European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Lord Taverne Excerpts

3rd reading & 2nd reading & Committee negatived & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taverne (LD) [V]]

My Lords, when Chamberlain came back from Berchtesgaden with a piece of paper proclaiming “peace in our time”, he was greeted with almost universal acclaim. When Johnson came back from Brussels with his free trade agreement, he was greeted with adulatory praise from most of the Conservative press and his party. It was, he announced, the realisation of the claims made for Brexit in the referendum and in the last Conservative manifesto. Well, will it really be the journey into the sunlit uplands? Not according to the vast majority of economists, for reasons powerfully argued in this debate by several speakers. I believe that Johnson’s Panglossian optimism will prove no more justified than Chamberlain’s belief in “peace in our time”.

We will probably continue to wallow in nostalgic complacency: “We are the best, especially when we are fighting alone”, “We won the war”, “We have a special relationship with the United States and the Commonwealth —who needs the Europeans?” As a result, we are likely to fall behind our European colleagues in economic growth; we already have the lowest productivity of any advanced European country. The great deal that Johnson has will be no help to our services industry, which makes up 80% of our wealth. There is great uncertainty among manufacturers about the new bureaucratic delays at borders. In addition, we may well find that Johnson has created an irresistible desire for independence in Scotland, which wishes to remain part of the EU, and may set Northern Ireland on the path to a referendum for a united Ireland. Part of Johnson’s legacy could well mean the end of the United Kingdom, leaving us as a relatively small, chauvinistic and isolated country with very little influence in an increasingly hostile world. Is that really what Brexiteers voted for?