European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 2nd reading (Hansard)
Monday 13th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, Brexit is the end of an epoch. I sense a certain sense of solemnity hanging over the House this evening which I do not find here all that often. Tonight is of course a crucial part of the process of our going, and this debate sees the nation splashing across the Rubicon as we go. Once the Bill that we are discussing becomes law, there is no turning back.

It seems to me that you cannot possibly see Brexit as an end in itself; it is merely a staging point on the journey to somewhere. We are now at the point where the options in front of us begin to open up, and the negotiations are going to become much more complicated. The one thing that we can be sure of is that things will never be the same again, and we will not unilaterally be able to cherry-pick what we want.

Politics is the art of the possible. We all have to be clear about that in looking at this subject, and I include the Government in that. I was slightly surprised that in the revised version of this Bill after the election there were some rather macho inclusions about the manner in which the negotiations are going to be carried out. They know that they can amend the Bill, and amend the legislation with another Bill if they want to. I am still not clear whether what they did was a sign of strength or of weakness.

I have to confess that I have a sense of foreboding. I myself believe in the validity of the fundamentals that led this country to join the EEC and then to play such an important part in establishing the single market. Free trade does not entail frictionless trade and commerce. To support that, you need to have cheap, sensible, easy, user-friendly systems to stop cheating, and we all know that one of the mantras of the British is, “All foreigners cheat.” Secondly, the manner in which the negotiation is being conducted from this end—a point that a number of noble Lords have made—makes me fear for the future of the United Kingdom and of Great Britain. Particularly the Scots but also the Northern Irish feel that their interests have been sidelined and that they have been cold-shouldered. I also think we ought to pay serious heed to what I might in shorthand call “the Lord Pannick point”. Legal certainty does matter in the real world to the people who are doing commerce and business.

Lastly, we have seen in the revised Bill that the role of Parliament has been substantially reduced. I believe it is a completely false antithesis to set up Parliament against the people. I fear that the Government are falling into the trap of behaving in exactly the way that they criticised Brussels for in running things through a bureaucracy, because bureaucrats are servants of Ministers and they are all part of the Administration. A Government who are confident of their way forward—and this Government are confident, with their big majority—should look positively at criticisms that may be levelled against them, and, if the criticisms turn out to be justified, it is a sign of strength to amend your position to accommodate them.

I never wanted to leave the European Union and I still do not, but in life sometimes you just have to accept second best. We are now and will continue to be, because we cannot avoid it, Europeans. We should remember the words of the poet Robert Frost:

“Good fences make good neighbors.”


I shall conclude in a way that I do not suppose I shall ever conclude a speech again: I hope I have been wrong in an awful lot of what I have said.