Relations with Europe

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

I am very glad to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley; it is a very strong theme. I welcome this debate and congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hodge. I look forward to hearing more from her. However, I disagree with the contribution before last. In my view, Brexit has been a reputational, political and economic disaster for the UK. It was ill thought out—perhaps they never expected to win—and characterised by fantasy, rudeness and arrogance, and there was no consideration for the impact on our friends and allies. The UK is now seen as a disrupter and there is no immediate prospect of a return to any of the old relationships.

Nevertheless, there is a need and a desire both in the UK and in the EU for a reset—a new relationship. We need to do this bilaterally and collectively, with member states and with the EU itself, but it cannot be a pick and mix solution or cherry picking.

I was shocked when Keir Starmer said that the UK would never rejoin any part of the EU in his lifetime. That is not his decision to make. Then Yvette Cooper said that the UK voted for Brexit, that there was no going back and that the Government would not entertain the EU’s proposed youth mobility scheme. That is alienating great swathes of aspirational young people and, I suggest, is not actually a vote winner for the Labour Party.

It is difficult to see how we can secure a closer relationship with the EU without some accommodation—on both sides, I agree—but ruling out ever rejoining the single market or the customs union rather limits the room for progress. Improving bilateral relationships is absolutely right and desirable, but we should recognise the limit. The EU will not look kindly on attempts to detach members from community-wide agreements.

It is all very well to claim we have the freedom to diverge from EU single market rules because of Brexit, but it is quite hard to see where that takes us. For small and medium-sized enterprises, participation in the single market gave free access to the EU market. Now, the cost and bureaucracy of proving conformity often makes the exercise unprofitable, so exporting is often abandoned or the business is relocated inside the EU.

I live in Scotland and represented a Scottish constituency for 32 years. The EU referendum, following the Scottish independence referendum, divided SNP supporters. SNP voters provided the largest number of Brexit supporters because they did not want Scotland to be in any form of union, yet the SNP argues that the only way for Scotland to rejoin the EU is to leave the UK and then apply. But the European Commission has made it absolutely clear many times that there is no quick and easy route for Scotland back into Europe. Scotland is not a sovereign state and has unsustainable debt, no central bank with a serious track record and no sovereign currency. Scotland would be at the back of the queue and would face the need to secure a unanimous vote—no easy task for a disruptive spin-off of a disruptive former member. The country would spend years in no man’s land outside the UK and the EU, with no timescale for any resolution.

In any case, independence is off the agenda for the foreseeable future. If you ask whether Scotland should remain in the UK or leave, the answer is overwhelmingly in favour of remain. A different question gets a different answer, but the fantasy that separation offers a quick way back into the EU does not fly. The best prospect for Scotland re-entering the EU rests with the UK, where the Liberal Democrats are leading the way for a step-by-step re-engagement, recognising that we need to move towards the single market by negotiated steps, by agreeing with many of the things that people are asking for, and really pleading with the Government to deliver.