Brexit: Foreign and Security Policy Co-operation

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, for introducing this debate about foreign and security policy. If I had the onerous duty of being a Foreign Office or defence Minister, I would certainly make sure that I touched base at least weekly with the noble Lord, not least because I am confident that he would tell me something I did not want to hear.

I think that it would be helpful to the House if I give some indication of where I am coming from in the Brexit debate. While I am deeply Eurosceptic, I voted remain. We have had more than 60 years of grand strategic stability in western Europe with all the international chess pieces carefully laid out in relative harmony. Yes, of course the EU is seriously defective and needs reform and a rethink. Perhaps reform is inevitable, as my noble friend Lord Howell said, and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, that it would have been easier if we were inside the tent. But why would one want to bang the table really hard and send all the chess pieces airborne without any idea of where they will come down, although in the certain knowledge that it is Mr Putin’s most favoured outcome? That is why I voted remain.

I am pleased that the Prime Minister has made it clear that Brexit means Brexit and that she will accept the will of the people. But divorces can get messy, especially if you involve the lawyers and the courts. What I am not so happy about is the total and abject failure of the Government to hold out any form of olive branch to other EU states. In particular, we could say that any EU citizen with a legal national insurance number on 23 June 2016 has absolutely nothing to fear and can continue working in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, we could say that there would be no question of a work permit for EU-EEA citizens with well-paid professional jobs. Finally, there would be no question of EU-EEA citizens needing a visa to visit the UK. Why on earth would we want to do anything different? What we need to do is to regulate but not stop the flow of unskilled and artisan workers from the EU accession states. If the Government made some helpful statements about these issues it would show that we are not giving up on Europe, and that in turn would be beneficial for the defence and security of the UK and our EU friends.

It does not need to be anywhere near as painful as some in the remain camp seem to wish. Noble Lords who have spoken in favour of the remain camp have painted a very pessimistic picture of the future, but I do not see it that way at all. We have had dire predictions of what will happen if we cannot share intelligence with other EU states. My understanding is that many EU states are poor at sharing data with each other. On the other hand, I understand that we are quite good at sharing information about suspects, threats and intelligence with the French and there is no reason why that should not continue after Brexit. If there was anything that we could do to prevent a terrorist attack in France or any other EU state, why would we not want to do so? Why would other EU states not want to reciprocate, given that there are hundreds of thousands of EU citizens in the UK who are welcome?

Some noble Lords have called into question the European arrest warrant. Why on earth would one not want to have some successor system that has the same effect but uses a slightly different vehicle? I am not aware of any difficulties with the current system— indeed, I have more anxieties about the US legal system and that country’s addiction to extraterritorial jurisdiction.

When it comes to hard military power there are only two EU states that have the will and the capability to provide significant levels of combat power—the UK and France. Other noble Lords have already made this point. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, worries about what influence the UK will have in the future on military matters. If we can deploy a carrier battle group we will always have influence. Indeed, there are very few states in the world that can deploy at least one armoured or mechanised brigade out of area. They are the US, Russia, France and the UK. Our aspiration is to be able to deploy at divisional level against a peer opponent. As long as we can do this we will always be of importance to the United States. I think that, in the current situation, allocating only 2% of GDP as defence expenditure is seriously insufficient, especially when we do not appear to have any intention to undertake a deployment exercise demonstrating the ability to deploy at brigade level.

However, if we are not doing enough, most of our EU partners are pathetic. To be blunt, they are relying upon the UK and France to provide the military muscle to keep them safe and not the other way around. My noble friend Lord Howell gave us some statistics and the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, made some very important points. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Jay, about the importance of Franco-British military co-operation. That is never going to stop and even had we stayed in the EU I am sure that it would have been stronger than other EU arrangements.

In conclusion, the remain camp paints a picture of doom and gloom, with other EU states trying to almost bankrupt the UK or at least make it significantly poorer. As I have said, I do not see it that way. Ironically, it is those very same, mainly accession states that are adjacent to the Russian land-mass which are most reliant on a prosperous and economically fit UK, so that we can maintain a high-intensity war-fighting capability to deter any border incursion into an EU or NATO state.