Brexit

Lord Birt Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Birt (CB)]

My Lords, we are mired, the road to our present misfortune littered with miscalculation and error. A referendum called to resolve a party division has torn that party apart. Remain was the anticipated answer, but after a clear-sighted, if misleading, campaign on the one hand and a somewhat clumsy and unconvincing one on the other, a country unsettled by the 2008 financial crisis, flat incomes, public sector austerity—and, as we know from surveys, a rapid rise in immigration—gave an unexpected answer. In advance of the negotiation with the EU that followed, red lines were drawn around our future trading relationship with by far our biggest trading partner without any serious national consideration of the alternatives. Article 50 was triggered without any prior agreement with the EU on the framework for negotiation: a disastrous decision which further weakened our already poor negotiating hand.

All that could then be agreed with the EU were the divorce terms: the critical issues about our future trading and other relationships were deferred. Thus cornered, we have arrived in the bizarre position of having to agree a backstop arrangement covering the most sensitive land border in Europe in the event that future trade negotiations may fail. Northern Ireland is where the Brexit rubber truly hits the road.

The Brexit process intensified division when every attempt, however difficult, should have been made to promote reconciliation. It was not. As a result, we are more divided now as a nation that we have been for hundreds of years. In the nearly seven years since David Cameron gave his Bloomberg speech, we have been transfixed by this single issue and have given scant attention to all the other matters that press on us.

As a nation, we need rapidly to recover our composure and speedily to resolve the way forward on Brexit. We must now, I fear, enter the realm of least worst options. At all costs, we must avoid a car crash Brexit. As Sir Ivan Rogers memorably declared, there is no such thing as a no-deal Brexit—the noble Lord, Lord Marks, made essentially the same point a moment ago. For, the day after we leave, we would still have to negotiate a trade deal with our neighbours, the biggest economic bloc in the world, in circumstances where our hand would be weaker still and where feelings would be even more bruised than they are now. Our nightmare could well continue for another seven years.

So, like it or not, the least worst option is likely to be Theresa May’s deal reinstated, with perhaps a few face-saving tweaks—as the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said. The non-binding political declaration is a perfectly acceptable basis for future negotiation, and we may have to swallow the risk of the backstop or some variation of it—however unpalatable—for fear of something worse if today’s alternative offered by the Prime Minister is not accepted.

We should know within weeks or even days if this Government can produce a deal that a majority in Parliament can stand behind and that the EU will accept. But if this does not happen, a general election cannot be the response. It would waste yet more time and the outcome is profoundly uncertain, as Sir John Curtice opines and as Theresa May, from her own experience, can surely testify. Nor is impeaching the Prime Minister the way forward—that would be a massive distraction and would not begin to answer the exam question before us.

We are in 1939. If a deal is not forthcoming in the short term, parliamentarians must forgo manoeuvring in their party interest—this happens in all parties—and act only in the national interest. In the absence of a deal, after a vote of confidence a temporary national Government should be formed, made up of members from all the main political parties, with independent leadership and constituted for only one set of purposes: to negotiate a Brexit deal, hold a confirmatory referendum and call an election immediately the result is known.

I hope there will be a confirmatory referendum for, whatever the answer, it will be emphatic and will put an end to our misery one way or another. I see nothing at all wrong with the notion of a second referendum. In every other walk of life—on a company board, for instance—an initial decision in principle would return for ratification once due diligence is complete and the terms of the final deal are set. It is the natural process for any important and complex matter.

There is one bright light shining in the murk. In 1688, the Bill of Rights asserted the supremacy of Parliament over the tyranny of kings. More than 300 years later, a combination of a bold and courageous Speaker and the calm lucidity of our Supreme Court has once again established the supremacy of Parliament, this time over an overreaching and divisive group within a single party. The Speaker and the Supreme Court have together made history, and they may well prove our salvation.