good Friday agreement and deplore anything that puts it at risk. I also recognise points of principle as much as anyone else does, but I struggle to see a system of tariffs and rebates as a genuinely significant constitutional barrier for most people—for politicians perhaps, but not most people. I understand, too, the concerns about the potential democratic deficit, if that is the right way to put it, in approving this system of tariffs, but I do not see that as so much of a problem that it cannot be resolved—not by some diktat within a treaty, perhaps, but by the same good will that brought about the Good Friday agreement itself. To have climbed that huge mountain yet now to trip over this small step seems too cruel. I hope beyond hope that my DUP friends will see their way through this dilemma.

I am what is now called a Brexiteer. Like most people, I struggled to decide how to vote but in the end my heart ruled my head. If I had any doubts about how to vote, and I did, they have been dispelled by the behaviour of the European Commission over the past three years and the conduct of the remainer campaign, which has been dishonourable and demonstrably against the national interest. I am not in favour of a hard Brexit, nor a soft Brexit, because I am not entirely sure what those terms mean. I am in favour of a sensible, reasonable Brexit, detaching us from the EU completely and regaining the freedom to make our own political and economic decisions while maintaining a strong friendship with our European neighbours, with whom we share so much and with whom I look forward to sharing a peaceful and prosperous future. I do not think that is too much to ask.

My father, who sat in this House for almost 50 years and served in four Governments, taught me that politics was about not just the way you think about your country, but the way you feel about your country. He impressed on me the importance of learning to assess the mood of this House and the mood of the people. The mood of this House today is still split, but not, I think, the mood of the people. I look at the polls and I read the press. I listen to the people I meet—from all walks of life, not just my own circle of family and friends. My assessment of the mood is that, overwhelmingly, people are sick to death of the protracted mess that Parliament has made of this. But the mess is not Brexit: it is Parliament’s unwillingness to implement Brexit that angers people.

My noble friend Lord Heseltine, who is not in his place, told your Lordships in an earlier debate that his Brexiteer friends were now all remainers.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

May I remind my noble friend of the speaking limit?

[Lord Mancroft]

I am most grateful. We all know that the present situation is damaging our economy; I know that from my personal experience. But it is not Brexit that is damaging our economy; we have not had Brexit or even the prospect of it. It is the political paralysis that exists in this House and another place, caused by those who seem willing to do anything to prevent it. We can break that deadlock today.

Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration

Lord Mancroft Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, I had intended my contribution in your Lordships’ debate before Christmas to be my first and last speech on the subject of Brexit but, as speaker number 93 in that debate, I do not think that my words carried a great deal of weight, and those who thought otherwise will have read them in Hansard over Christmas. Either way, I intend not to repeat what I said then but to make a couple of comments on what seems to have happened in the meantime.

First, it is my perception that few, if any, of those involved in this debate have changed their views. If anything, most people both in and outside politics appear to be further entrenched in their opinions. There seems to be no evidence that the Government have won any substantive concessions from the EU in relation to the backstop. Consequently, there is a widely held view that the DUP has not changed its opposition to the Prime Minister’s deal, and I doubt that the ERG has either. All in all, I think it is widely accepted that the Government’s withdrawal agreement will probably be rejected by the other place next week.

A number of noble Lords have concluded—some of them, it seems to me, reluctantly—that one way forward is to have a second referendum or a people’s vote. Other noble Lords who have spoken have rejected this as impractical, unrealistic and likely to increase the unpleasant and divisive nature of the current debates. I agree with that view but, more importantly, I note that the head of steam that was seen to be gathering in favour of a people’s vote before Christmas has subsided since then, and I perceive that there is no real desire, except within a very small group of remainers, to pursue this option.

Similarly, but for other reasons, it seems unlikely that there will be a general election. If the withdrawal agreement is indeed rejected, the DUP will probably support the Government in a vote of no confidence and few, if any, Tories will vote against their own party. Clearly, a significant number of Labour MPs, fearing either deselection or their leader’s unsuitability for high office, do not want an election either.

Despite the convolutions of Motions and amendments in the other place designed to avoid a no-deal Brexit or possibly any Brexit at all, it is a fact that both Houses have, by significant majorities, put in place two pieces of legislation that ensure that we will leave the EU on 29 March. Only the Government can initiate repeals of or substantial amendments to that legislation, and as of today that is not going to happen. We could of course, as noble Lords have said, seek to delay Article 50, but this requires the agreement of all 27 EU countries and it seems that that will be forthcoming only if the delay is for a specific reason. It also requires the Government, not Parliament, to execute this, and as of Tuesday the Government have confirmed that that will not happen.

If all that is correct, the assumption is that all that is left to debate is the manner of our departure. Presumably, one option is to go back to the EU, as several noble Lords have said, and accept Mr Tusk’s offer, repeated by Mr Barnier, of a Canada-plus-style deal. It is not perfect and there would be undoubted problems, mostly due to the short timetable, but there is no doubt that we could make it work and make it work well. It has previously been rejected on the basis that it did not solve the Irish border question. But as the United Kingdom Government have made clear, we will not erect a hard border, the Irish Government have confirmed that they will not, and now Mr Juncker has confirmed that the European Union will not. The problem of a hard border, which should never have been raised in the first place, has now largely evaporated.

The most likely scenario is that we will leave the EU without a deal on WTO terms. I recognise that many of your Lordships find this prospect alarming, frightening even. I respect those concerns. Most of them, if not all, have been addressed. If both the CEO of the port of Dover and his counterpart in Calais say that they have the resources in place to manage those changes, the onus is on those who disagree to explain exactly why, rather than simply shouting the odds repeatedly. For example, the pharmaceutical industry consists of many well-managed businesses. The idea that they have made no preparations in the last two years and are simply waiting for their UK markets to implode is ludicrous. They will manage the changes and risks in the same way that business always does.

I do not know whether Brexit will be chaos, or another millennium bug. When men such as my noble friend Lord Bamford, who is sadly not in his place today, Sir James Dyson and Sir Rocco Forte—who all personally lead their own world-class international businesses, on which their family fortunes and reputations have been built and depend—publicly state that they are confident that they will thrive on WTO terms, I take some comfort.

Let us put aside talk of people’s votes and general elections, which are not going to happen, and of delaying Article 50 or employing devious parliamentary devices to make the Government’s life more difficult. Let us focus on a successful departure from the EU on 29 March. Your Lordships can help this process or hinder it. The British people will be justifiably angry with those who put political point-scoring above our country’s best interests, which involve completing Brexit as best we can.