Queen’s Speech

Lord Jopling Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jopling (Con)]

My Lords, it is 55 years almost to the day since I was first elected to serve in this building. While making allowances for myself as a grumpy old man, I am bound to say to your Lordships that never in peacetime—and I remember the war very well—have I been so gloomy and anxious about the state of the world, of the nation, of Parliament and of my party. I agreed very much with the first few sentences of my old friend the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, who talked about uncertainty. I did not agree with many other things he said, but I will leave that aside.

I spent last weekend at the conference centre across Parliament Square at the annual meeting of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, with which I have been heavily involved for many years. I was struck by the overwhelming criticism there of Turkey’s recent invasion of Syria. I have to ask myself: how can our belief in a world order fail to be shattered when the United States leadership one week gives Turkey the green light to invade Syria, which is what it did, and then, when it does, imposes sanctions on what is supposed to be a fellow NATO member? It seems that President Trump has taken lessons from the Grand Old Duke of York.

My concerns about the state of the nation, of Parliament and of my own party are, of course, centred principally around the Brexit situation. I cannot disguise —this is well known to many of your Lordships—that I have a profound feeling that the nation took leave of its senses when it voted for Brexit. But of course I accept the decision to leave. For three years I have been trying to point out to your Lordships the folly of Mrs May’s Administration saying soon after the referendum that we would be leaving the single market and the customs union. I believe that she was led by the nose by the early negotiators, whose enthusiasm for a hard Brexit was matched only by their incompetence as negotiators.

Certainly in this House, many of us have warned repeatedly about the double whammy of having, on the one hand, our industry—I refer your Lordships in passing to my interests as a farmer—exposed to a flood of cheaper imports and, on the other hand, our exports to the European Union having to pay the penalty of the extra cost of the common external tariff. This is a major double whammy and I have never got a coherent comment from the Government on the implications of these two man-traps. I have no idea whether that is because my colleagues in government do not understand the dangers of this double whammy or because they are deliberately not talking about its implications.

That takes me to this week’s crucial negotiations. One of the more sensible recent comments came, surprisingly, from Mr Rees-Mogg, who said that there must be compromises. Indeed there must be. Having had some experience of Brussels negotiations many years ago, I hope that a compromise can be worked out in the hours that lie ahead. They are well used to stopping the clock in Brussels when there are critical negotiations. Years ago I held the record—I do not know whether I still do—as president of the Agriculture Council for keeping that council in a continual sitting for 91 hours before getting an agreement at around 4 am on the following Monday morning.

There is one way that a great many of the current arguments could be resolved. That would be to thrash out a version of the Norway agreement. I know that some people will feel that this has been considered before, but I still think it would be possible to build a compromise on the Norway agreement. It would, at a stroke, resolve the Northern Ireland problem. It could still be done; it would be hated by the extremist caucus within the Conservative Party, but it could be the basis of an agreement. If only Mrs May had not foolishly put her head into this noose of leaving the single market and the customs union, the whole issue of Brexit could have been settled months ago.

I tackled the Minister only two weeks ago or so—he is now sitting on the Front Bench—when he said to us that the Government hoped very much to get a deal but that, “We shall be leaving on 31 October”. I do not understand the logic of making those two statements. If we cannot get a deal and we say that we shall be leaving on the 31 October, that clearly would be against the law, and action would have to be taken in the courts to make sure that the law was upheld.

This whole suicidal tragedy has caused lasting damage to Parliament and to my party. It was an extraordinary act of party management to take the Whip away from those 21 Members—an action by a governmental faction who themselves as individuals were well used to voting against the Government. It seemed an extraordinary act of party management, especially when the government majority hung by only a fragile thread. In my four years as the Government Chief Whip, I never took the Whip away from anyone—although I am bound to say I was sorely tempted. It only makes martyrs of those from whom you take the Whip, and, in party-political terms, it runs the almost certain danger that, if they run again as independents, you will lose that seat to another party.

So, while I am not enthusiastic about or sympathetic towards Brexit, I hope that we can thrash out a deal this week. If Parliament were to agree, I would not be averse to putting it to the electorate again, with the option of remain, in another referendum. However, I find it intensely irritating when people talk about the prospect of a “second referendum”, as we should recall that it would in fact be a third referendum. The first referendum was the one we had five years after we joined the European Community, in the mid-1970s. It was widely agreed at the time that that referendum would put the whole issue to bed for the future. But some people niggled on, wanting a second one, which they succeeded in getting in 2016. They got it then, but the same people now say that if we were to have a third referendum in the months or the year or so ahead of us, it would be a travesty—yet they were the people who could not accept the first one we had in the 1970s.

I hope that we can get a deal and put this whole thing behind us, one way or another. I believe that there are possibilities for getting a deal in line with the suggestions I have made to your Lordships this evening.