Leaving the European Union

Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As I have said to noble Lords, I am not going to speculate on the decisions of the House of Commons. A Motion is down to which it is very clear MPs will table amendments. There will be votes on that. I am not going to stand here and speculate on what the outcome of that may be.

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords, if the Prime Minister had ever had any intention of probing the scope for consensual solutions to the problems of Brexit, she surely would have done that ages ago, preferably at the beginning of the process. She would not have waited two and a half years—two and a half years of confusion and crisis—before she did so. What she did last week was simply a political gimmick to try to get out of a difficult situation. What she has come up with today are more political gimmicks. The Prime Minister is really interested only in survival, is she not? She wants to play for time and to take the British people unwillingly over the cliff edge of a deal-free, hard Brexit and thereby to gain, or regain, the support of the European Research Group and stay in power a little longer.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am afraid that I entirely disagree with the noble Lord. As I have said, the Prime Minister is focused on finding solutions that are negotiable and can command sufficient support in the House. I gently suggest to him that all other parties and leaderships have agreed to talk to the Prime Minister, but the leader of his party has not. It would be very good if he would change that position and get involved in these conversations, because they are so important.