Leaving the European Union

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

Well, my Lords, another day, another Statement. I am grateful to the noble Baroness the Leader of the House for repeating today’s Statement.

Exactly 886 days have passed since the EU referendum, and it is more than 600 days since the Prime Minister wrote to the President of the European Council to invoke Article 50. At that point, the clock started ticking. Many of us struggled to understand why, in her Lancaster House speech, the Prime Minister tied her own hands with a series of hard red lines. Having set out what appeared to be a hard Brexit before talks had even begun, the most enthusiastic Brexiteers felt emboldened.

The problem for the Prime Minister is that all too often, rather than taking a clear position, she has sought to please one or other of the many camps in her own party, and her message at home has at times been different in both tone and content from her message to the EU. So, as time went on and with negotiations stalling, Mrs May had to fly to Florence to extend an olive branch to the EU 27. But for many of our EU neighbours their good will had already been tested. After she failed once again to make a breakthrough in Brussels, the Cabinet met at Chequers in July, agreeing a proposal that could not even survive a weekend before the first Brexit Secretary resigned, goading Boris Johnson, the then Foreign Secretary, to follow suit. Despite such high-profile resignations, the Prime Minister insisted that her way was the only way. She was clear: there is no alternative. That has a familiar ring. As ever, she forged on.

I have reflected before that the Prime Minister’s strategy is to live in the moment—to simply get through each week at a time. This has never been as true as it is now. Last week, with a defiant flourish, the Prime Minister presented the political declaration to Parliament, which was a clear admission that the Chequers deal was dead in the water—the deal that she had defended so strongly. Yet again we are told that this is the only proposal on the table—the only show in town. I think I am not alone in failing to understand why the Prime Minister is continuing on this course. She must know that her deal, which is little more than a blind Brexit, cannot possibly win a majority in the other place. As we discussed on Thursday’s Statement, it is pretty much an aspiration without promises or guarantees.

The Prime Minister also knows that no deal would be as disastrous for UK families, communities and businesses, yet she continues to present this flawed, inadequate deal as though it is “my deal or no deal” and seeks to pray in aid EU Presidents Juncker and Tusk. I can understand senior EU figures lending their support to the Prime Minister at this exceptionally precarious time in her premiership. But, despite the Prime Minister’s “carry on regardless” approach, there are other options on the table, including that, as Michel Barnier has always been clear, the EU’s offer can, and will, evolve if the UK changes its red lines. This is in relation not just to the withdrawal agreement but to the terms of the future relationship as well.

We have been very clear that we could accept a deal only if it delivered a permanent UK-EU customs union, a strong, ongoing relationship with the single market and high-level protection for workers, consumers and the environment. Also, it remains obvious that too little consideration was initially given by the Government to the complex issues affecting Northern Ireland and the Good Friday agreement. That is equally true of Gibraltar, which I first raised in your Lordships’ House just four months after the referendum in 2016; for both, the details have yet to be resolved. So, this deal does not deliver on the key priorities. Indeed, leaked emails describing it as “not a good deal” explain last week’s lacklustre response from the CBI. In fact, the only support the Prime Minister has been able to garner is pretty lukewarm and seems to be more about the fear of a no-deal exit if she cannot get her deal.

There are many, many questions that I could ask the noble Baroness the Leader of the House. I know that she has been inundated with questions in response to recent Statements; it is always hard to answer everything. I therefore want to be very clear and straight to the point with just two questions: does she consider that the deal before us is the very best that is available? And does she consider that the deal before us is better than what we currently have?

If Ministers are unable to honestly answer yes to both these questions, then they have failed all those who voted in the referendum, whichever way they voted.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the Leader for repeating the Statement. We now have the agreement signed and sealed; the time for wishful thinking is over. Given the constraints that she imposed upon herself, I agree with the Prime Minister when she says that she has probably reached the best deal available. Even if she had had a dream team of negotiators, drawn from the Brexiteers normally to be found on the Conservative Privy Council Bench in your Lordships’ House, she could not have achieved the “cake and eat it” deal which so many of them have advocated.

In normal circumstances, we would now concentrate on questioning the Government on what they meant in various particularly vague clauses of the political declaration. We might, for example, probe paragraph 107, which is about space and simply reads:

“The Parties should consider appropriate arrangements for cooperation on space”.


This is not a policy on space; it is a waste of space. We might equally probe paragraphs 73 to 76 on fishing. But the truth is that there is absolutely no point in worrying about the details of the declaration because it is now abundantly clear that it will not be approved by the Commons, and this is despite the time-honoured Whips’ tactic of offering baubles to wavering Conservative MPs. Clearly the offer of a knighthood does not do the trick. I would be extremely worried if I were the noble Lord, Lord Burns; I suspect that his hopes for reducing the size of your Lordships’ House are now in vain.

The Government are promising us an economic assessment of the consequences of the deal later this week. We already have one today from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, which estimates that the cost of the deal could be up to £1,100 per person by 2030. I know that some people will pooh-pooh this, as they do all forecasts, but no reputable forecast argues that we will be better off, and I suspect that later in the week the Treasury will confirm that. Therefore, I ask the Leader of the House why the Prime Minister repeatedly claims that her deal is good for the economy. It clearly is not.

If the deal is dead, what are the options? There is much discussion among fevered Conservative MPs about plan Bs, but the problem for them is that all these plans have been examined and rejected by the Government because they are either practically or politically unworkable, and they have not become more workable now.

The Prime Minister is right to say in the Statement that voting against the deal would take us “back to square one”, if by that she means that the only realistic alternative to the deal is remaining in the EU. Can the Leader confirm that this is indeed what these words mean?

In her letter to colleagues yesterday, the Prime Minister said that no one should be in any doubt that that there are some who want a second referendum, which she then bizarrely describes as a politician’s vote—Alice in Wonderland in action. Well, too right—they do want a referendum on whether this deal is better than continued EU membership. I suspect that the 59% of people in her own constituency who would now vote remain would like a vote, as would the 56% of the population as a whole who would now vote to remain.

I understand that the Prime Minister is about to embark on a nationwide tour to promote the Brexit deal. Given that she knows that the deal is dead in the Commons, I can only assume that these are in fact her opening shots in a campaign to win popular support in advance of a people’s vote on the deal. We look forward to joining her on the campaign trail.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I thank the noble Baroness and the noble Lord for their comments. In relation to the noble Baroness’s comments on Gibraltar, we have ensured that Gibraltar is covered by the whole of the withdrawal agreement and implementation period. Our position on Gibraltar’s sovereignty has not changed and will not change. The words of the Chief Minister quoted in the Statement were strong. They showed our commitment to Gibraltar during the negotiations, and that will continue.

This deal will deliver an economic partnership with the EU closer than that enjoyed by any other country, and it will ensure an unprecedented security partnership. It is a good deal and, as Donald Tusk, Jean-Claude Juncker and Michel Barnier have all said, it is the best one available.

The noble Lord, Lord Newby, asked about Galileo. Of course we have been in discussions with the EU about this, but we could not depend on Galileo for defence and security on the basis of the existing and proposed security restrictions for third countries. We are therefore rapidly advancing the development of a domestic system that will fulfil our defence and security needs and support the world-leading British space sector.

The noble Lord also talked about the vote, and of course it will be one of the most significant votes that Parliament has held for many years. However, as the Statement made clear, we do not know what will happen if the deal does not pass. All we do know is that further uncertainty and division would inevitably follow, and I do not believe that any of us wants that for this country.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

As we still have time for the noble Baroness to reply, will she answer the second question that I asked? Does she consider that the deal before us is better than what we currently have?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I said, this deal will deliver a strong economic partnership with the EU and will allow us to develop an independent trade policy—so we will have a bright future going forward under this deal.