Brexit: UK International Relations

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, like the noble Lords, Lord Reid and Lord Jopling, I am a member of the International Relations Committee. I express my hope that the noble Lord, Lord Howell, recovers quickly, and my thanks to him for getting today’s debate on to the agenda. What a timely debate it is.

The International Relations Committee was set up in 2016. Our very first meeting was either just a week before or the week after the referendum on whether the UK should remain in the EU. We decided that as our first piece of work we would look at the United Nations and the priorities for its incoming Secretary-General, but almost all our evidence sessions have taken at least one question on what Brexit is going to mean, whether for our relations with the United Nations, the Commonwealth or the United States, and what our role in the world is going to be.

One thing that came out very clearly from the evidence sessions was the importance of the United Kingdom working closely with our European allies. The government line was: when we leave the European Union, we will be leaning more closely to the other alliances, to the United Nations, to NATO. Other evidence-givers suggested that that is all very well, but the United Kingdom on its own, outside the European Union, is perhaps not as influential as it likes to think. Yes, we are a permanent member of the Security Council at the United Nations, but a huge part of our influence in the United Nations is because we are a member of the European Union.

Will the Government accept the committee’s Recommendation 197, which was that the United Kingdom should be working closely with the European Union in the United Nations even after we leave the EU? The security situation for the United Kingdom does not change when we leave the European Union. We do not suddenly become less or differentially vulnerable to security threats than our European colleagues, so it is vital that we find a way to keep close security links with the European Union.

The committee took evidence from the Foreign Secretary earlier today. He seemed to suggest that his Dutch colleague had said, “Well, when the UK leaves the European Union, we are going to lose 20% of the budget, 25% of defence and 30% of aid”. The Foreign Secretary, if I noted him down correctly, said: “But we’re not going to be leaving Europe in that way”. I was a little surprised, because I thought that, financially, that was the very thing that we would be doing. He seemed to be suggesting that the United Kingdom would indeed be trying to ally as closely as possible to the European Union in terms of the security relationship. That would clearly be most welcome to those of us who believe that the UK’s security interests are closely allied to those of the European Union. Is that indeed the Government’s position and, if so, will that be part of the negotiations for Brexit?

Beyond that, the Prime Minister has gone off to the United States—again, this debate is extremely timely. If we are to have an ongoing special relationship with the United States, there is a question about what it will be. The President appears to want to play Ronnie to the Prime Minister’s Maggie: to recreate an alliance of the 1980s. A problem that the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, mentioned in his introductory remarks and the noble Lord, Lord Reid, picked up on, is that some of the statements coming out of Washington are not those we would expect from allies. Do we suddenly believe that torture might be an appropriate method to get information out of people? Surely not.

The Prime Minister has said that she is willing to take on the President—effectively, to speak to truth to power, or to the President. Can we expect her to say that the United Kingdom will not accept some of the things that he appears to have said overnight? In particular, the President has suggested that NATO allies should be spending 2% of GDP on defence, as we have all committed to do. Will the Prime Minister be suggesting to him that the United States ought to be keeping up its expenditure to the United Nations and sticking to its commitments?