Queen’s Speech

Lord Watson of Richmond Excerpts

Wednesday 28th June 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watson of Richmond (LD)]

My Lords, one of the realities of this debate and of our predicament is that none of us is where we thought we were going to be. That is true of all the parties represented in this House, but it is also true of the country. I remind noble Lords that for months if not years before the referendum took place we were told, certainly by much of the media and many people in public life, that the European project was bankrupt, that it was failing, that the euro was a disastrous enterprise and that, by implication therefore, the very best thing that we could do as a country was to get out of it as soon as we could. That was certainly a motor behind the result of the referendum itself.

Where are we? Well, where we are is the election of Macron in France, the almost certain re-election of Merkel in Germany and, therefore, the extreme probability that the Franco-German axis—unfortunate word, but there we are, it is used—will be fully re-established within the European Union. The European Union, as an economic area, and the euro itself are both accumulating value and doing very well. So, far from dealing with a cripple, we are actually dealing with a rejuvenated centre of European integration. That is not what we expected, but it is what we are now confronted with—and it is a major challenge. In these circumstances, I agree with the appeal made by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, wonderfully expressed, for humility. I think we would be right not only to approach one another with humility but to approach the European position with a certain degree of realistic humility.

There are three things we have to be very careful about. First, no side in this argument has a monopoly on patriotism and no side should accuse another of being motivated by a lack of it—because that is not the truth. Nor should the charge of patriotism deficit, as it is sometimes called, be used in attempts to bully or coerce the other side of the argument. It has been brought up in the press and other comments and I was horrified by Andrea Leadsom’s attempt to silence her “Newsnight” interviewer by saying: “It would be helpful if broadcasters were willing to be a bit patriotic, because the country took a decision and the Government is determined to deliver on that decision”. That was a threat.

Secondly, we must be very careful and clear, on both sides, on what we claim that decision to have been. It was a decision which, as we know, divided the nation, both horizontally and vertically, and still does—London from much of England, Scotland from England and so on. We all know the divisions and those divisions are not getting any better. We are now confronted with dealing with the reality, as has been said in this debate, that the referendum was not a decision for a hard Brexit or, indeed, for a soft one. The question was not asked nor answered by the referendum. Nor was it, of course, by the general election. It has been written of that result that, while it may not have changed the physics of Brexit, by God it changed the chemistry. I believe that to be profoundly right.

In fact, what we are dealing with is, again, not the situation that anybody anticipated. Your Lordships will remember that the mantra that the Prime Minister used as she entered the general election was “strong and stable”—and then somebody wrote in one of the newspapers, “Well, of course, the last time that mantra was really used publicly was by the White Star Line in 1912”. So to seek to obscure the meaning of the general election for Brexit, it is certainly misleading to claim, as has been done, that 85% of Britons somehow backed Brexit during the general election because both Labour and the Tories had it in their manifesto. People did not think they were voting about Brexit. They were told the election was going to be about Brexit—but, as we all know, it was not.

On the Tory side, it is a relief to me—and, I suspect, to many in this Chamber—that the Chancellor has had the realism to note that the electorate did not vote to become poorer or less secure or to risk the economy crashing. In his recent speech in Berlin to the CDU, he rejected the Foreign Secretary’s claim that Brexit will let us have our cake and eat it. How right he was. Maybe he was not being patriotic expressing that view to the CDU in Berlin—but nevertheless he did.

Finally, in achieving the outcome that we want, we have to prioritise access to the single market and the customs union. Self-exclusion from both makes a nonsense of any real commitment to free trade. The EU is Britain’s biggest free trade area. We should listen more carefully than we appear to be doing to the views expressed by business. The conference of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders—the SMMT—which took place last week has already been mentioned in this debate. It said that the fact is that over 50% of all the cars we make in this country not only are partly made with parts that come from the single market but they go to the single market, and that it is simply impossible for our motor industry to survive what might be called the worst of all outcomes: no outcome at all. The cliff is not a place to cross.

So let us be careful and clear, and let us be honest about the meaning of the referendum and, indeed, the harder-to-read verdict of the general election, which undoubtedly changed the chemistry of the Brexit debate. Let us prioritise the economic well-being of the British people, because the one thing on which they have expressed a clear view is that they do not wish to be made poorer.