Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration

Lord Parekh Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parekh (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a painful privilege to participate in this debate. It is a privilege because it is one of the most momentous debates in our history; it is painful because the situation that has triggered it is deeply to be regretted. I wish we were not in a situation where we are forced to debate an issue of this kind.

I am the 101st speaker in this debate and, naturally, many of the points I would have liked to make have already been made, again and again. There is a broad consensus that the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration are inadequately thought through. During the 30 months of negotiations, we have not been able to work out an alternative conception of our place in history. The protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland ties us indefinitely into a backstop arrangement. During the transition period, which is likely to go on for a very long time, the joint committee has the power—about which I am rather concerned—to amend the agreement, correct errors and take care of unexpected situations. It will function without changing the essential elements. The joint committee has all the power and we will not know what kind of agreement we will be left with in two or three years’ time after the joint committee has worked on it. Given that there will be a long transition period, there is also the fact that for many months we will be governed by rules, in the making of which we will have had no share.

While all that is taken for granted, as I think most of us, even those who strongly support the agreement, would agree, I want to concentrate on a different question: why all this has happened. We have had good negotiators—the people who went to Brussels to negotiate were very talented—so why have we not been able to achieve an agreement that is acceptable to most people with varying degrees of enthusiasm?

I think that at the bottom of it all is the deeply ambiguous, almost ambivalent, attitude to Europe that we have had since after the Second World War. It started with Enoch Powell—perhaps even earlier but certainly then—when he said very firmly that we are not a European country. Throughout our history, we have stood with our face to the seas and with our back to Europe. With Margaret Thatcher there was a slight change. She was a politician in a way that Enoch Powell was not. She said that we are a European country in the sense that the affairs of Europe concern us, but we are not a European country because the history and pattern of Europe are totally different from ours. The history of European states is post-Napoleonic; ours goes back much further. They have not known liberty, whereas we have; they have not known democracy, which we have; and they talk about the state, whereas in our legal vocabulary there is no concept of the state.

For all those reasons, we must co-operate with our neighbours but should never make the mistake of thinking of ourselves as a European country. So if we are not a European country, what on earth are we doing being part of the European Union? That ambiguity has systematically paralysed us and prevented us making a sensible response to our responsibilities and obligations within the European Union. Added to that has been the rather unfortunate press. Certain parts of the press have not supported the European Union or its activities as faithfully as it should. Therefore, with a deep ambiguity of attitude, constantly reinforced by parts of the media, we end up with a demon on the other side of the channel.

The only questions are: should we stay and, if we stay, how should we stay? As Margaret Thatcher once said, “We go there to civilise them”. Just as we civilised the rest of the world, we are now going into Europe. The memory of the Second World War has not disappeared, either. During that war, we “saved” Europe and stood for European civilisation. Likewise, we have civilised the largest number of colonies in the world, yet the Brexiteers keep saying that we should not be a colony of Europe.

For all these reasons, our attitude towards the European Union has been extremely disappointing, with the result that in our negotiations with the EU we have displayed—I say this with great humility—a condescending, if not patronising, attitude and a certain degree of superiority. There have been references during the debate to asking European countries to show gratitude to us. Gratitude for what? For what we did during the Second World War. In other words, the whole drama of the Second World War continued to be fought during the debate, and that certainly alienated large sections of Europeans, including our friends. However, that is history. What we need to do on an occasion like this is to reflect deeply on the roots of our attitude towards the European Union and ask ourselves how we can be a member of an organisation, treat its members equally and not expect to be treated in a special way.

What do we do now? The common answer is to let Parliament decide on a free vote, but what if it cannot decide on a free vote or with a simple majority of one or two? Is it enough in a momentous issue of this kind for a decision to be made with a majority vote of 1%, 2% or 5%? It might be said that Parliament does not have to decide because the people made the decision in the first referendum, and this is where I want to suggest an alternative.

I suggest that a referendum is needed to elicit public opinion but, at the same time, we should not call it a second referendum, because that implies that it is tied into the first referendum and the so-called second referendum would be seen as an attempt to overturn the first. The idea is not to do that but simply to complement the first referendum. The question in the first was: do you want to be in the European Union or not? The answer was, “We do not want to be in the European Union, so go and negotiate”. We negotiated this deal, so now people should be asked whether they want it or not. Therefore, it would be not a second referendum but an independent referendum with the same validity and status as the first—although by calling it the first referendum, I seem to be making the same mistake.

I want to make a final important point. In the debate surrounding Brexit, there has been a great deal of polarisation and name-calling, and that has opened up divisions in our society. Each side demonises the other. That is most unfortunate and no society can be cohesive or continue on the basis of deep-seated divisions of this kind. It is very important that we restore mutual respect, mutual esteem and mutual trust, and that is the spirit in which we should approach this debate and its outcome.