Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration

Baroness Goldie Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, I speak in support of the Motion of my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon, and I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, for a number of reasons. He has given me an opportunity to use a sentence that I never thought I would in my political career, which is that I agree with him. The Prime Minister’s deal is unacceptable. I am not tempted to engage with the elements of his excellent speech simply because I want to change the subject.

When she opened this debate on 10 December, the noble Baroness, Lady Evans, the Leader of the House, sought to persuade us that the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration represent the national interest and that they should be considered and,

“voted on as a package in the other place”.

She described the political declaration as outlining,

“the scope and terms for our country’s future relationship with the EU”.—[Official Report, 5/12/18; col. 979.]

Others have spoken before me, such as the noble Lords, Lord Dobbs and Lord Forsyth, and it seems to me that there is much more scope in this political declaration than there are terms. That relationship, she said, included security and defence, law enforcement and criminal justice, and referred to a security partnership which the Government assert will keep our citizens safe and will require negotiation of the broadest and most comprehensive security relationship in the EU’s history.

The UK’s internal security is a matter of the greatest importance and consequently I shall confine my remarks to the internal security challenges that the Prime Minister’s deal has generated for us, although, largely, these challenges are ignored by the Government Front Bench in this place and in the other place. On occasions their treatment of this issue has been more egregious than that.

On 17 December, when Theresa May returned from the European Council she said in a Statement to the other place,

“our Brexit deal includes the deepest security partnership that has ever been agreed with the EU”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/12/18; col.527.]

At best, that language was odd; at worst, it was misleading. To clearly state that we have an agreement when no such agreement exists is misleading.

Thankfully, others were more straightforward. During the Recess, this issue dominated the news agenda for two days, on 27 and 28 December. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Cressida Dick, said in an interview on the “Today” programme that the consequences of not having a security deal—a no-deal Brexit—will,

“be more costly, undoubtedly … and potentially, yes, put the public at risk”.

In the same interview she said that our security would be lessened even if the Prime Minister’s deal is approved. That latter point received less publicity, but essentially is the issue that I want to expand on in this speech.

Apart from the Leader’s passing reference in her opening remarks to the necessity of the further work required to turn the political declaration into a legally binding treaty and the aspirational vocabulary of the declaration itself, no government spokesperson has ever given us any further information about how they plan to achieve their ambitious objective of,

“the deepest security partnership that has ever been agreed with the EU”.

Importantly, they have not admitted what they know to be the case—that the full benefit of membership of the EU in security terms cannot be replicated under the proposed deal at its very best. That was the very point that Cressida Dick made in her “Today” interview.

On 17 February 2018, at the Munich security conference, Theresa May pleaded for an urgent deal with the EU on post-Brexit security co-operation, warning:

“This cannot be a time”,


to,

“jeopardise the security of our citizens”.

Rightly, she said that the,

“threats we face do not recognise the borders of individual nations or discriminate between them”,

that a “deep and special partnership” in security was needed and that,

“we cannot delay discussions on this”.

In particular, she warned that if there is no special deal on security by the time Britain leaves, extraditions under the European arrest warrant will cease, and if the UK does not continue to be part of Europol, information sharing will be hampered, undermining the fight against terrorism, organised crime and cyberattacks, and putting all of our citizens at greater risk.

On 19 June in Vienna, in a speech at the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, Michel Barnier clearly set out the EU 27 position on security co-operation. The European arrest warrant, Europol, The Schengen Information System, the European Investigation Order, and the ability to enforce judicial decisions across Europe in real time have obvious benefits for all Europeans, he said. Co-operation of this nature is both unique and unprecedented throughout the world but, as he set out in his speech, the trust that underpins this legal infrastructure requires common rules and safeguards, shared decision-making, joint supervision and implementation and a common court of justice.

What Monsieur Barnier described was an “ecosystem”. He was blunt in saying if you leave this ecosystem, you lose the benefits of this co-operation. While explaining that the EU wants an ambitious new relationship with the UK, he admitted that realism demands that we are honest about what is possible when the UK is outside of the EU’s area of justice, freedom and security and outside of both the EU and Schengen. My intention in this speech is to give the Minister the opportunity to be honest about what is possible in these circumstances.

I remind the House that in her Statement on the December European Council, the Prime Minister could not be said to have been fully honest with us when she said that we already had the necessary security partnership with the EU. Intelligence officers, police chiefs, security officials and even the Security Minister are constantly stressing how crucial quick and efficient data exchange is to counterterrorism, policing and law enforcement co-operation, and to Europe’s security. Most of this is done through access to EU databases, to which access is limited to those with EU or Schengen membership. There is clearly no guarantee that the UK could have access to this data post-transition, and there is no precedent for a non-EU country having such access.

At Munich, Theresa May reminded us that the UK has extradited 10,000 people through the European arrest warrant. For every eight warrants issued by other member states, we issue only one. She reminded us that the EAW had played a crucial role in supporting police co-operation in Northern Ireland and is fundamental to the security situation there. I remind noble Lords that before the European arrest warrant entered into force, 13 out of the then 25 member states, including Austria, Germany and Poland, had constitutional restrictions on extraditing their citizens. Some prohibited the extradition of their own nationals for all crimes. That is the situation in which we will find ourselves with those countries post our leaving the European Union.

In her opening remarks, the noble Baroness echoed a point that has been made repeatedly by the Prime Minister and other Ministers: that negotiating requires compromise. The question that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, cannot duck in his response is: on what elements of security and to what extent are the Government willing to compromise? In the absence of an answer, the Government cannot expect our support. Nobody voted for less security when they voted for Brexit.

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

My Lords, the contributions are exceedingly interesting but overrun creep is beginning to enter the proceedings. I respectfully remind your Lordships of the advisory time limit of six minutes.

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[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I did not speak in the first debate. The speaking time is advisory. A number of noble Lords who took seven minutes before Christmas have taken another seven minutes today. I have not spoken on these issues at all, and after 19 years in this House, I think I have a right to finish my brief remarks.

Finally, to those who say another referendum would be divisive, I say this: what would be divisive is to allow a minority Government without the consent of the people to take us into a situation that would make us poorer and less influential in the world. That would be unprecedented, undemocratic and a betrayal of future generations and the will of the British people.

[Baroness Goldie]

Well, my Lords, the overrun creep has just crept to a gallop. I can only plead with your Lordships that in deference to those who have still to speak, can we please try to respect the advisory speaking time? I think all noble Lords want to try to comply with that advice. We have to consider the position of those who are still to speak whose contributions we want to hear.

[Baroness Walmsley]

I ask the government Whip to bear it in mind that the Government have unnecessarily shortened the speakers’ list for tomorrow. If they had not done so, we would have several more minutes.

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[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not support this withdrawal agreement and I will be supporting the idea of a second referendum. My first and preferred choice would be that we acted in our traditional way with representative democracy, meaning that we just sent back our letter of withdrawal from the European Union. But that is unlikely to happen—even with renewed vigour of the House of Commons. I support the Motion of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, saying that we should take no deal off the table because of its catastrophic consequences.

I have a number of questions for the Government. Do they agree that if we head towards no deal, it will be necessary for there to be legislation to address the implications of that trajectory, given that the withdrawal Act did not contemplate or put in place steps to deal with no deal? I ask that because of the great experience of the learned counsel who sits on the Front Bench to answer such questions. If there is no deal, do the Government agree that the political declaration cannot be prayed in aid by no-dealers, because it does not apply, as it is part and parcel of Mrs May’s withdrawal agreement? Therefore, it falls away as soon there is a vote against the Government’s current deal.

I want to reiterate that, along with the rule of law, our parliamentary system of representative democracy has been one of our gifts to the world—certainly to many parts of the world. It is not our tradition to run things by plebiscite. We know that some policy matters of national concern are of such complexity that they require careful research and debate and the sharing of expertise. One thing that has happened since the referendum is that the general public have been learning, in the way that all of us have, about the sheer extent of our collaborations and the benefits that have come from our work inside the European Union and being part of that trading bloc. We have had the benefits of huge quantities of information, risk analysis and economic forecasting, and professional interventions by people in business, finance, vice-chancellors of universities, academics, doctors and scientists, researchers and inventors, agriculturists, environmentalists, artists, creators, lawyers and judges, the intelligence community and indeed the police. The evidence is overwhelming that to pull out of Europe, either with this current deal or with no deal, would have serious consequences for this country and wreak havoc. I am rather pleased to see the House of Commons asserting its powers again—indeed, taking back control, as was invoked. But it is within its power to say enough, and I hope that it will consider revoking Article 50, even if only to give us more time.

Of course people would be angry if there were a second referendum and the decision to leave were reversed, but many others will be very angry if we crash out of the European Union or find that this deal will leave our children and grandchildren with dire consequences. Mrs May’s deal is being presented now as the moderate middle way. I hear that coming particularly from the Cross Benches and I want to remind people that it is not a middle, soft Brexit: it is a hard Brexit that will provide us with no protection from the economic woes coming our way. As President Trump ratchets up pressure on China through the expansion of trade tariffs, we not only have to face the consequences that other countries will have to face, but the consequences will be worse for us than for other parts of the world. The exposure of UK banks to China’s downturn exceeds the exposure of the US, the euro area or Japan and Korea combined. Analysts in the World Bank and the Bank of England have already reported on their deep concerns.

We have been told that we are ready to embrace a new golden age. Mrs May said that,

“our best days lie ahead of us”.

Who is she kidding? That is all to save face, partly because her own Ministers proved such incompetent negotiators. The markets in the UK and the US experienced their worst year last year—the worst since the financial crisis in 2008. A few lucky hedge fund managers have made fortunes from the nosedive in the values of companies in recent months but, for most, the sharp downturn is bad news—lower pension values, falling taxable revenues and greater corporate pressures. That all adds up to serious problems ahead. A lot of companies such as Apple are already feeling the pain. A lot of that is to do with the slowdown in China’s economy. Is this the time for us to leap into the unknown? Do we really trust Mr Trump and his cronies? Are we happy that Putin is so pleased with our direction of travel?

I said in the last debate that this is an elite globalisation project wrapped in a flag of nationalism and populist concerns. It is motored by ideologues, and of course they have joined forces with those with the sentimental, nostalgic feelings that many of our fellow Peers have expressed. Basically, the ideologues want deregulation at all costs. They want small government and to tear up the social contract that provides solidarity, community values, social services and care. They are people who want, as has already been said by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, to tear up the rules-based progressive internationalism of which we have been a part that was forged after World War II. They see those who do not agree with them as losers. This is the world of Mr Trump, Mr Bannon and Mr Farage, and the world of Messrs Johnson and Rees-Mogg. They are basically unpicking so much of the stuff that we have worked for since World War II.

The people of this country were lied to. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Trevethin and Oaksey, that this is a plot against our democracy, but not by people who want to remain in Europe. It is a plot by people like Dominic Cummings and the people who put together that campaign, which lied to the British people and defrauded them. He asked, “Have you ever felt cheated?” Well, people will feel very cheated when the full extent of Russia’s involvement, of foreign money involvement, of the Mercers, of Cambridge Analytica and the whole ghastly business of the corruption of that first referendum will come to light. Then people will seriously feel that there was a plot against their democracy.

I am therefore going to vote down this withdrawal agreement and hope that our colleagues in the other place will receive resounding encouragement from all of us in this House to say that there should certainly be no question of no deal, but also of no withdrawal agreement as it is currently being presented.

[Baroness Goldie]

My Lords, I respectfully draw your attention to the advisory time limit. Mission overrun is with us again.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws]

Nothing was said about two previous speakers, who spoke for far longer than I did from the Conservative Benches.

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[Baroness Goldie]

My Lords, I endeavour to try and keep an eye on the general pace of progress. All I am observing is that we have re-entered an arena of overrun. I am in your Lordships’ hands. This is a self-regulating Chamber but the advisory time limit is six minutes.