Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration

Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank (LD)]

My Lords, for more than two and a half years, Theresa May, the Prime Minister, has been immensely busy and resilient, despite her rebellious House of Commons troops behind her. For that, I give her credit, as others in the House have done. If it had been a peaceful political time, she might have done rather well as a Prime Minister. But this is not a peaceful time and she has become a loser on the crucial and historic issue of Brexit.

I was of a generation that grew up just after the end of World War II. On a cross-party basis, we dreamed of a better and more prosperous Britain and no more wars. On the crucial vote in the House of Commons on 28 October 1971, I helped 69 Labour Members of Parliament to vote for Europe, despite a three- line Whip against. Then, despite ups and downs, disappointments and unevenness between different regional and local parts of the country, we set upon 40 years of remarkable success.

So, given the outcome of the referendum, I was dismayed and profoundly shocked. However, in the July 2016 post-referendum Lords debate, I said, with great sadness, that:

“Whatever is done is done. …We cannot reverse the outcome by stealth”.


All I could hope for was that Britain would,

“stay as close as possible to our European partners in friendship and to mutual advantage”.—[Official Report, 6/7/16; col. 2039.]

When friends and colleagues began to talk of another referendum, I was warm but sceptical. I assumed that a new era would fall into place, uneasy, diminished in the world and damaging, but—up to a point—credible. But that has not happened. Neither the Government, nor the official Opposition, nor the Brexit ideologues had done their homework in advance in measuring the possible consequences of losing a referendum.

As a result, at every stage through these years, with every new analysis, with every report and with every forecast, the news has been bad and getting worse. The voters at the referendum were wholly unaware of what happened to be the grim future realities. When the Prime Minister reported last month on her visit to the Argentina summit, she said that Britain was looking forward to future trade agreements. She said:

“Once we leave the EU, we can and we will strike ambitious trade deals”,


and,

“forge new and ambitious economic partnerships”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/12/18; col. 529.]

Then a week ago, the Foreign Secretary rejoiced at trade prospects in Singapore and Malaysia.

But there is no evidence whatever that there will be frictionless trade to compensate for the loss of European Union business. The long debates in this House on the Trade Bill showed that trade negotiations are always complex, painful and slow. The Prime Minister dreams of the distant sunny uplands, but self-deceit is the most commonplace instinct for all political leaders.

In that respect, for a Conservative Prime Minister with a sense of history, I give high marks to Harold Macmillan both for the wind of change and everything on Europe. Much earlier, in 1938, he published a book called The Middle Way: A Study of the Problem of Economic and Social Progress in a Free and Democratic Society. He wrote about unemployment, insecurity and poverty. Harold Macmillan would be turning in his grave at the outcome of Mrs May’s proposals.

As the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, said in the incomplete debate in December,

“we are voting in this legislation to make this country poorer”,—[Official Report, 5/12/18; col. 1038.]

and my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire said that,

“inequality, poverty and social divisions”,—[Official Report, 5/12/18; col. 1011.]

would not be resolved by the Government’s flawed proposals.

As the Government have spent so much time and energy in getting nowhere, I acknowledge that efforts have been made to find realistic alternatives. All involve risk and uncertainty and the EU27 has its own view, but for me, another referendum is now the overwhelming best option available.

It is not my habit to take part in political marches, but in my 90th year I was proud to join 700,000 men and women in favour of another referendum. If need be, I shall march again.