Brexit: UK International Relations

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I join others in very much missing the wise presence of the noble Lord, Lord Howell. I wish him well.

Brexit does not mean that Britain’s place in world affairs will diminish or recede. On the contrary, far from declining, we can now be a more influential voice for the maintenance of peace in international affairs and co-operation with like-minded countries. No longer 1/28th of a voice, whose aims and ideas are suppressed by others, Britain will have a strong independent position on the Security Council and in relation to NATO, and the opportunity to maintain good relations with the USA. No matter what views are held on President Trump’s record, any one four-year presidency should present little risk to the 100-year history of a close relationship between the two countries. It is a good sign that the Prime Minister is visiting and that the President has expressed keen interest in a trade deal, whereas the EU has never managed to conclude such a deal with the US.

In the United Nations the UK’s position could be even stronger for there will be no EU competition for influence in the Security Council. EU views can competently be put by France. Indeed, the whole idea of a seat for the European Union as a whole in the UN, or in other international bodies concerned with foreign affairs, has come up repeatedly against a real stumbling block: the EU’s inability to agree on a foreign policy or to have one at all. There is no sign of a unified EU policy towards Syria—Assad or no Assad—or Russia, and its meddling with the Israel-Palestine situation has not improved matters.

British foreign policy, once freed from entanglement with the EU, can make progress, and we can start to challenge Turkey on its serious breaches of human rights and the rule of law. Out of the EU, we will not need to flirt with Turkey or be blackmailed by it over migrants. Our Government should invest more in its relationship with the UN and should develop other relationships, including with, but not limited to, the Commonwealth, which should never have been neglected.

Brexit must allow NATO to flourish. It should not continue to be deprived of its rightful share of resources by the refusal of most EU states to pay their contributions. Their failure no doubt helped to create the impression in President Trump’s mind that it is obsolete. One hopes that the Prime Minister will be able to persuade the US President of the importance of NATO, and that it will be a vital channel of US-UK influence and interests without having to consider what the strategy of the other 27—if there is one—might be. Britain will have to step up to international defence, even on behalf of the other 27. Germany in particular, for understandable reasons, has failed sufficiently to express to its people European ideals and aims, and its Government have left a vacuum that is being filled by the far right. The far right and anti-Muslim sentiments are on the rise in Austria, Poland, Croatia and Hungary. Walls are going up all over Europe, which has its own mini Trumps. Europe’s need to struggle against those movements will distract the EU from a more global role.

Next, on security, in the EU it seems to have gone from bad to worse. After the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris and the 2016 terrorist attacks in Brussels, which showed how weak the measures were for sharing intelligence across Europe and how vulnerable the lack of borders made us when it came to tracing terrorists, the European Counter Terrorism Centre was set up. But then came the Berlin Christmas market attack, which is prima facie evidence of no improvement.

Being a member of the EU has undermined the UK’s relationship with other countries in security matters, because some of the member states are not trusted. Some have close ties with Russia or are plain incompetent. The former US Attorney-General Loretta Lynch warned that the planned EU data protection law would stand in the way of transatlantic information sharing, and a former CIA director said that the European Union,

“in some ways gets in the way”,

of security services. Not only is there little confidence in EU intelligence-sharing, but the EU itself has attacked Britain’s intelligence-sharing agreements with other countries, which have been at the heart of security policy since the end of the Second World War. Therefore, all in all, our international, security, United Nations and world position can only grow in stature once free of the impossible task of formulating foreign policy with 27 other countries with wildly different aims and standards.