Brexit: UK-EU Relations (EUC Report)

Lord Jay of Ewelme Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jay of Ewelme (CB)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Teverson. I agree with him about the association agreement approach; it justifies really careful study. I welcome the chance to discuss the report this evening, before this week’s meeting at Chequers and the publication of the White Paper planned for next Monday. I say “planned” because we have been disappointed once or twice over the last few weeks, but we look forward to seeing it when it appears. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Boswell for his introduction to the debate. It has been a privilege to be a member of the European Union Committee.

Focus on the longer-term relationship between the UK and the EU is overdue and welcome, but it presupposes that the present negotiations on withdrawal from the EU do not break down and that we do not end up with no deal. The harder you look at the prospect of no deal, the less palatable it seems. I will start by looking at it, because doing so shows up what the longer-term relationship needs to be and where Britain’s real interests lie. The main components of the withdrawal negotiations now under way are foreign and security policy, internal security and trade and economic relations. Our own interests are inextricably linked with those of the EU and require the closest possible relationship we can get on foreign and security policy, all the more so with a maverick US president. Let us hope that he becomes less maverick after his visit here, but the precedent is not hugely strong.

We participated in Operation Atlanta, curbing piracy in the Indian Ocean, because it was very much in our interests to do so. The same was true of our participation in Operation Sophia, the humanitarian mission in the Mediterranean, as the Leader of the House mentioned earlier today. We rightly continue to work closely with France and Germany, as well as with Russia and China, to preserve the Iran deal—hard though that is faced with American determination to end or amend it—because, again, it is in our interests to do so. I cannot see that it is in our interests to walk away from protecting ourselves in these challenges and, no doubt, in future ones. However, I have no doubt that there will continue to be fierce domestic battles about how much this nation is prepared to pay to support them.

On internal security, our own interests point, once again, to the need for a close relationship with the EU, as do those of the EU itself. The Prime Minister is absolutely right to argue that there is mutual interest in continuing close co-operation with Europol, Eurojust and other EU institutions and arrangements such as the European arrest warrant. I hope that the other 27 EU member states, whose first duty, like ours, is to the security of their citizens, will recognise this and trump—I am increasingly hesitant to use that word—the Commission’s negotiating stance. As other noble Lords have said this evening, the Government need to recognise that, seen from Paris, Berlin, Rome or Madrid, finding a solution to the risk Brexit poses to internal security is far less immediate a problem than finding one to the migration issue and the domestic political challenges they now face. Last week’s European Council showed that clearly. Britain, alas, is not the only European country to face difficult domestic political challenges. Even so, to walk away from those issues—to give up looking for a deal—cannot be in our or anybody else’s interests.

Turning to economic issues, do we really want to contemplate, even in extremis, planes not flying from our airports, 20-mile queues to the Channel ports, or lack of access to key medicines and equipment needed by the NHS? Of course not. Who would gain from that? Businesses—that means employers and employees—urgently need to know what the future holds. No wonder we are seeing stories of investment withheld or threats to relocate. To talk of walking away only compounds the problem and does no one any good. I agree very much with what the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, said on that point.

I will not argue now the merits or demerits of the customs union, a customs union, customs arrangements, maximum facilitation, a customs partnership or any other possible permutation. Let us hope—I am sure the Minister can confirm this in his summing up— that the White Paper will be clear and that the Commission will not rubbish it. I am glad to see a smile from the Minister; it is always good to get that. I emphasise, as I have done before in your Lordships’ House, that whatever arrangement is agreed on the customs arrangements must avoid any physical controls on the Irish border. I should be grateful if the Minister confirmed that the avoidance of any sort of physical controls on the Irish border is indeed the Government’s intention. I have long thought that Ireland is the most complicated issue we face in the Brexit negotiations. For Brexit to jeopardise 30 years of careful peacebuilding across the Irish border would be simple madness, and future generations would not forgive us if that happened.

I will make one final point on no deal. Are the Government really prepared to go back on agreements reached for EU citizens to live and work in the UK, and for UK citizens to get healthcare in other countries? Of course not.

Of course we need to prepare for no deal. It would be wholly wrong not to do so. But our real need must be to focus on what we want in the longer term from our relationship with the EU on foreign and security policy, internal security, economic issues, citizens’ rights and, as I say, Ireland. Our relations with the EU will continue to be by far the most important we have around the world. Look at a map and look at the figures; there is no doubt that that will remain the case.

None of us here knows what the outcome of the negotiations will be, although many of us will have views. But we do know that, as in any negotiation, we shall need, as the report says, a clear sense of our objectives and a willingness to cede some points, painful though that will be, to gain others. That is what negotiation means and what negotiating is. That is certainly my experience of negotiating over the years—I do not want to get into my anecdotage—with Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair and others. That is the essence of negotiations. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, also made the point that the Commission will need to show the same flexibility if the negotiations are to succeed, which is in everyone’s interest. At some point the Commission will have to recognise that, tempting though it is to talk about the Canadian option, the Swiss option or the Norwegian option, we and it are engaged in unprecedented negotiations for which there is no existing institutional blueprint. Both sides will simply have to engage, make compromises and, in all our interests, reach agreement. Time is running out. Let us hope that at Chequers this Friday the appetite for dissension—and dissent—has run out too. Ministers need to stop negotiating acrimoniously with each other and start negotiating seriously with the European Union.