European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Liddle Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 31st January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, said yesterday: this Bill is a dagger to my heart. I am overcome by three emotions. The first is a sense of shame, which I feel many Members in this House must share, that over decades our political leadership failed to make the case for Europe. The referendum should never have been called, and the leave vote should never have won.

The second is a personal sadness. I am proud to represent on Cumbria County Council a town called Wigton. Its most famous son is my noble friend Lord Bragg, who has just been awarded the companion of honour. Wigton voted strongly to leave. I love my leave constituents—I really do. Yes, they voted to take back control. They are no fans of EU remoteness or bureaucracy, and nor am I. But their revolt was against an economy that is grossly out of balance, a world of work that no longer offers self-respect and a lack of opportunity that means that more than half their children leave their home area after school and never come back. Their grievances have, for too long, been allowed to fester. The seeds of anti-immigration populism were sown for the unscrupulous to exploit. Where now is the modern regional policy, the New Deal for the north and Midlands, the Marshall plan for the left behind that England needs? It is nowhere under this Government. They are suffocated by a pursuit of Brexit that can only make Wigton’s problems worse.

My third emotion is a determination that the bunch of scoundrels who propagated their Brexit lies are not going to get away with it. As a citizen and Labour activist, I will fight Brexit to the last. Yet as a Member of this House I understand our role. Yes, I will work for amendments to this Bill that soften the impact of Brexit, safeguard essential rights, weaken the extraordinary powers the Bill grants to the Executive to override the legislature, protect our devolution settlement and give Parliament a meaningful vote on no deal as well as any deal.

But does this response to a highly technical Bill measure up to the scale of events and our constitutional responsibilities? This clueless Government are pursuing a “I haven’t got a clue” Brexit. The only basis on which the Prime Minister can unite her party is pursuing a Brexit that knows not where it leads. In December, to keep the Irish quiet, the Prime Minister signed up to full alignment. Last week, to hang on to her job, she attacked her Chancellor for having the temerity to suggest that Brexit would lead only to very modest changes. In Brussels, the Prime Minister pleads with our EU partners for a deep and special partnership. Back home, she assures the Brexiteers it will be deep only for as long as they want it to be, and Britain will have the freedom to diverge whenever it wants—in Michael Gove’s case, probably before the ink is dry on the treaty. Is it deep and special? I call it shallow and perfidious, and as a negotiating strategy it is a totally unrealistic fantasy.

What has been striking about this debate so far is the lack of any positive vision for Brexit. How can Britain proceed with the most momentous decision on its future since the Second World War when no one is seemingly capable of explaining what our Brexit future will be? “Ah,” people say, “the people have decided, and the will of the people must be obeyed”. This is, frankly, thin gruel. In a democracy, the public are entitled to change their mind, and the rest of Europe keeps telling us that Article 50 can be reversed at any time. The leave option that seemed so simple when people voted in June 2016 is now so complex, and the only question before us is how big the Brexit damage will be.

The job of Parliament is to challenge the vacuum into which at present the Government are leading us. How can we make a real difference? The first way is to press the Commons relentlessly to vote to stay in the single market and customs union—better to be a rule-taker of European laws that have a progressive European vocation at their heart than a theoretically sovereign rule-maker that in practice will be driven to use its new freedoms only to break free of decent European standards in pursuit of some deregulated mid-Atlantic tax haven. I say to Jacob Rees-Mogg that what he derides as a vassal state would be a failed state.

Secondly, if we cannot win the single market, let us help bring on the storm—which the noble Lord, Lord Patten, talked about in his brilliant speech—that could reverse Brexit by forcing a general election or another referendum. I agree so much with the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, in his magnificent defence of representative democracy, but if it comes to it and a referendum is the only way of reversing this historic mistake, we must accept it and, indeed, advocate it.

In conclusion, this brings me to Labour. Europe is in a category of its own in terms of its impact on future generations. It transcends any party manifesto or Whip, I say to my noble friend. I do not want to be a rebel; I want our party to lead, to seize this opportunity to demonstrate that, in contrast to this wretched Government, we can live up to our national responsibilities and our internationalist heritage. I say to my colleagues on these Benches: let us do our bit to make it happen.

European Council

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)]

My Lords—

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

My Lords, I suggest that we hear from the Labour Party and it may then be the turn of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, and the Lib Dems.

[Lord Liddle]

My Lords, to try to keep her party united the Prime Minister makes a lot in her Statement of preparing,

“for our future independent trade policy by negotiating and where possible signing trade deals with third countries”,

in the implementation period. Does the Leader of the House accept that, once you have gone for signing trade deals with third countries, you require a hard border, because in order to enforce rules of origin and ensure that as a result of trade deals which bring in agricultural produce from other parts of the world that do not meet EU standards, you have to have a border that enforces those standards? Does she therefore accept that that statement is incompatible with her assurance that there will be no hard border in Ireland?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

No, I am afraid I do not, because we have all pledged that there will be no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.

Brexit Negotiations

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I thank my noble friend for his comments. He is absolutely right to say that this is all still subject to the Council agreeing that sufficient progress has been made, which we hope and expect to be able to hear later this week. He is also absolutely right about Northern Ireland. We have always been clear that the details of how we maintain an open border will be settled in phase 2 of the negotiations where we agree our future relationship. We are confident that, with good will on both sides, we will be able to do this.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, on the point that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, and looking at the paragraph which refers to the financial settlement, I see that it states,

“we want to see the whole deal now coming together, including the terms of our future deep and special partnership”.

Can the noble Baroness confirm that what she is talking about is the framework for the future relationship which is set out in Article 50? She is not talking about the conclusion of a trade deal, because that will take many years beyond 2019. Given that, next autumn the Government will be signing up to pay £40 billion as a divorce settlement, but essentially on trade by the time we leave the European Union it will be a pig in a poke and we will have no idea of what eventual deal will be agreed.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The Prime Minister has said that the money we have discussed is in the context of agreeing our future partnership. We have also been very clear in setting out the valuations and we have agreed the important principles that will apply to how we rely on them. Further, we have agreed a fair settlement with the final bill estimated to stand at around £35 billion to £39 billion, which noble Lords will be aware is at least half of the reports we have had previously about how much money would be involved in the financial settlement. This is a good deal and it also means that we can begin to unlock the talks in order to start talking about the deep and special relationship and our future trading partnership.

European Council

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As the Prime Minister made clear, we have said to our EU partners that we need to reach a fair settlement on our rights and obligations. We also made clear in the Florence speech that they do not need to fear that they will need to pay more or receive less over the remainder of the current budget plan as a result of our decision to leave. Following the process agreed in the last round of talks, we have undertaken a detailed and rigorous examination of the technical detail, aiming to reach a shared view on these issues.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

Can I ask the Minister for clarification of what is meant by “transition and implementation”? It seems to me that business—various bodies representing business have written to the Prime Minister—wants a transition period which gives us more time to negotiate the deep and comprehensive agreement that the Government are talking about, in which period we will remain in the single market. Are the Government rejecting that request, or are the Government still committed to the completion of the negotiations on a comprehensive trade deal by next October, which virtually everyone in the know thinks is a completely unrealistic objective? If that is their objective, why can they not table now their proposals for the framework, at least, for the future economic relationship rather than the three sentences that the Prime Minister devoted to it in her Florence speech?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

We will be leaving the EU and its institutions in March 2019, but at that point neither the UK nor the EU will be in a position to implement smoothly many of the detailed arrangements that will underpin this new relationship, so the implementation period is a bridge from our exit to our future partnership.