Further Discussions with the European Union under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union

Lord Campbell of Pittenweem Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

My Lords, on the matter of Gibraltar, if we leave without a deal, what will the consequences be for the people of Gibraltar, and their close economic relationship with Spain?

[Lord Callanan]

Many serious consequences will flow from leaving with no deal, but we do not want to leave with no deal. If the noble Lord is so convinced of the need to leave with a deal, perhaps he could talk to his colleagues in the House of Commons and ask them to vote for the deal that is on the table.

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[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Davies. I confess that I do so with a certain amount of envy, because I wish I had the same capacity to speak for 10 minutes without notes and avoid repetition, hesitation or anything of that kind, and to speak, as always, entirely relevantly to the issues that we are discussing.

One of the consequences of this debate is that it has forced me to ask myself if I am a tribalist. I do not think I am, but I certainly believe that the best interests of the people of the United Kingdom rest with remaining in the European Union, and none of the arguments I have heard, right back to the beginning of the campaign for what we may in time come to call the first referendum, has caused me to change my mind in that regard. I make this admission at the outset, so that it is clear precisely which direction I am coming from.

I was interested in the references to the ides of March and Lars Porsena of Clusium. My recollection is that Lars Porsena was not present when Julius Caesar was assassinated, but he was present when Horatius held the bridge. If 14 and 15 March are now so closely allied, I would, if I were the Prime Minister, stay pretty close to my close protection unit—certainly on 15 March.

I go back to the Statement made yesterday by the Prime Minister and repeated here. I have swithered between considering its terms in some respects naive and considering them disingenuous; I am not quite sure which. The Statement, however, assumes that there will be success in obtaining binding legal changes to the agreement that contains the backstop. There is no evidence to justify that. Why should the European Union make any such concession? Noble Lords should ask themselves what would happen if the position were different. Suppose that the European Union had put the backstop in the agreement and that we had agreed to it, and then the EU had come along and said, “Well, actually we want to change the agreement”. What would we be saying here? We would be saying “Pacta sunt servanda”—this is a day for Latin and for a classical education—or, in other words, “You have entered into the agreement and you are bound by it”. It is therefore hardly surprising that there is no rush to offer the changes that the Prime Minister appears to think she is capable of getting.

If the conversations with Mr Tusk to which the Prime Minister referred in the Statement were as constructive as she claimed—if there had been a miraculous breakthrough—we would have heard about it. Being of such significance, it would have been leaked within 10 minutes of the end of the meeting. Exactly the same treatment would be given to the information that the Attorney-General had engineered some legal triumph in Brussels. The truth is that no progress has been reported because there is no progress to report.

I have some sympathy for the Prime Minister, to the extent that, rather like a yacht in heavy weather, she finds herself tacking to one side then the other. According to today’s newspapers, the remainers and soft Brexiteers in the Cabinet were favoured yesterday. As if to balance that, however, the Prime Minister expressly refuses to depart from maintaining the apocalyptic possibility of no deal. She does that because she wants to offer some balance to the fundamentalists. I have not yet read the article by the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, but I shall do so as soon as I am released from my obligations in your Lordships’ House.

The most significant thing that has happened is the publication of the document entitled Implications for Business and Trade. I suggest to the Minister, who referred to the document that was sent to every household in the country, that we send a copy of this document to every household and see what their responses are to the proposal that we should leave no deal on the table.

If this were the United States Congress, I would read the whole document into the record. That, I fear, would make unnecessary demands on the patience of your Lordships. I refer, however, to paragraph 12—to which reference has already been made by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack—which explains how little has been achieved in relation to these so-called trade deals. Furthermore, Article XIV of GATT—to which the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, referred—is eloquently set out in paragraph 14. Later, in paragraph 17, it is stated that:

“Evidence suggests that individual citizens are also not preparing for the effects that they would feel in a no deal scenario”.


Paragraph 18 goes on to say:

“Government judges that the reason for this lack of action is often because a no deal scenario is not seen as a sufficiently credible outcome to take action or outlay expenditure”.


If the public do not think it is a sufficiently credible outcome, why on earth is the Prime Minister determined to stick to it? If ever there were an opportunity to go with public opinion, it is surely there.

The other point I wish to make is that we talk here about Northern Ireland and about the backstop. Noble Lords will see, at paragraph 37, dealing with the question of Northern Ireland:

“Northern Ireland is particularly vulnerable given its high proportion of, and reliance upon, SMEs (75% of all private sector employment) and the number of businesses who trade directly with Ireland (Northern Ireland’s largest international export market)”.


It would be something of an irony, would it not, if Ireland, about which there has been so much discussion in the course of these many debates, were to be the part of the United Kingdom that suffered worst as a result of a no-deal option?

My last reference repeats a question asked of the noble Lord, Lord Callanan. Paragraph 50 consists of three and a half lines under the heading, “British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies”:

“The UK Government continues to work closely with British Overseas Territories, Crown Dependencies, and Gibraltar to prepare for all outcomes, including a no deal scenario. Overseas Territories are likely to experience effects to those parts of their economies with close ties with the EU”.


What are we doing for Gibraltar? What is in the plan for Gibraltar, which is, in many respects, at the mercy of Spain if the United Kingdom withdraws from the European Union? I have not heard any detail about that. If these issues are of such importance to the Government, then surely the Government should have been up front and clear as to precisely what they were offering, and should have considered whether compensation or something else of that kind might be required.

The truth is that anyone who has read that document could no longer, either in conscience or common sense, believe that to leave no deal on the table as some kind of bargaining counter makes any sense whatever. My noble friend Lord Newby beat me to the draw in quoting the noble Lord whose designation is Parkhead. Those who know football in Glasgow will anticipate that at some stage we will get a noble Lord of Ibrox, but perhaps that is a little too frivolous for the occasion. How could anyone who has read that document still hold the notion of a no-deal exit?

On occasion I have accused the Prime Minister of incompetence, and now I fear I accuse her of a lack of responsibility. It is not responsible to take this country down to the wire. If we consider that there have been two and a half years, are we not entitled to ask why that time has been so badly spent that these are still live issues within a few days of the statutory requirement that we leave the European Union? I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, who mentioned the fact that the Prime Minister has managed, whether inadvertently or otherwise, to give the perception that she put the interests of her party above those of the national interest. It is irresponsible of her not to seek to remove that perception at the earliest opportunity.

My last point is, I suppose, rather more personal than I would normally make. I have said already that I do not believe I am a tribalist, but I believe in the European Union and I am afraid to say that nothing that has happened in recent times has caused me to alter that belief. I am told that leaving is a result of the decision of the British public in a referendum, but in the late 1980s and early 1990s—the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, will recall this—the question of capital punishment was a live issue in the Commons. On two occasions, we had votes on whether capital punishment should be restored. I am in no doubt that, had there been a referendum at that time on capital punishment, it would have been carried overwhelmingly in favour. But on both those occasions I voted against capital punishment. I did so because I had successfully prosecuted in capital murder cases where the accused would have been hanged; equally, I had unsuccessfully defended in such cases. I therefore believed that capital punishment was wrong. I believed it was not in the best interests of society or the United Kingdom.

I freely accept that leaving the European Union is of a different order. It is not a precise parallel—parallels are rarely precise—but I have the same strength of feeling that the best interests of this country do not lie in being outside the European Union, and I have the political consequences in mind as much as the economic ones. If I may coin the phrase, “It’s not just the economy, stupid”. We face challenges from Moscow, Beijing and—yes—to some extent, Washington. It is far better to meet these challenges as part of a 28-member Union, which is unique and whose contribution to economic and political stability in Europe has been overwhelming. Why should we give that up?

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[Lord Keen of Elie]

I see no need to do that in the circumstances, but many would regard that as an outrage in the context of the democratic traditions of the cantons of Switzerland.

I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, is deeply attached to the idea of the EU and would not easily give it up. I think he may be an alumnus of the Glasgow Academy—its motto is “serva fidem”, or “keep the faith”. Certainly, he intends to do so, even in the face of the result of the referendum itself.

Turning to the observations of my noble friend Lord Hailsham, I regret to say that his proposition regarding the revocation of Article 50, for the purposes of contemplating a future and final referendum, is unworkable. The European Court of Justice made it clear in the Wightman decision that Article 50 could be revoked only in circumstances where the relevant member state intended to remain, without qualification, in the EU for the future, and could not be revoked in good faith for other purposes. Therefore, that proposal is not workable.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bull, observed that there might have been some deficit in the references to women’s rights and interests in our extensive debates on this matter. I will not challenge her on that, but I observe that the UK—not just the EU—has sought to lead the way in establishing clear, unequivocal grounds for gender equality and other equality issues. These are values we wish to see maintained after we leave the EU, and they are already enshrined in retained EU law, but we have that in mind.

My noble friend Lady Wheatcroft asked whether future trade deals would be scrutinised by Parliament. There are mechanisms already in place by which international treaties which the Executive propose to enter into may be the subject of scrutiny by Parliament, and they may be considered further in the context of Brexit. That remains the position.

The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, in his sunny way, referred to leaving on 29 March as a reckless gamble. With respect, it is not, and I share the confidence expressed by my noble friend Lord Howell that the Prime Minister’s deal—the withdrawal agreement—will be approved by the House of Commons when it comes to a vote on 12 March or earlier. Sharing that confidence, I do not consider that we are indulging in what was termed a reckless gamble. He also raised the question of where tariffs on beef and other agricultural products will be levied in Ireland. The answer is that there are many schemes by which that can be dealt with, without the erection of a hard border. As he is aware, various parties are looking at various schemes at present in that context.

Regarding the commitment to a referendum by the Labour Party, the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, observed that it took us to the issue of what the question would be, one which he regards as extremely complex, requiring careful consideration, and which he does not appear to regard as having been resolved by Mr Corbyn’s fellow shadow Cabinet members. That will be an issue.

The noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, asked a series of questions. First, I agree that a three-month extension would not be sufficient to arrange and carry out a second referendum. No one would take issue with that, but then we do not propose a second referendum. Secondly, could we take part in the EU elections if we had a post-June extension? No, because we have already repealed the relevant domestic legislation for the purposes of having that election. Thirdly, the noble Lord’s point that the EU Parliament could sit without the UK having had an election to the European Parliament is correct, because there are circumstances in which the Parliament will sit when one or more member states has declined to carry out the relevant electoral process. Clearly, as he indicated, the EU Parliament could not be held to ransom in those circumstances. The Parliament and its other institutions would continue to function, albeit without the direct representations of UK MEPs in such circumstances.

Finally, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to the debate—

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem]

The noble and learned Lord went out of his way, I think, to say that there is no such thing as a no-deal exit. Am I correct?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I did not say that at all.

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem]

He might care to have regard to the frontispiece of the document issued yesterday by the Government, which reads:

“Implications for Business and Trade of a No Deal Exit on 29 March 2019”.


Someone in the Government seems to think that there is such a thing as a no-deal exit.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

Nobody doubts that there could be a no-deal exit because that is what Parliament has provided for in the event that there is no withdrawal agreement. There is no question of that whatever. However, we remain confident that we will have a withdrawal agreement in place and, accordingly, will not have to face a no-deal Brexit.