EU Council

Lord Newby Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

Well, my Lords, another Monday, another Prime Minister’s Statement. I am grateful to the Leader of the House for repeating today’s offering, not that it offers very much. Last week, the noble Baroness referred to these Statements as her “weekly treat”, but I doubt that she or the Prime Minister feel the same way today. How relieved they must be that Parliament is not sitting next Monday—as far as we know.

This is not a Statement from the Prime Minister that gives any assurance or confidence that she knows where this is going or, indeed, where she is going. In last week’s Statement, following a weekend of assurances that MPs would vote on Tuesday, the Prime Minister refused to allow MPs to make a judgment on her deal. Rather than face defeat she pulled the vote, citing her wish to go back to the EU, although none of us was really clear what she was trying to get. Was it a change or a clarification? In the end, it was neither. Yet again, it was about her living in the moment, delaying a difficult decision, averting today’s immediate crisis without any credible plan for tomorrow.

So what is today’s Statement about? The Prime Minister has now been forced, at the very last minute, to indicate when the Commons will be able to vote on her agreement, but despite continued efforts to present the vote as a choice between her deal and no deal it remains the case that MPs will accept neither. What are the alternatives? We know that the Prime Minister does not want a further referendum, but I have to say I do not think she understands that the main reason this idea is now gaining greater currency, including apparently in her own Cabinet, is the failure of her own leadership. Noble Lords will have seen reports that Mrs May’s chief of staff and her de facto deputy have discussed a further referendum as a means of breaking the current impasse.

Her Statement today, briefed out yesterday, to warn against a further public vote, is yet another example of her attempts to manage her own party rather than delivering for the people and businesses of this country. It is hard to know where her support now is. Despite winning a vote of confidence from her MPs, it is clear that if we assume, as I think we must, that the remaining Government members all voted for the Prime Minister in the secret ballot, she now has the support of only around half her Back-Benchers. All the while, some of her Cabinet colleagues—I use the word loosely—are attempting to take control of the Brexit process amid an unseemly jockeying for position in the chaos that now passes for government.

The Prime Minister cannot expect the world to stand still while she holds on to her deal, fearing its rejection by MPs but allowing nothing else to move on or make progress. It is worth recalling Sherlock Holmes, who said—or had it written for him, I should say—that:

“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”.


So although the Leader of the Commons will make arrangements for the meaningful vote during the week commencing 14 January, that will be almost two months since the publication of the draft text and a mere 10 weeks until Article 50 expires. Surely MPs should have been allowed to eliminate the impossible—which, as noted earlier, are both the Prime Minister’s deal and the no-deal option—because for the past week the country has been paralysed by Mrs May’s reckless time-wasting. As things stand, this will continue now until the middle of January. We have said for months that parliamentarians should have been involved in mandating the negotiations.

The Education Secretary appears to have been convinced, proposing at last week’s Cabinet conference call a series of free votes to flush out which, if any, majorities exist in the Commons. The International Trade Secretary appeared to agree on “The Andrew Marr Show”, stating that he,

“wouldn’t have a huge problem with Parliament as a whole having a say”,

on what the options were. That may well be the only sensible thing we have heard on Brexit from Liam Fox. The Business Secretary added his support to that suggestion today, but still Mrs May stubbornly ploughs on towards the cliff edge. The public and businesses are desperate for certainty. Last week we saw the announcement of 5,000 job losses at Jaguar Land Rover, with our departure from the EU confirmed as part of the reason. As the deadline looms, others will be making investment plans, or not.

The Statement notes that European Council conclusions are legally binding, but this was not the test that the Prime Minister set herself last week. The Prime Minister says negotiations are ongoing. The Commission disagrees. I have a couple of fairly simple and straightforward questions for the noble Baroness. First, given this pressing need for certainty, with the deadline looming, can she confirm whether, in her opinion, any meaningful change, clarification or progress was secured at the summit? Our view is that it is wrong for the Government to try to stumble into the Christmas Recess without putting the matter to a vote and allowing Parliament to move the process forward. I have to say to the noble Baroness that it really feels now that the Prime Minister is deliberately orchestrating a delay to ensure that there is an irresponsible choice between her deal and no deal.

The noble Baroness heard the truncated debate in your Lordships’ House earlier this month—I know she sat through a very large part of it—and the wide support for the no-deal part of the Motion in my name. She will also be at tomorrow’s Cabinet meeting, where apparently there is to be a discussion about spending an extra £2 billion on no-deal planning. Many in your Lordships’ House will consider this a dire use of taxpayers’ money. Would it not be better to cut that Cabinet debate short and use the time to prepare to get a view from MPs before Christmas on what is impossible, so that the time that remains—the sand is dropping out until the end of March—can be used to achieve something that is possible? Is the noble Baroness prepared to relay such a message from this House to the Prime Minister at the Cabinet meeting tomorrow?

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Leader of the House for repeating the Statement. The following seems to me an accurate summary of the current situation:

“Downing Street has stopped selling the Prime Minister’s flawed deal. Instead we have displacement activity designed to distract from last week’s failed renegotiation and a concerted attempt to discredit every plausible alternative as they run down the clock. This is not in the national interest”.


These are not my words but those of Sam Gyimah, until recently a member of the Government, speaking earlier this afternoon. They sum up the Statement and the current impasse precisely. The Prime Minister did not achieve anything of substance at last week’s Council and is offering no prospect of any change to the backstop provision which stands the remotest chance of assuaging her opponents on her own Benches, far less any opposition MPs. The arithmetic in the Commons is the same as it was last week and will remain so, even if the Prime Minister gets one or two further general, vague assurances from the EU in the coming weeks.

In these circumstances, to wait four weeks for any meaningful vote in the Commons—almost 30% of the time remaining until 29 March—is immensely irresponsible and clearly not in the national interest. I hope the Leader of the House will be able to tell us what the Government’s timetable is for the resumed debate on the deal in your Lordships’ House and when she expects us to be able to vote on it.

When we had our unfinished debate on the Government’s deal, I said that an election would fail to clarify matters because it would be fought by three Conservative Parties. I must apologise to the House. There are not three views of Brexit in the Conservative Party. There are now four different views being expounded by members of the Cabinet alone on the airwaves and in the press. Collective responsibility has completely disappeared, for the truth is that the Government have collapsed. On Brexit, there is no Cabinet agreement on anything. Beyond Brexit, as the Select Committee chairs forcefully pointed out over the weekend, there is no progress on any domestic policy reforms at all, because Brexit is, in their words “sucking the life out of the Government”. In normal circumstances, the Opposition would be rampant. They certainly have every justification for calling a vote of no confidence this week.

I gather that the Opposition are indeed now tabling some sort of vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister, but it seems unclear quite what it means. I am tempted to say, “Nothing much new there, then”.

Let us see whether there is a substantive no confidence vote. If there were, whatever its outcome, it would have the advantage of narrowing down the options we now face. Of all of them, the Prime Minister has today decided particularly to attack the concept of a referendum. In her Statement, she says that such a vote would be extremely damaging,

“because it would say to millions who trusted in democracy that our democracy does not deliver”.

But that is precisely the point. The Prime Minister’s deal—indeed, any conceivable deal—could not deliver on the promises of the 2016 referendum, which were grounded in fantasy, not reality. That is why people are so disillusioned, why a majority now want to have the final say, and why they say that they would reject her deal and vote to remain if given such a say. By delaying a meaningful vote for four weeks, the Prime Minister is merely delaying the inevitable. She really should just get on with it.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I thank the noble Baroness and noble Lord for their comments.

The noble Baroness asked about assurances at this summit. As the Statement made clear, there were a number of assurances in the EU Council conclusions. In particular, there was one new assurance, that the Council,

“stands ready to embark on preparations … to ensure that negotiations”—

on the future partnership—

“can start as soon as possible”.

Following the Council, the Prime Minister met with President Macron, Chancellor Merkel, Prime Minister Rutte and Presidents Tusk and Juncker. All were very clear that discussions on clarifications can continue. She will continue to discuss these over the coming days.

The Government understand that both Houses want to move on, which is why the Statement made clear that we intend to start the debate on the meaningful vote in the week commencing 7 January—the first week back after Christmas—and to hold the vote the following week.

The noble Lord asked about timing of a debate in this House. We had this announcement only today, but we will certainly be having discussions with the usual channels in parallel to discussions in the Commons. We have all worked on a cross-party consensus for the arrangement of debates previously. We certainly intend that to continue. We will let noble Lords know the outcome of those discussions as soon as we can.

The noble Lord mentioned again the second referendum. I can only reiterate what the Prime Minister has said, which is that Parliament has a democratic duty to deliver what the British people voted for. She remains determined to see that happen.

The noble Baroness asked for a message to be relayed to the Prime Minister. I can certainly assure her that the Prime Minister listens to the views of this House and will continue to do so.