European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, just for the record, I have not been on this Bench all day but I heard the first dozen speeches from the side of the Throne, some from the Bar and others from my office.

There are only two speeches one can make in this debate—either we accept the decision of the people and let this Bill pass or we substitute our judgment for that of the electorate and the Commons. I submit that your Lordships’ expert opinions—and my inexpert opinion—on whether the UK should leave or remain in the EU and whether or not it is good or bad for the UK are utterly irrelevant. The decision is not ours as parliamentarians to make or to second-guess. The Bill before us today simply provides for the outcome of the referendum to be respected.

It was made very clear in the debate on the referendum Bill and by the Government during the referendum period that the decision rested with the people and that the Government would implement, without question, whatever the people decided. It was not the case that the Government would implement the decision of the people only if Parliament approved the referendum result. Nor was it the case that we would only leave if we stayed in the single market or customs union. Indeed, when Vote Leave suggested that we could still leave and access the single market, the then Prime Minister and all government and remain spokesmen denounced that. They said it was absolutely clear that leaving the EU meant leaving the single market and customs union—we could not have our cake and eat it. So it is simply disingenuous to suggest that Parliament has a right to determine whether or not we should leave the EU—the questions of the single market and customs union were not on the ballot paper.

The House will know that my right honourable friend Sir Oliver Letwin MP was one of the Government’s foremost remain campaigners and was the Prime Minister’s chief guru, thinker and adviser on these matters. He said in the other place on 31 January at the Bill’s Second Reading:

“I made it perfectly clear … that … an inevitable consequence of leaving the EU would be leaving the single market ... and we would have to leave the customs union … It seems to me … that the people voting to leave were voting with their eyes wide open, knowing that the consequences might be our falling back on the WTO”.—[Official Report, Commons, 31/1/17; col. 871]


We are leaving the EU and it does not depend on whether or not we in this House or anyone else likes or agrees with the final terms. Of course we want a good deal, but the decision of the electorate was to leave whether we get a good deal, however defined, or no deal at all. We will have nothing to be afraid of when we are a free, independent nation once again. The Bank of England almost every other week upgrades our growth forecast for this year. Last May it forecast that Brexit would cause a recession, but in August that growth would be up to 0.8%, then in November that growth would be up to 1.4%. Two weeks ago, it forecast growth at 2%. We have the same old project fear tunes from the IMF as well. Many remainers say—I have heard it today—that the majority to leave the EU was very small. I say that many millions more would have voted to leave if the Bank of England, Her Majesty’s Treasury, 600 dodgy economists and the IMF had not blitzed the referendum campaign with a co-ordinated series of financial scares, dodgy forecasts and the old project fear. We would have had a massive majority if they had told us what they are telling us now, not what they were telling us then.

There are many experts in this House who know about the EU and trade. I do not pretend to have any of that expertise, but I know a little about the British electorate and the firestorm we will unleash if we seek to thwart them. I faced the British electorate seven times in the past and have been elected six times—I should say that I lost the first one. I have been in general elections where my party got a thumping majority and where we were thrown out by an even bigger majority. Like it or not, I believe the public got it about right on those occasions. They also got it right on 23 June last year.

I say to your Lordships—particularly those who have not been Members of Parliament—that you have no idea of the destruction we would create if we went against the decision of the electorate now. We cannot use the excuse that we are fulfilling our usual role of tidying up messy Commons legislation or simply scrutinising it. There is nothing in this tiny little Bill to scrutinise. It came to us from the Commons with a huge majority. If it were to be amended it should have been done in the other place, but the Commons did not amend it. If we seek to do so it will be perceived by those outside as deliberate sabotage of the will of the people, no matter how much we try to dress it up as improvement or scrutiny. The amendments are nothing to do with scrutiny. They are an attempt to build in conditions and tie the Prime Minister’s hands.

The Government have agreed to give Parliament a say on the withdrawal deal and our future relationship with the EU before the European Parliament votes on it. It is absolutely right that parliamentarians should not be able to use this vote to demand further negotiations with Brussels in an effort to keep us in the EU by the back door. If the EU knows that there may be further negotiation after the initial agreement is made, that will incentivise it to give us a bad deal in the first place.

Finally, I have no intention of criticising the Lib Dems tonight. Indeed, I intend to praise one of them to the heavens. I end by quoting a former Member of Parliament and former leader of the Lib Dems, the spokesman for them early in the morning of Friday 24 June on ITV. The noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, said, with all the passion he can bring to a speech:

“I will forgive no-one who does not respect the sovereign voice of the British people once it has spoken, whether it is a majority of 1% or 20% … It is our duty as those who serve the public to make sure the country does the best it can with the decision they have taken”.


He went on:

“In. Out. When the British people have spoken you do what they command … Either you believe in democracy or you don’t. When democracy speaks we obey. All of us do”.


What has changed?

If this House tries to sabotage the Bill by building in amendments on the single market, the customs union or the end deal, then forget about the press criticism of the judges. The criticism will be of us and we will be called the real enemy of the people. We will unleash demons which will not be controlled. This House will be destroyed and we will have turmoil on the streets. All the latest opinion polls show that the mood among the public, even those who voted remain, is to get on with it and get on with it now. That is good advice and I suggest we follow it.

Outcome of the European Union Referendum

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate, with whom I agree entirely. I include in that his wise words of denunciation of that vile minority of racists who have participated in disgraceful attacks; they should be prosecuted, and prosecuted vigorously.

I am glad that I did not follow the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, or I would have side-tracked myself with a 20-minute attack on almost every sentence that he uttered. On 23 June, 17 million voters voted democratically to end our membership of the EU and to restore this country to the free, independent member state that it was before 1973. That long-overdue and momentous decision will in my opinion be good for the United Kingdom and good for democracy in Europe. It may well be that Britain will have fulfilled its traditional role, as it did over the centuries—in 1850, 1918 and 1945—of saving Europe from rule by undemocratic and unaccountable government over the whole of Europe. Fifty two per cent of our people voted to leave and 48% to remain—the greatest vote for anything in the history of this country. The losing remainers must stop their bitter recriminations and accept the decision of the people. Some are calling for a second referendum or for politicians to ignore the result. They say that the country is divided because 52% voted to leave; some are pretending that we would not be divided if 52% voted to remain.

On 23 June we saw the greatest rebellion against the ruling elite—including us in this House, I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria—that this country has ever seen. The leave victory is narrow in the sense that there is only a four-point difference, but it is absolutely massive when you consider that the leave campaign started from way behind and was up against the full weight of the Government and the establishment. But people ignored the dodgy Treasury forecasts warning of doom and gloom, as well as forecasts from the CBI, the IMF, the OECD and all the other organisations—the best-known organisations. The more the Government called in their friends in the Davos elite, including President Obama, the more ordinary people suspected that they were being sold a pup. I would go so far as to pay tribute to every person in the leave campaign, including in this regard only Nigel Farage—because, without him, we would not have had this referendum in the first place.

Now we must deliver on Brexit. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has said that the job now is to unite the party, unite the country and negotiate the best possible deal for Britain. To borrow a phrase from Lady Thatcher, I would say, “No, no, no”. The job now is to deliver what 17 million voted for—nothing more and nothing less. I say this as a former Conservative Party Opposition Chief Whip: you will not unite the Conservative Party around a fudge that is half-in and half-out of the single market, with a bit of freedom of movement here and a bit less there, and tweaking our budget contribution. We have tried that fudge over the past 20 years, and it has not worked very well for us. Some 17 million voted to take back full control over our democracy, which was the key runner, as all our leave studies showed—not immigration, but control over democracy and the ability to sack the politicians who are supposed to be in charge of us, as well as control over our law-making, borders and economy.

Of course we must have reconciliation and reaching out to those who voted remain, as well as consultation with Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland as we negotiate exit, but reconciliation will tear this country apart if it is merely crafty double-speak for compromise on the Brexit policy and selling out the electorate. Already we hear demands from some remainers that it is essential that we stay in the so-called single market, even if it means having to accept freedom of movement and some sort of payments to Brussels. What bit of “leave and take back control” do not they understand? First, it is not a single market. That fiction was sold to Margaret Thatcher by Delors in return for qualified majority voting. It is a single European regulatory zone and not a proper single market—look at the lack of a market in services. We do not have to be a member of the so-called single market to access it. The two are quite different.

I see some Commission officials are saying that we cannot cherry pick nor have EU à la carte. I agree entirely. I do not think we need to do either. First, we are a sovereign country and our Government are not going to negotiate with some Commission officials no matter what the Commission or the Parliament think. We will talk to other Heads of Government, but the Council’s appointed leader, Mr Didier Seeuws, a Belgian diplomat who was chief of staff to Herman van Rompuy, should not be top of the list. They say that he is an able man, and I have no doubt about that, but what planet are they on if they think that the fifth-largest economy in the world, the second-biggest member of NATO, a nuclear power and a member of the UN Security Council will prioritise talking to a minor Belgian diplomat rather than to Germany, France and Italy?

The negotiations are not complex; there is only one difficulty. We need a Prime Minister who will look Angela Merkel and Hollande in the eye and remind them, in the nicest possible way, that they have a trade surplus with us in goods of £70 billion. The City of London has a financial services surplus of £20 billion, so our Prime Minister simply has to say that we are willing to accept the status quo and that we will take no action on their goods if they permit passporting for the City of London. If they try to freeze out passporting, they will get hit with tariffs. It is a simple as that. It is not that complicated, but it requires guts and credibility to do it.

Our trade negotiations would be complex only if we had a massive trade surplus with the EU, not the other way round, and we were begging to be let into the market. On 24 June, the president of the German Association of the Automotive Industry—I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, is not in his place because I think he referred to this fellow—said:

“Following British departure from the EU, it will be in nobody’s interest to make the international flow of goods more expensive by erecting customs barriers between Britain and the European continent”.

Exactly, Herr Wissmann, and I suspect that will also be the view of French car, cheese and wine producers. The leaders of the big countries in the EU, which export far more to us than we do to them, know that it is in their fundamental political and economic interest to have no changes to our and their access to the so-called single market. It is quite clear that some of those who want interminable and complex trade negotiations have an agenda of staying in the EU and want, at most, Brexit-light.

The people have given this country a golden opportunity to prosper once again now that we will be throwing off the shackles of the corrupt, undemocratic, regulatory, job-destroying regime that is the post-Maastricht EU, an EU which has caused the rise of extremist parties in Europe because it denied people democracy and ignored their concerns. The Government have a relatively short time to deliver proper Brexit and meet the expectations of those millions of voters in Labour heartlands and in Tory middle England who voted out. We had a revolution through the ballot box on 23 June. A few thousand remainers marching through London wanting the result overturned will be as nothing if we betray those 17 million voters. The quiet people of England have now spoken, and God help us if we ignore them.

Outcome of the EU Referendum

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)]

My Lords—

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

My Lords, I think I will ask my noble friend Lord Blencathra, who has been trying to get on his feet for the whole period of the Q&A.

[Lord Blencathra]

My Lords, I have been trying to get on my feet for a few years. As we conclude on the Statement today, as my noble friend the Leader noted, every major elected politician in the other place has said that, while they may not like the result, it must be respected and it must be implemented. Will she therefore caution some of my noble friends and all noble Lords that if we wish to unite the nation after this, this unelected House must not seek to thwart the will of the people by going into endless negotiations on or amendments to the minutiae of any legislation, which would be seen as a direct attempt to sabotage the will of the people?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

As my noble friend knows, he and I were on different sides of the argument during the campaign, but I absolutely agree that the decision has been made, it must be respected and it should be implemented.

European Council

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

The noble Lord certainly puts a clear case for the European Union and for our remaining in it. Much as I agree with what he has said, there is something that cannot be repeated often enough, particularly for those who are undecided—and we must always remember that a lot of people are unsure of which way to vote. So although the noble Lord is right, we also need to emphasise that the European Union does not work quite as we want it to in all areas. That is why we have been renegotiating the terms, and we are now confident enough to advocate staying in.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a supporter of Vote Leave. Does my noble friend agree with me—she probably does not—that the real threat we face, and the huge frightening leap in the dark, would be if we now remained in Europe? Europe has seen that Britain is a bit of a paper tiger. A few years ago we were saying that we wanted fundamental and far-reaching reform. Then we asked for very little, and I am afraid we settled for a lot less. When Europe comes to implement the next treaty change and the Five Presidents’ Report, and as it heads for being an ever-tighter federalist superstate, will we not be ignored, mocked, sidelined and completely stitched up?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

As my noble friend predicted, I do not agree with him. One area that I would point to in order to illustrate my disagreement is what the Prime Minister secured around economic governance. Again, I do not think that it has been properly understood yet how significant the protections that he has secured are—not just for our currency, but for the City of London and our financial services. I assure my noble friend that the other member states, and particularly the French President, were in no way shy about fighting hard to prevent us getting what we wanted, but we secured a good deal for Britain in the end.

Syria: Refugees and Counterterrorism

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Monday 7th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I will have to come back to the noble Lord on his last question about the letter to the UN. I am not clear about the specific terms in which a sovereign nation has to inform the United Nations and the detail it is necessary to set out. However, I am confident that we will have complied with the necessary requirements in informing the United Nations. As the noble Lord acknowledges, it is not possible for me to go into the detail of the evidence as that would compromise our security procedures. On his questions about our existing arrangements for refugees, as I am not familiar with the detail of how refugees are supported when they come to the United Kingdom in terms of their status, residency and so on, and as this question has been raised a couple of times, I will place a letter in the Library outlining the situation. However, I reassure the House that the existing arrangements will continue to apply. I am happy to outline that in a letter.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, has my noble friend seen the reports that ISIL boasts that it will infiltrate thousands of jihadists into the tens of thousands of refugees leaving Syria? Will she therefore give a cast-iron guarantee that we will concentrate our priorities on women, children and the vulnerable, and that they will all be thoroughly screened before coming to this country? Will she therefore treat with extreme caution demands that we take some of the fit and well-fed young men we saw fighting Hungarian police, because it seems to me that, if they are willing to do that, they might not be the best fighters for British values?

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My noble friend makes an important point. One of the reasons why we believe that the policy we have adopted of giving refuge to people via a resettlement programme that includes a very thorough screening process by the UNHCR is the right one is that it offers us a much better assurance that we do not risk people coming to this country to attack us. We cannot have the same assurances in respect of those fleeing Syria who have been accepted through routes adopted by others in the European Union.

Tunisia and European Council

Lord Blencathra Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

I wish the noble Lord all the very best with his approach to ever closer integration in Europe if the Labour Party gets the chance to govern on that agenda. As for his question about Mediterranean migration, at the moment we are ensuring that when people are rescued they are taken to the first available place in order to establish whether they are economic migrants or asylum seekers. At the moment it is not possible to return people to Libya in the way that the noble Lord described, but I will reflect further on what he said.

[Lord Blencathra (Con)]

My Lords, did my noble friend see the article in yesterday’s Sunday Times about Foreign Office expenditure on some weird and wonderful overseas aid projects? Will she now urge the Foreign Office to divert that rather wasteful expenditure to Tunisia, which is in the front line fighting extremism? The Islamic extremists know that they have to destroy Tunisia because Tunisia has opted for democracy and for keeping Islamic fundamentalism firmly in its box and out of government. Tunisia needs all the help it can get because, if it is destroyed, no other country is safe.