European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Lord Liddle Excerpts

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

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I assure my good friend the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, that, as far as I am concerned, the argument about trying to stop Brexit is over and done with as a result of the general election. However, before she gets carried away with her arrogance on this subject, I gently remind her that the Conservative share of the vote in that election went up by 1.3%. They got a majority of 80 because of the way our electoral system works. This makes the case again for a consideration of electoral reform, which I have supported for the last 40 years. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, that we should not try to put forward amendments that in any way threaten the deadline of 31 January, but we should exercise our proper role of scrutiny on this Bill.

What has happened is heartbreaking for me, but there is also a certain sense of relief about it; I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, about that. My main concern now is that there is—and has been—hardly any debate on the post-Brexit future for Britain in Europe and the world. This debate has hardly begun. The date 31 January 2020 marks the end of an epoch that began on 31 July 1961 when Harold Macmillan announced that the Government had decided to apply for membership of the EEC. Over Christmas I read The Winds of Change, the wonderful book by the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy. I was struck by how much thought and analysis went into Macmillan’s decision. Where is the grand design for Britain’s future that he personally wrote, as Prime Minister, now that we are facing the future of Brexit? I do not see it and I think the Government are simply going to stumble along.

We face the prospect, at best, of a bare-bones trade deal this autumn, and let us be clear now that a bare-bones deal is a hell of a bad deal for Britain. It is bad for manufacturing because it does not ensure frictionless trade. Getting rid of quotas and tariffs does not guarantee frictionless trade, when you have problems such as regulatory standards and rules of origin. It is bad because of the false promises that have been made to the fishing industry: the EU is going to demand access to our waters in return for our selling our fish on the continent. It is bad for UK services, whose voice will struggle to be heard in the mad rush to agree something by December 2020. It is rather like 1914: we will be the victim of an artificial timetable and it will end with us in a very bad place.

Where does this leave pro-Europeans such as me? Nothing will make me abandon my belief in a united Europe in which Britain plays its full part, absolutely nothing. This may now be a matter for future generations, but let us be clear: internationalism and European unity are as relevant to today’s world, in the 2020s and beyond, as they were in the 1950s.

The Conservatives are making themselves very clearly the party of English nationalism. They are losing in Scotland, they have abandoned Northern Ireland and they are left with populist English nationalism. On our side of the House, having suffered a devastating defeat in the election we have to remake and rebuild our party in a completely new and different way, but let us be certain that we must remake ourselves as the party of Europe, confident in our view that the only route to economic and social progress at home is by working in partnership with our European friends to tackle the multiple challenges that the world now faces.