European Union Referendum (Date of Referendum etc.) Regulations 2016

Lord Willoughby de Broke Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Willoughby de Broke (UKIP)]

My Lords, I was going to make a long speech about my nanny, but the noble Lord, Lord Russell, has discouraged me from doing that. I do not want to go over the outcome of the Prime Minister’s negotiations in detail, but it is worth pointing out that, after three days of hard slog, all-night meetings, working lunches, working suppers, posturing photo opportunities and communiques, the result was the status quo—nothing much has changed.

I suppose that that might be considered slightly unfair. In fact, the Prime Minister has already said that the UK can now veto the Commission’s proposals, so long as 15 other member states raise the red card as well. I call that a pretty long shot, I must say. We will be allowed to pay EU immigrants more benefits the longer they stay in this country. I suppose that that is another win, is it? The EU will agree to become more competitive—that must have been a very tough one to argue. I can just imagine the other 27 representatives of member states saying, “No, we want to be less competitive”, but I suppose that after eight hours of hard bargaining the Prime Minister got his way and won that one. He also said that sterling is a separate currency to the euro—how much negotiation did that take, I wonder?—and that London is the capital of the United Kingdom. That was not in the final communique, but it was about the sort of achievement we got.

So after all the promises—such as the Bloomberg debate, which the noble Lord, Lord Fairfax, mentioned, where the Prime Minister set out his vision for a fundamentally reformed, outward-looking EU with powers flowing back to member states, or his speech to the Conservative Party conference in 2014, when he promised to cut immigration, repeal the Human Rights Act and repatriate powers from Brussels—all the travel, the grim hours of all-night negotiation and all the English breakfasts, the PM has come back with not one power returned, and not one line in the treaty altered. The PM is like a conjuror who has gone to the party with his hat but has forgotten the rabbit. He has not even produced the most myxomatosed rabbit out of his hat.

We will still have to pay £20 billion a year to the EU institution—a good name for it. It is an institution whose accounts have failed its own audit for the last 20 years. We will still be unable to control our own borders. We will not have repatriated a single power back to the UK Parliament after those negotiations. Our laws will still be proposed and enforced by the unelected Commission in Brussels and voted through by the Council of Ministers, where we have a very weak voice indeed and where we are, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, said, routinely outvoted.

The Prime Minister’s reforms have been routinely rather rubbished, I am afraid—quite rightly—so they have had to fall back on the scare tactics. I will not go into them; we have heard a lot of them tonight from our Europhile friends. Their weakness is that they said exactly the same thing about the euro—that we would be marginalised and excluded from the top table, and no one would trade with us if we did not join. Of course, the reverse is entirely the case. We have created more jobs in the last three years than the whole of the eurozone put together. Far from being marginalised, we trade all over the world very successfully. The Europhiles who told us to go into the euro were wrong then and they are wrong now when they tell us we will be lost if we do not stay in the EU.

It is very depressing to hear these forecasts of doom about if we leave. Do the Europhiles really believe that Britain would be unable to govern itself outside the EU? We are, after all—as we heard before—the fifth-largest economy in the world. London is the world’s financial centre. We have four of the world’s top 10 universities. English is the world’s default language. We have a permanent seat on the United Nations council and we have the fourth-largest Armed Forces in the world. Britain is the eurozone’s biggest single market—bigger than the USA. We are Germany’s biggest single market—bigger than the USA. Is it really so difficult to imagine us living outside the EU? I do not think that it is. I remind the House—I think someone else said this—that there are 195 nations in the United Nations; 168 of them get by very well without being members of the EU. So can we.

I suppose that this debate is to celebrate Mr Cameron’s achievement in Brussels, entitled The Best of Both Worlds. No: it is the worst of both worlds, because we have gained nothing and remain subservient to the EU. It is time to leave—time to run our own country again.

European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Willoughby de Broke Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Lords Chamber

Naturally, I am ready to answer questions but I hope that noble Lords feel able to support the government amendments and will not press theirs.

[Lord Willoughby de Broke (UKIP)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for her reply to my amendment, which would ensure that bodies need to be designated before the 10-week period. If the noble Baroness will repeat her assurance, I will be very happy to withdraw the amendment. I do not want to waste the House’s time. Everybody is well aware why designated bodies need as long a period as possible during which they are designated in order to campaign effectively, because of financial and other reasons. In the light of the noble Baroness’s remarks, I shall not press my amendment.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 11 and will respond to the Minister’s very full explanation of how the Government now intend to proceed. I express my gratitude to the Minister for listening carefully to our debate in Committee, when this amendment received support from all sides of the House, and for the courtesy with which she has consulted on the matter in advance of this debate. I am entirely happy to leave it in her hands, to be dealt with by a government amendment introduced at Third Reading. I hope that that amendment will cover not just gaming but pretty well any other happenstance that might occur. Heaven knows, it is probably an “unknown unknown” but the best way to ensure that it does not damage the referendum process is to make an amendment of this sort to the Bill.

I leave this issue in the hands of the Minister and the Government, confident that they will find a way to deal with it, in which case, of course, I doubt that the provision will ever need to be used. That would be very satisfactory, as it would be much better if there were two designated institutions slugging it out in what will be a vigorous national debate. However, we do need to make sure that this issue is addressed. With that, I state my intention not to press the amendment, and again thank the Minister for the efforts she has made so far and encourage her to go further down that road.

European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Willoughby de Broke Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Ely]

Of course I understand that we have to wait for Royal Assent, but people could start to gear up: they could be given an indication that this is on its way. It is in the hands of the Government to determine whether that happens. We could gain a couple of months if the Government got on with the job right now, now that we have had a clear indication from this House of the way we want to go

Of course we want proper registration. We have spoken to the Electoral Commission, which has made it clear that it thinks it can do this within a nine-month time frame. The electoral administration authorities have said the same thing. Electoral registration officers at local authority level, given resources, can also deliver it. We now have a rolling registration process. There is no cut-off date, as in the past. None of us knows the timing of the referendum. None of us knows whether the Prime Minister will be able to convince other member states of the merits of his reforms.

I agree that we need to make sure that there is sufficient time. I do not know how long that is, and I would like to know what the Electoral Commission thinks is sufficient time before agreeing to the amendment. Given the earlier vote and the clear indication from this House, I suggest that the Minister look seriously at what needs practically to be put in place, but the amendment is unnecessary.

[Lord Willoughby de Broke (UKIP)]

The noble Baroness made light of the Electoral Commission’s recommendations. In the last paragraph on page 4 of its briefing, on registration, it states:

“This would need to be reinforced by significant public awareness activity at both the national and local level. Political literacy initiatives may also be needed, as were targeted working schools and other educational institutions to help get the message out to these groups quickly. Additional funding would also be needed to make sure that these activities could be delivered by EROs, the Commission and other relevant bodies”.

It is not a matter of snapping your fingers, waving a stick and saying, “It’s done”. It will take a long time, and I am sure that the right thing is to accept the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton. I hope that the House will agree with him.

European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Willoughby de Broke Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Willoughby de Broke (UKIP)]

My Lords, I do not think that this amendment has any merit whatever. As the noble Lord on the Cross Benches said, in no other country do foreign nationals have a right to vote at all—ever.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

The noble Lord does not want us to be associated with any other country, so if we were different would that not please him?

[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

I do not see the point of that intervention at all. I was going to say that, because there is no reciprocity, there is no reason for us to give European citizens the vote in what is a purely national matter, in spite of what the noble Baroness said. She said herself that we do not know what is going to happen with European citizens if and when we vote to leave. People live here because they like living here, not because we are a member of the EU, so that will not change at all.

[Lord Liddle]

One reason why so many EU citizens who have not become British nationals as a result of marrying British people live here is that we are a member of the EU and they feel that they are treated on the same basis as British citizens. You are dividing people who see themselves as British residents and have committed their lives to this country, and you are wrong.

[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

I am so sorry if I am wrong.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords—

[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

Perhaps I may just finish my speech. The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, said that foreign citizens come here because we are in the EU. That is not the case at all. A lot of them, including the French, come here precisely because it is a different country. They do not come here because we are in the EU. Actually, in one sense they are leaving the EU. They are leaving their high-tax, lower-employment and failing economy. That is why they come here and that is not going to change. However, that does not alter the fact that it is completely wrong to enfranchise foreign nationals to vote in a British election. It has never happened before. I was in France for the 2005 constitutional election, which the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, will remember. I would have loved to have voted with the French to vote down the constitution but I had to cheer from the side-lines when they did. I was not allowed to vote. I see no reason whatever for agreeing to this amendment. People can live here and, if they want to vote, they can take British nationality.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I remind the Committee that the Companion advises against the use of the word “you”.

Criminal Justice and Data Protection (Protocol No. 36) Regulations 2014

Lord Willoughby de Broke Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lawson of Blaby (Con)]

My Lords, I sense the mood of the House, so I shall be very brief indeed. Who knows, maybe it will set an example to others—but I am not holding my breath.

I shall focus exclusively on the issue of the European arrest warrant, which is at the heart of this matter. There is no dispute whatever that mutual extradition arrangements between us and our friends across the Channel are vital. The issue is that identified by my noble friend Lord Lamont of whether we would do better to rejoin the European arrest warrant—to opt back into it—or to negotiate bilaterally with the other member countries of the European Union, or the European Union as a bloc.

I have no doubt that on economic grounds alone, this country would be far better off outside the European Union. If that were the case, as I hope it will be in due course, then of course we will negotiate such bilateral agreements, as we have done with most of the other countries in the world. Some of those agreements are not so satisfactory but others are perfectly satisfactory, so that is what we would do. The question, as my noble friend, for whom I have very high regard, said, is whether we can do that while remaining within the European Union. My belief is that that is not an option and that—I may be mistaken—so long as we remain within the European Union, we have to opt back in to the European arrest warrant if we want mutual extradition arrangements, which are essential.

Can my noble friend Lord Faulks, who is an outstanding legal brain and knows everything far better than anybody else in this august House, say clearly and categorically whether the alternative proposed by my noble friend Lord Lamont is an option? If it is an option, why did the Government reject it or is it, as I sadly believe, not an option? I look forward to his reply.

[Lord Willoughby de Broke (UKIP)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lawson, and I will certainly follow his recommendation to be very brief. He is of course absolutely right to say that on constitutional grounds, extradition should be a matter for our own courts and not for the European Court of Justice. No matter how the Government try to play this and finesse it, the fact is that through this measure of opting in we are handing over the rights of extradition from our own courts to the European Court of Justice.

The noble Lord, Lord Lamont, made the point that we would be handing our citizens over to very different systems of justice. For example, there would be no habeas corpus, no protection from trial in absentia, no right to silence and no requirement for prima facie evidence to justify extradition. This is a major transfer of power that really cannot be justified by anything that I have heard so far, certainly not to satisfy the Government’s rather rushed timetable. As someone said, the Government have now had more than four years to consider this matter and here we are, only two weeks from the deadline with the Government still trying to push it through.

Neither is this all justified on the grounds of satisfying police leaders, who claim that they need these powers to protect the public from dangerous criminals. Like the Government, the police always want more powers. Some noble Lords will remember when they wanted the power to detain suspects for 90 days. After a very long debate, led by the Liberal Democrat Benches, this House denied the police those powers that they asked for. I do not think that the ceiling fell in after that.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

Perhaps the noble Lord would take into account the fact that the police are not asking for more powers. They are asking to not have fewer powers.

[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

I will accept that distinction but our joining the ECJ will in fact give them more powers—and the police always want more powers, as I have said.

I must remind noble Lords that far from being an efficient tool of justice, the European arrest warrant has been, in many cases, the cause of serious injustice. There was the case which the noble Lord mentioned, which I will not go into, of Andrew Symeou. He also mentioned Fair Trials International, which has brought to my attention one of the cases that it mentions. It is of an Italian, Mr Edmond Arapi, who was subject to extradition from Britain to serve 16 years in a prison for a murder in a city in which he never committed the crime and had never visited. The murder was committed on a day when he was actually at work in the UK. What Mr Arapi said was—this was reported by Fair Trials International, so I presume it is correct:

“I had overwhelming evidence that I could not have committed the crime yet they didn’t care. All they cared about was following the procedures of the arrest warrant, and I spent six weeks in jail as a result”.

I really do not think that that is the EU arrest warrant working as perfectly as the noble Lord on the Labour Benches said. It is yet another reason why we should not go back into this extraordinary arrangement and not give our powers away like this.

Prisoners: Voting

Lord Willoughby de Broke Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they intend to respond to the ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in April that they should make proposals to grant prisoners the vote within six months of that ruling.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, the Government are considering the next steps and Parliament will be the first to be informed when the decisions on the way forward have been reached.

[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for that helpful reply, but it does not take us very much further. In February this year, the other place voted by a majority of 212 against giving prisoners the vote, and during the passage of the EU Bill the Government made great play of the sovereignty of Parliament. Which body is actually sovereign? Is it the UK Parliament or the European Court of Human Rights?

[Lord McNally]

On the question of the commitments made last April, we have promised to make our position clear on 11 October. On the question of sovereignty, of course this Parliament remains sovereign. In many cases over the years, Britain has signed up to conventions and treaties as the will of Parliament, and that is still the case with regard to the European Convention on Human Rights.