Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration

Lord Haselhurst Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Haselhurst (Con)]

My Lords, I feel somewhat handicapped in that this is only my first speech in your Lordships’ House since my maiden speech, and because there is very little original left to say when you are the 90th-plus contributor to this important debate. My views were best summed up in the opening speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, whose stance was followed by several other noble Lords.

Unlike my noble friend Lord Mancroft, who is not in his place, I believe there is some advantage in looking to the past, and I can offer only a personal view. I remember being carried in my mother’s arms to a neighbour’s air raid shelter while the drone of aircraft was overhead. That made a profound impression on me, even though I was so young. After the war, visiting my grandfather, we were in his garden and he was talking to me about cricket—he was a Yorkshireman—and then his mood changed. It was a gloomy day, with dark clouds. He said to me, “I went to the Great War, so your father wouldn’t have to fight. I clearly failed, and your father felt much the same as I had done, in that he was hoping to protect you from going to war. We both failed”. In fact, I did not have to go to war, and I have been able to look my children in the eye and say that there is no prospect of them having to go to war.

I was inspired by the speeches of the post-war statesmen, notably Winston Churchill, on how we could build a better Europe, putting aside 2,000 years of conflict. We had NATO to defend Europe from the Soviet threat, and the development of the European Economic Community to ensure that the countries of western Europe were not able to fight each other again. We created a prospect for young people that was far more attractive than anything that had faced previous generations. The paradox, if the evidence is correct, is that the people who voted to leave the European Union were mostly elderly, and those who voted to stay were the young. It is extraordinary that the people who ought to be able to remember the past were prepared to forget it, and think that something else lay ahead.

After the war, we had to relaunch our economy and found we needed a bigger domestic market, not because we wished to exclude the rest of the world—we needed that base as we could not have our companies competing against each other within a small island. A larger market meant you had the strength to sell goods and services across the world. I find it quite difficult to think that we should cast aside the market to which we export 40% of our goods on the promise that we might then be able to do better deals with the rest of the world. Bulldog spirit appeals to sentiment will not achieve trade deals—you have to get down to detail. If we contracted deals with China, India or the United States, would it be interpreted as our becoming a vassal state to them? That sort of the language is absurd. We need the economies of scale, and we should not forget that.

As noble Lords may have gauged, I am a disappointed remainer. I accept that anything other than staying in the European Union will be less satisfactory. In those circumstances, it is about finding the course of action that does the least damage. If I have to compromise, I expect others who voted to leave also to be capable of compromise, and to analyse the true interests of this country.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, in laying down the terms of the debate, did not refer to the referendum, other than in a throwaway sentence. We heard no appreciation of whether there is a solid view that we should ignore the referendum. Frankly, that is difficult territory to go into. We are seeing the rise of populism and nationalism across our continent, and further. If we said to 17.4 million people that we were going to ignore what they said, that would be a combustible situation. If you do not accept the referendum, you are immediately looking into compromise territory. However, you run risks if you say that the only way out is to have another people’s vote—though I listened with respect to my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft. If the result is to remain, there will be anger among those who feel that they voted the once and that was it. Or, if leave won again, we would be back to square one. What would happen to British business and commerce while that was going on?

We have to work on the basis of the present plan, which has been negotiated over a long period. I do not see that altering with a different leader of our country, or with a different Government. I hope we can conduct the discussion in future without some of the inflammatory language that has been used about immigration. I respect and agree with the words of the noble Duke, the Duke of Somerset.

We had a debate in your Lordships’ House on 5 November about the centenary of the Armistice. It was interrupted to discuss the details of citizens of the European Union coming into this country. I left the Chamber thinking that perhaps we have not yet learned all the lessons from the ills of the past.