European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Murphy Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 21st February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Murphy (CB)]

My Lords, I am truly astonished by the events of the past eight months. The future of the country is apparently to be decided on the outcome of a single vote—as Kenneth Clarke said, an opinion poll on a simplistic yes/no question on which few had any relevant information, nor any means to acquire it. As we have heard, the noble Lord, Lord Green, of Migration Watch is of the firm opinion that it was based largely on worries about migration; it is a vaguely anti-foreigner vote. Indeed, the contributions to the debate so far, and what I have heard in the past eight months from our Government, have given me absolutely no reassurance that the people’s advice on this matter should be accepted by Parliament as the last word.

The hard Brexit that we are promised seems to make it all the more important to think again about what we are subjecting the country to. To quote from the Daily Express, the notion that one should not,

“thwart the will of the people”,

does not mean that Parliament should become the poodle of the people. On three occasions—in Denmark on the Maastricht treaty, in Ireland on the Nice treaty and in Ireland again on the Lisbon treaty—voters initially rejected an EU proposal, only to vote in favour of it in a second referendum. I was in Dublin at the time of the second vote on the Lisbon treaty in 2009, and it was clear that the ordinary voter—the non-political voter—had no more idea about the content of the treaty the second time round than they had the first time round. They were voting on their emotional warmth towards the EU. Yet here, the Government have decided to give in and go with the rather angry flow on the first vote, even though the majority recognises that it will be to the detriment of the UK, of Europe and of the world. Well, I am unwilling to abandon my conviction that we should be full members of the European Union. However imperfect—and I agree it is imperfect—it is a whole lot better than the isolationist future proposed in this Bill.

Actually, it is not just the economics of the decision that worries me, although as the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, said, nobody voted to be poorer; it is the likely adverse impact on the health of the population through our health service, and on our future achievements in science, engineering and medicine. I really detest the unpleasant anti-migrant stance being pandered to. However, I am far more worried about the failure of the long-term political determination to make Europe safe from ourselves for ourselves. It seems we have very short historical memories. I am with Kenneth Clarke, the Member who, to me at least, made the most sense in the other place. But I am also with the noble Lord, Lord Rooker: I am with Tony. And here today I am with the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, who made such sense on how we might work our way towards getting a further opinion from the population; and with the noble Baroness, Lady Symons of Vernham Dean, who as always spoke such great sense in this House.

I cannot change my mind just because other Members of this House who were remainers have decided it is now politically convenient to change sides; nor should they expect me to. While I am sympathetic to the intelligent insights of the noble Lord, Lord Hill of Oareford, into the mind of Brussels, which wants us to make up our minds fast so that we can all get on with it, when the outcome is so catastrophic, frankly, we should wait, try again and see whether we can cajole and persuade people that the emotions they have today are wrong. I will leave you with John Donne, and a poem which will mean something to us all:

“No man is an island entire of itself; every man

is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;

if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe

is the less”.

I fear that this Bill will make clods of us all, to be washed away as Europe slowly disintegrates. I will not collude with any step that seeks to distance us from our European allies, and I will support the Liberal Democrats and those others in this House who wish to amend as far as we can, but also seek to persuade that we can make things happen another way.