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

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I feel rather lonely in this debate. I think that I am fairly well known for being a passionate leaver—a beast in the Brexit herd. Right now, I feel like an isolated wildebeest surrounded by a pride of noble lions, possibly about to be torn limb from limb.

We in Parliament need to lift our heads and see that the mood in the country is one of wanting to get this over the line. People want Parliament to deliver on what 17.4 million voted for, and are profoundly disappointed by the continuous party politicking and thwarting of our departure. It would reflect well on both Houses—and especially on this one, where courtesy is the currency—if the polarising language and behaviour were softened. Currently, anyone who dares to suggest that leaving on WTO terms would not be terminal for our future prosperity is treated with deeply discourteous contempt. Yet that represents a position held by many outside this House, who resent the vitriol that is, by extension, also being poured on them.

If the Prime Minister, who is being attacked from all positions, can be magnanimous, then so can we. Yesterday she acknowledged that:

“For some honourable and right honourable Members, taking the United Kingdom out of the European Union is the culmination of a long and sincerely fought campaign. For others, leaving the EU goes against much that they have stood for and fought for with equal sincerity for just as long. But Parliament gave the choice to the people”.—[Official Report, Commons, 27/2/19; col. 168.]


Yesterday in the other place she also made it clear that there is not just real determination in both the EU and UK Government camps to enable us to leave with a deal, but also tangible work to operationalise the concept of alternative arrangements for the border in Ireland. This would not be taken seriously by both sides if it were really the unicorn some scornfully dismiss it as. Scornful dismissal ignores the fact that MPs coalesced around this as an acceptable plan that would avoid an indefinite Northern Ireland backstop. It also suggests a desire to block Brexit at all costs, as does the push for a second referendum.

Some say we have to give people another vote because no one in the country voted leave in order to be poorer and less secure, or to have fewer choices in the supermarket. I do not know how this can be said with such certainty, especially when there is hard evidence of what people did vote for. Lord Ashcroft’s polling on referendum day, which was in the same ballpark as findings from YouGov and the British Election Study, found that nearly half of leave voters, 49%, said the biggest single reason for wanting to leave the EU was, “the principle that decisions about the UK should be taken in the UK”. One-third said the main reason was that leaving, “offered the best chance for the UK to regain control over immigration and its own borders.” Just over one in eight said that remaining would mean having no choice “about how the EU expanded its membership or its powers in the years ahead”. Only 6% said their main reason was that, “when it comes to trade and the economy, the UK would benefit more from being outside the EU than from being part of it”. Yet when the Prime Minister’s Statement was repeated in this House yesterday, in the exchanges that followed much was said about trade and economics, as was said today—

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

The noble Lord has just read out a long list of the motivations of those who voted leave in June 2016, with percentages for those who were moved by those considerations. Will he say which one the Prime Minister’s deal fulfils?

[Lord Farmer]

Will the noble Lord repeat the question?

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

After he has read out the list of motivations of those who voted to leave, will he say which one, if any—I do not believe there are any—the Prime Minister’s deal actually fulfils?

[Lord Farmer]

The issue is sovereignty, which, as I said, was not mentioned yesterday and I do not think it has been mentioned today.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

It has.

[Lord Farmer]

That was the main issue, according to the polling, behind people voting to leave. It was not about trade and the economy, where the UK would benefit more from being outside the EU than from being part of it. When the Prime Minister’s Statement was repeated in the House yesterday, much was said in the exchanges that followed about trade and economics, but no one mentioned the fundamental importance of sovereignty to those who voted leave. Our silence in this area makes us seem very out of touch, so I shall take a little time to spell out why so many wanted to leave the European form of federal government—not, I might add, to leave the continent of Europe itself. I have not heard anyone express an interest in pulling up the drawbridge or stopping the flows of trade which so many forms of business value greatly.

Many noble Lords, perhaps particularly those on the Benches opposite, will be familiar with the erstwhile Viscount Stansgate, Mr Tony Benn, and his five questions for people of power. I must admit, I never thought I would be quoting this particular political giant, but he makes a powerful point. His five questions were,

“what power do you have; where did you get it; in whose interests do you exercise it; to whom are you accountable; and, how can we get rid of you?”.

They will also be aware of his maxim:

“Anyone who cannot answer the last of those questions does not live in a democratic system”.—[Official Report, Commons, 16/11/98; col. 685.]


We cannot get rid of President Juncker, President Tusk, Monsieur Barnier, Herr Selmayr or the European Commission. But, according to the House of Commons Library, the democratic deficit of the European Union is much wider and deeper than this. Its main characteristics are:

“The increased use of qualified majority voting … for the adoption of legislation in the Council; limiting Member States’ powers by removing their veto in the Council of Ministers; expanding the policy areas in which the EU has a role, sometimes excluding any action by Member States (EU ‘exclusive competence’); an increase in executive power and a decrease in national parliamentary control with deeper EU”,


regulation.

[Lord Liddle]

First, is the noble Lord aware that the only areas in which the EU has exclusive competence are trade and competition? Secondly, is he aware that the European Parliament has the power to dismiss the European Commission, which it has in fact done, in a way that I am not aware that our Houses of Parliament have done in recent times?

[Lord Farmer]

I thank the noble Lord for his intervention. I am quoting from the House of Commons Library information on democratic deficit. It goes on to say—

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Is he by any chance aware that the biggest extension of qualified majority voting was conducted under Baroness Thatcher, with a view to establishing the single market? Why does he think it terribly undemocratic that decisions can be taken by a majority, when he has just told us that because 17 million people voted to leave we have to agree with them?

[Lord Farmer]

I believe that the system until now has been that each country has a veto, and, as I say, the qualified majority voting would now override that veto. I will carry on about the democratic deficit. The Library document goes on:

“The EU’s executive, the Commission, is unelected; the EP is too weak compared with the Council and Commission”,


and elections to it are not really European elections. Electorates vote on the basis of their support for domestic parties, and turnout is low. It has fallen by 30% since the first elections in 1979. The European Union,

“is too distant from voters”,

and,

“adopts policies that are not supported by a majority of EU citizens; the Court of Justice makes law rather than interpreting it; there is a lack of transparency in the Council’s adoption of legislation and in certain appointments (e.g. EU Commissioners); EU law has primacy over national law and constitutions”.

Unsurprisingly, the latest Eurobarometer survey shows that among the EU 28 countries only 42% tend to trust the EU versus 48% who do not, and the UK lags very far behind—53% of those in the UK do not tend to trust the EU versus 31% who do. This, like so many other things, could be blamed on Brexit, but even back in spring 2015 the United Kingdom had one of the lowest trust ratings of the EU’s institutions across the 28 nations. Only 27% tended to trust the European Commission, compared with the EU 28 average of 40%, and only 29% tended to trust the European Parliament, compared with the EU average of 43%.

National leaders are also painfully aware that the EU is in urgent need of reform. According to Tim Shipman’s book about the road to Brexit, All Out War, Merkel was consulted before David Cameron gave his Bloomberg speech pledging an in/out referendum in the Conservative 2015 election manifesto and she,

“urged him to ‘couch the speech in an argument about Europe having to change’”.

He fell in with this, taking,

“Merkel’s advice on how to pitch his call for reform”,

in that speech, by saying:

“I am not a British isolationist. I don’t just want a better deal for Britain, I want a better deal for Europe too”.


That completely sums up my own position.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, we have to lift our heads and see beyond the current entrenched positions. The painful reality and process of Brexit will or should exert enormous moral pressure on the European Union to reform so that continental citizens are better served—otherwise, we could be the first of many to leave. This is another reason why holding a second referendum would be so damaging. Instead of sending the message that democracy and sovereignty matter, and sowing unchokeable seeds of reform, we would instead be saying that they have to be traded off so that we can stay in thrall to a status quo that really serves only the elites who prop it up. In our own and countless other electorates, there would forever be that recognition that democracy ain’t what it seems to be.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords—

[Lord Farmer]

Noble Lords will be pleased to know that I am finishing my speech. As a metals trader for more than half a century—I shall change tone here—I want to finish by saying something about trade. In the financial markets, there is a fear of global stagnation. I read this afternoon about the American factory output being disappointing again. While this has very little to do with our leaving the EU, Brexit could be a can opener for new trade initiatives. By breathing life into a world somewhat obsessed by tariffs, it will potentially end up boosting the global economy by breaking up the rather sedentary three big blocs of the US, China and the EU. The world needs competition to be encouraged and Britain could be an agent for that. So instead of a harbinger of doom, Brexit could be a force for reform, both economically and politically, but we have to get on with delivering it. It is, after all, the will of the people.