Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, last Saturday, I had the privilege of being the guest speaker at the Italian Medical Society of Great Britain, a group of eminent medics and life sciences researchers who live and work here in the UK. The subject I was asked to speak on was the possible effect of Brexit on Anglo-Italian relationships in education, healthcare, research and science.

To start, I thought I should probably apologise to them, saying that they came here to the UK to live and work expecting to be in a country that would be relatively stable politically, calm economically and a relatively orderly plural society, which is clearly not what we have at the moment. I wondered how could I explain to them in terms that at least I could understand what is going on, so I turned to that great expert on Erskine May and our constitutional history, Monty Python. I spoke about the famous argument between the Judean People’s Front and the People’s Front of Judea, substituting for them leavers and remainers. So, apart from sanitation, medicine, education, human rights, wine, roads, pizza and espresso—it was an Italian audience—what has the EU ever done for us?

The past few days in Parliament have been beyond parody. I was in the other place when the Attorney-General was performing rather like Brian Blessed on steroids. When it comes to some of yesterday’s and today’s speeches in your Lordships’ House, if I closed my eyes I could imagine I was at the annual convention of the Flat Earth Society. The defeats on Tuesday in the other place perhaps demonstrate that Parliament is actually about to take back control.

Why is that so important? I, and many others much better informed than me, have repeatedly pointed out what is blindingly obvious to me at least, which is that the referendum result was not produced on party-political grounds. It maps the ideological and economic seismic fault-lines which run through our society and, particularly, our two largest political parties. The choice of Mrs May and her party to try to respond to a non-political expression of will by the voters by imposing a nakedly party-political approach to implementation has been disastrous. It is aggravated by the uncomfortable truth that both our largest parties are themselves deeply split and are in danger of becoming more so. A recent poll by Sir John Curtice demonstrated that 77% of those who voted, whether leave or remain, say that their views on Brexit outweigh their loyalty and affinity to party.

I have grudging admiration for our Prime Minister and I feel that she has more testosterone than the entire ERG put together. I even recall that Paul Simon dedicated a song to her which encapsulates her dilemma:

“The problem is all inside your head


She said to me

The answer is easy if you

Take it logically

I’d like to help you in your struggle

To be free

There must be”—

Article—

“fifty ways


To leave your lover”.

Of all the 50 ways the Prime Minister could have chosen, she has been triumphantly successful in delivering a deal which apparently pleases nobody.

The referendum result reflected not the will of the people, but the wills—plural—of the people. Those different wills run the gamut or, in a new buzz-phrase from the Front Bench, “across a spectrum” from 19th-century imperialist dreamers to 21st-century technocratic globalists. Today, after Tuesday’s events in another place, Parliament has the opportunity to perform its solemn responsibility and duty, which is to separate those myriad wills and forge a cross-party consensus on an acceptable outcome, a will of the people that their elected representatives are prepared to sign up to, espouse and enact. That would be by far my preferred option, and I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, that next Tuesday’s Divisions should, ideally, as did the referendum, proceed on a free-vote basis.

I am convinced that this will require new leadership in both our political parties. We need leaders who, unlike the current incumbents, are trusted by the majority of their MPs and have the credibility and moral stature to be listened to and believed by their political opponents. We will not achieve sufficient weight of consensus across the House and, more importantly, across the country without that. If Parliament fails in this task it must, as a last resort and as the evidence of its failure, ask the people to do what its representatives have signally failed to do.

What are the options? A general election could be even more divisive than a referendum, because it will become consumed with confusing and sometimes contradictory party-political posturing. It will also lay bare the deep fault-lines within our two largest parties. I suspect that it would probably result in another hung Parliament.

Is the referendum the last-chance saloon? The last referendum was a disaster. The Government chose not to seek the counsel of or take advice from those with recent, live experience of the dos and don’ts of having a referendum. I know that because I know some of the people who gave that advice and were rebuffed by No. 10 Downing Street. If we are going to do it, we need to do it with proper detailed background research and an articulation of the key issues and pluses and minuses of the potential outcomes.

We are actually in quite a good place today, because that is exactly what we have been doing for the past two and a half years. We have unwillingly and painfully undertaken that research, and I think we understand the magnitude of the choices before us. If we go back to the people, there must be no false promises and no demonising of those with different views. It must be presented on a cross-party basis, with leaders prepared to sit on the same platform as those from a different political persuasion. It must be meticulously planned and we must be straight and painfully honest with our frustrated and long-suffering electorate.

Brexit has proved toxic to our hearts and our emotions. We must not let it infect our heads.