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

Lord Owen Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Owen (Ind SD)]

My Lords, the French have a saying that for all the ifs in the world, you could put Paris in a bottle. We have spent a lot of time on ifs in this debate. The issues will now be settled not here but in the House of Commons, and the House of Commons is pretty close to doing something which we need to be very careful about, which is to reject an international treaty that has been agreed by 27 other countries and our Government.

There was no question in the referendum that the House of Commons was to negotiate with the EU 27. There was no question but that this was to be left to Mr Cameron’s Government, because he had promised that he, his Chancellor of the Exchequer and others would stay to carry this thing through. Many mistakes have been made, and many differences that could perhaps have been addressed have not been, but we face the situation now. How do we help the House of Commons to come in the next few weeks to a better solution than it has at the moment? If there is anybody here who has come out of this with some honour and distinction, it is the Attorney-General. I think his letter to the Cabinet was noble. He was a Brexiteer, but he made it quite clear that he was extremely worried. His words were,

“the current drafting of the Protocol, including Article 19, does not provide for a mechanism that is likely to enable the UK lawfully to exit the UK wide customs union without a subsequent agreement”.

He has not changed his mind as a result of the clarification letter that came from the two Presidents, the President of the Council and the President of the Commission.

He also wrote, near the conclusion of his letter to the Cabinet, three lines that are worth repeating:

“Finally, in considering any international agreement, it is important also to take into account the changing political context in which it is to operate and that the solution to any essentially political question is rarely wholly or even predominantly legal”.


He voted, therefore, for the Government’s negotiation, warts and all. I believe and hope that the House of Commons will think very carefully before not doing the same.

The question is: how can we help? One piece of guidance to have come out of this debate—though I doubt the Members of the Commons even read our Hansard, frankly— which would be a wise decision, would be not to emphasise being able to change the withdrawal agreement too much. That is very difficult to do. The noble Lord who spoke earlier on this point is not in his place, but has experience of the European Parliament. We have to remember that that withdrawal agreement has to go back and be accepted by the European Parliament. Because the European Parliament is changing and because there are to be elections, the room for postponement—though it is undoubtedly there; let nobody be under any illusion about that, and the European Union will be helpful on this—is nowhere near as large as most people think. I think it is a matter of weeks. We want this European Parliament to make a decision over what changes may or may not be made.

Another piece of wisdom that has come out of our debate, which may help Members of Parliament, is that the political declaration is much easier to amend, so we should look at that. First, we should record the fact that all aspects of the transitional agreement are extremely helpful to this country. Not just trading questions, but City of London questions and issues that are of real importance but rarely discussed, are left open during this transitional period. The problem is that most of us are worried that we will not get a free trade area agreement by 31 December 2020, when the transitional period comes to an end. It can be extended, but remember that this transitional period is very odd. We are not actually involved in any of the issues. We are given the appearance of still being a member of the EU, but without any powers. We are paying what we would broadly be paying if we were staying in the EU—which we are, during that period—and that which we owe to the community. That is what I would call a good agreement. During that transitional period the EU gets money, which is very helpful to it with its budgetary constraints and difficulties at the moment; and we get an open agenda. It is a proper status quo—although as far as we are concerned it is also political limbo, and we will have very little impact. To extend that would be difficult. Here, I come to the one suggestion that I hope the Government will think carefully about. I have given it to them and do not know what they might do with it, but Members of Parliament might consider it.

There is a good deal of interest in the European Economic Area. It is no secret to anybody that I always thought that we would come out through the European Economic Area and use the Norway model. I was never tempted by a customs union; indeed, neither was Norway. I believe that we need the single market, which, if it continues after 31 December—if we have not reached an agreement—is a huge help to Ireland. I agree with a lot of what has been said. However tempting it may be, let us not take it out on the Irish. The 26 other nations have put them in this position, particularly—and very unwisely, in my view—the President of the Council, Donald Tusk. At one stage, he said, “What Ireland wants, Ireland gets”. You cannot have a proper negotiation on that basis. The EU has put itself on to the most sensitive border in the world with a dangerous declamatory process. It is difficult for this country to accept that we cannot at some stage pull out of this endless customs union.

Like many others, I know that we are already in the EEA and have never given notice to come out of it. There is a respectable case for that but, again, that is an “if” of history. We are here now. I suggest that in the political declaration, we ask that if on 31 December 2020, the UK wishes, as a non-EU contracting party, to be a member of the European Economic Area, it would not stand in our way but would allow it to go through. Of course, we would also have to convince the three EFTA countries. This would lead to a number of different things. We would start to have some influence on trading matters; like Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein, we would have a voice.

Secondly, we would be able to stand by our pledge to the fishing community to introduce UK management of fishing in our waters, although we would still have to consider environmental issues, for example, and negotiate. This would not necessarily have to be done, as is obviously the wish of some countries, through a free trade area agreement, which would not be appropriate. It would also give some sustenance to those people in the peripheral parts of this country who are, by and large, overwhelmingly in favour of Britain leaving. We must not do what Ted Heath did in the most disgraceful manner and completely sell out the fishing industry. I for one am not prepared to see that happen through a free trade area agreement.

That is one advantage. This idea would also put us into an organisation where, if we wanted, we could apply to continue being in the customs union. Non-EU members are not excluded from being in it; the three EFTA countries have just decided not to. It would be for the Government of the day, in the days approaching December 2020, to make a judgment on whether they wanted to enter the EEA and whether they then wanted to negotiate with the EU on being part of a customs union. That is difficult, but it can be done. This would change the atmosphere and show that the Government were listening to the people, not least in the Labour Party, who believe that the European Economic Area has merit and would be perfectly prepared to see that as our way of coming out. The Labour Party’s position is honourable: the party leader has made it clear that he would come out under the EEA and the single market, then try to negotiate a preferential deal on a customs union—the party is very optimistic about what it could get out of it—although that is not obligatory.

Those are my few suggestions. I speak as one who has had to be responsible for international treaties. At the end of the day, you must go into this with the belief that you will carry your country with you. I say to the people who advocate thrusting this aside as if it is a matter of no consequence: it is a matter of huge consequence if we do not live up to our commitments, not just to our electorate and the people who voted in the referendum and the 2017 election, but to those people from 27 countries with whom we went into negotiations. We cannot just shred the agreement and throw it away; it would be very hard to replace. We must face up to that withdrawal agreement over the next few weeks—and the sooner, the better.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Owen Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Owen (Ind SD)]

My Lords, yesterday the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, talked about the historical freight that this legislation carries. It carries a great deal, but it also carries the historical freight of referendums which have been coming into this country’s democracy for some years. We have barely mentioned 1975, but that was also a time when the country had the chance to leave or to stay, and it chose to stay. Broadly speaking, that decision has lasted until the present. There was an attempt at one time, which was finished by the election of 1983, to come out without a referendum despite a referendum’s having been given eight years earlier. That failed.

I will not say any more about this, but the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, did not mention the referendum. You cannot face this issue and ignore the decision of the referendum, but equally, you cannot talk about a United Kingdom without being aware that a substantial number of people did not vote for it and, in my view, tragically, we were split in Scotland, though not in my own nation, Wales. We have to take account of those divisions as we approach this next and most crucial stage.

One of the issues of a referendum is that you do not have manifestos about what you are going to do. You have referendums because political parties are split. What you do is charge the Government of the day with negotiating on behalf of the whole country. I believe this Government have tried to do this. It is right that we are having a debate now; it should probably have been conceded straightaway. Nevertheless, it was impossible, given that no preparation whatever had been made for this referendum by the previous Prime Minister, for the present Prime Minister to take time to look carefully at all the detailed issues and be in a position to negotiate. The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union wisely said on 2 February that,

“once we are outside the EU, the question of whether we automatically cease to be a member of the EEA becomes a legal empty vessel. We will look at that. If we do propose to withdraw from the EEA, we will come back and tell the House”.—[Official Report, Commons, 2/2/2017; col. 1227.]

It seems to me that that indicates a flexibility we all need. We have to be flexible on many things. We need to come out of the EU as quickly as we can, and I would not wait two years to do this. That is the fundamental decision as I understand it, and which I believe is virtually irrevocable as the result of the referendum.

How we handle the next few years is a very difficult question. It is becoming apparent that negotiating a trading agreement with the EU is going to be very difficult. The noble Lord, Lord Lawson, said that he thought it was virtually impossible. It will take far longer than it should and far longer than I would want. Therefore, there has been a growing recognition that there has to be a transitional period, but that transition should be after we have gone from the EU and before we have a trading agreement. In that area, there are flexibilities that we should be examining. Of course, we must first talk, as we are bound to do under Article 50, to the 27 EU member states—our friends with whom we will, as Europeans, be working in many, many fields for decades to come.

We should also talk to our other European friends—the non-EU members of the EEA. This House does not seem to understand that there is a huge difference between the single market and the EEA. There are two quite different tracks within the EEA, apart from anything else. It is beholden on us to talk to those members, and it is necessary for us to see whether a transition period could be put in place that would give us time to get what we need, and that is a trading agreement. The Government hope that it can be done by a bespoke agreement, and they have established areas in which they think they might be able to achieve this. I very much doubt whether that will be easily given, and certainly not in a short timescale.

All this time, we face a world in a fragile state, an extremely fragile European economy—look at what is happening to Greece as we talk—a dysfunctional EU that is unable to grapple with the problems of the Eurozone, and a financial situation that could get worse at almost any time over the negotiating period. Therefore, we should stage these negotiations; most negotiations actually are staged. Often, it is best to take the most difficult issues first. That is the one on which we have the clearest mandate: to come out of the EU. As to how we handle the transition period, there are flexible ways of dealing with it: it will be negotiated, but we do not know the details. As the Minister said, if they do propose to withdraw from the EEA, they will come back and tell us.

Why do I stress the EEA? The EEA has nothing to do with ever-closer union: it is an economic arrangement. There are separate surveillance mechanisms that are outside the European Court of Justice. They are also outside foreign trade, fishing and many other different aspects. It is a very different mechanism and it must be looked at, because it might be a mechanism for healing some of the wounds and for gathering a higher percentage of people in support of a policy of coming out of the EU. That must be our objective.

It is certainly not our objective to “rise up”. I hope nobody else goes to Bloomberg to make speeches. The reason we are in this mess is the speech by the former Prime Minister, David Cameron, and now we have another past Prime Minister going to Bloomberg to tell the people to “rise up”. What we need is unity, the maximum unity possible.

UK Withdrawal from the EU and Potential Withdrawal from the Single Market

Lord Owen Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Owen (Ind SD)]

My Lords, the rights of EU citizens already living in this country are a matter of honour and it is wholly appropriate that this House should direct its attention to that issue. It is not only a matter of honour for people in this country. We talk about Article 50, but Article 8 deals with good neighbourly relations between member states. Negotiation is an inaccurate word to describe our proceedings on Article 50; rather, it is a discussion. If this discussion is to produce what I call an amicable divorce, it is essential that we are all aware that there is more than Article 50, and that Article 8 should be one of the touchstones of the negotiation.

I agree with the plea of the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, in relation to British citizens who have served the European Union in many institutions. We urged them to go and work there—they were part of our membership of the European Union. We have an obligation to see that they are properly looked after in terms of redundancy and other aspects, and that the cost is borne by this country as it is our decision to leave. I believe that is also an essential element.

I mention Article 50 very briefly. It is a trap and was designed by two extremely clever people, one of whom I believe is in this House, sitting below me. The other was a former Prime Minister of Italy, Signor Amato. Both claim credit for this and boast that it was designed specifically never to be used. The more you look at it, the more surprised you are that any Government have ever used it. I have made it quite clear throughout that I do not believe it is appropriate to use Article 50 and that it would be much better to use the Vienna procedure for leaving a treaty, which has been established over many decades. Nevertheless, we are into Article 50. There is an absolute necessity for the Government not to conduct their negotiation against a cliff edge. There are various ways of doing this and I have suggested some to them. However, at the end of the day, you can certainly limit the negotiating period not to two years but to a year or a little more so that your people have some months at least in which to prepare to leave the European Union. At the moment nothing protects us from the cliff edge.

You can imagine circumstances in which you are negotiating in good faith and perhaps the 27 other member states agree with you. The matter then has to go to the European Parliament, which is famous, particularly in the run-up to elections, for delivering a bloody nose to member states to prove its own virility. The matter also has to go through the procedures of every single Parliament of the 27 member states. Let us be clear about this: the article is designed to damage a country that leaves. It is a disgraceful article and should never have been put into the treaty. It is one of the reasons many of us believe that the Treaty of Lisbon should have been subject to a referendum, and believe it was a disgrace that it was not. A lot of the damage we have suffered since entering the European Union has arisen due to the persistent view that people will not respect one another’s rights or the rights of member states. Article 50 does not respect the rights of member states.