European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Malloch-Brown Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Malloch-Brown (CB)]

My Lords, I recognise that I stand between those noble Lords who are still graciously here and their beds. Several noble Lords have graciously said to me that I have the graveyard slot, so I do not know what I did to the Whips. One noble friend encouraged me not to take this to heart but rather to buck myself up by imagining that I was again delivering a ministerial wind-up speech, so I thought: “What would I say at the end of a debate like we have had today?”. I would no doubt begin by acknowledging the wisdom of what has been said today and the extraordinary bench strength that this Chamber always has of legal, policy, commercial and other insights into an issue like this. I would indeed congratulate the House on living up to its reputation as a revising Chamber, a place that has the presence of mind to force a pause when necessary on the other place when the blood goes to the latter’s head. We have heard several times today about the size of the majority on the Bill in the other place; I merely remind noble Lords that often it is the largest majorities in the other place that come most to embarrass it later.

But it was as that Minister that I suddenly realised that there was an illogic to the case I was making to myself as I prepared for this contribution. Praise of that kind would of course lead to an encouragement to accept amendments and a willingness that the tradition of this Chamber since Magna Carta meant that we should be open to accepting the wisdom of the people assembled here. I myself, who have returned from a leave of absence precisely because I felt that I should either resign entirely as a Peer or return to this House for perhaps the most important and historic decision that I would participate in during our lifetimes, find it strange to be told that we have no role but to nod the Bill through.

In that sense, as the blood goes back to the boots in the House of Commons, we have a right—not to overrule the other House; I am with all those who have said today that we must acknowledge the referendum result and allow Article 50 to proceed—to demand that cooling-off period in the other House. Its constitutional health is improved when occasionally it is forced to reconsider and think again.

Despite the references to patriotism and the people’s will that we have heard so often in recent days and in our debate today, it is perhaps worth recalling, as I am sure historians such as the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, will, that the Bill was not passed in the people’s interest, it was passed in the interest of party. It is a crisis of parties that has got us into the situation we face today. An almost equally divided electorate finds itself irrevocably tipped towards a hard British path in such circumstances, rather than that of compromise and the middle way of a moderate Brexit. I acknowledge the logic of the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, in saying that a moderate Brexit is a hard thing to do, but I suspect that when a country is split like this, we are looking more for a Norway solution than for a hard Brexit.

Nevertheless, as we move towards that extreme solution, we need to remember that it is because of the exigencies of party, not people: a ruling party which, for reasons of internal party management under the previous Prime Minister, divided this country on an issue of their own making: Europe. It has now recovered unity, but at a terrible cost to the country. On the other Benches, a party divided and perhaps fatally weakened by the referendum has put up the white flag in the other place. In such circumstances, where party has trumped country, is it so unreasonable to ask that in this House we at least demand that there is a proper, final vote in this Parliament on the terms of Brexit?

I acknowledge that other important issues, such as the rights of Europeans living in this country—a terrible human case though it is—may not belong in the Bill and may be better treated elsewhere. But, on the issue of ensuring that Parliament is not reduced to a yes or we are out vote, a rock or hard place call, a deal or no deal reduction of Parliament to a game show—on that I think we can insist on the right to a final vote. That must be a real vote, with the choice to stay in if the deal is not up to the standards that both Houses demand.

Can we allow this party-political game to trash the rights of other groups such as the families of EU residents here? No, those issues may not be for today—but on this, let this House really be this House and make the amendments that need making, stand up for Parliament, principle and decency—and indeed, I would say, for people and country.

Debate adjourned until Tuesday 21 February at 11 am.