Queen’s Speech

Lord Flight Excerpts

Thursday 13th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Baronesses, Lady Fraser of Craigmaddie and Lady Merron, and congratulate them on their excellent speeches today.

I want to make some comments on events since the referendum and their impact on essentially constitutional matters. I am sure that many of those who voted in the referendum to stay in the EU are subsequently shocked, or at least disappointed, by the behaviour of France and the EU. Many expected Brexit to lead to a new era of co-operation with Europe, but the ideologues in Brussels do not do friendship—you are either under their control or their rivals, to be undermined and exploited. Breaking up our union is now an important objective of theirs. The PM has so far refused to respond blow by blow to behaviour by the EU. We have had the astonishing threats made by the EU to confiscate vaccine shipments contracted to the UK, the EU’s counterproductive demonstration in respect of AstraZeneca, a ban on the export of shellfish, threats to disrupt the City of London and, especially, the irresponsible dealings with the Northern Ireland protocol.

Our Government have bided their time, first at least to see the trade and co-operation agreement ratified and signed off. Now Britain can fight back and commence. Ironically, the opening of the eyes of British citizens to the EU’s appalling behaviour has slashed British citizenship ratings of the EU. The UK Government now have the support of a substantial proportion of British citizens to take tough measures if necessary and if they see fit. It is now clear that we need to diversify our economy away from Europe as quickly as possible. We need to set taxes and regulations to maximise our global competitiveness regardless of whether this triggers EU retaliation.

The EU is regulating itself into digital oblivion and its moral authority is crumbling on the back of its behaviour. Amazingly, Macron and Merkel are now in discussions with Putin about collaboration on Sputnik, a Russian vaccine, less than a fortnight after the head of the EU vaccine task force stated:

“We have absolutely no need of Sputnik.”


While Sputnik has still to be licensed, the AstraZeneca vaccine has already been licensed by the European Medicines Agency. Macron and Merkel have continued to criticise AstraZeneca on unsubstantiated safety grounds. At the same time, Brussels-based Eurocrats have criticised the UK for blocking EU access to AstraZeneca.

The current politics of Europe are of the EU backing a belligerent France against the UK, even though we continue to behave as if France is an ally. We have had a continuing sequence of hostile gestures and behaviour from France and the EU, with, latterly, the vindictive blackballing of Britain from the Lugano Convention and the EU’s refusal to recognise the important regulatory vehicle of equivalence for the financial services industry.