Brexit: Date of Exit

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

I understand very much the concerns of my noble friend, but there are two processes in play here. There is the Article 50 process, which is a matter of international and European law, and the domestic EU withdrawal Act, which had to be changed to reflect that new date using secondary legislation powers in the Act, which were extensively debated at the time, as he will recall. Following that, there were debates in both Houses that then agreed those dates.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that national sovereignty in a peaceful world order is not something which allows you to tell everyone else to sod off whenever you want, but is the right to negotiate with others on mutually acceptable rules for international order? Can he explain the evident contradiction between what the ERG and the Bruges Group have been saying for the last three years—that we have absolutely no influence over decisions of the European Council—and recent remarks by spokesmen for those two groups that if we stay in the European Union for the next year, we can block it and impose an effective veto on what it wants to do?

[Lord Callanan]

I think I need to apologise to the noble Lord: I thought I was here to answer questions on behalf of the Government, but apparently he thinks I am now here to answer questions on behalf of the ERG. I suggest that the best way for him to get answers to his questions is to pose them to the gentlemen who made those statements.