Trade Bill

Lord Taverne Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 11th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taverne (LD)]

My Lords, I intend to speak about Clause 15 of the Bill, which says that, “This part”—that is, the provisions on interpretation and extent—

“comes into force on the day on which this Act is passed. … The remaining provisions of this Act”—

which is the bulk of this Bill—

“come into force on such day as a Minister of the Crown may by regulations made by statutory instrument appoint”.

But if there is no Brexit, no Minister will appoint a day and the Bill will never take effect.

I believe that no Brexit is a very real possibility. Why? First, the odds are that there will be no deal. Despite the recent conciliatory words of Monsieur Barnier, none of the proposals that the Government have put forward for avoiding a hard Irish border is credible. This has been convincingly demonstrated in speech after speech in our recent debates, and again today by the speeches made by the noble Lords, Lord Hain and Lord Adonis.

The Government will therefore be forced to fall back on the backstop agreement, which they solemnly pledged last December to put into statutory form as an essential step to move to the next stage of the negotiations. The backstop agreement, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has stated, means that Northern Ireland will continue to remain in the EU’s single market and customs union without a hard border, but it means that the border will be in the Irish Sea. Thus, one part of the United Kingdom will be in the customs union and single market while the rest is not. Mrs May, despite her solemn pledge, says this will never be acceptable—one can see why not—but no backstop means, in effect, no deal.

There are other potential deal breakers. The same problem arises in the negotiations about a free trade deal between Britain and the EU. Again, there is a need for a frictionless border, but trade negotiations between the UK and the European Union at present have not offered any viable solution that is acceptable to the EU 27 or that has proved workable anywhere.

So what sort of trade deal will prove negotiable? No deal, it is generally agreed—except by the denizens of another world who belong to the ERG—would be a disaster. But there is no reason why no deal is inevitable if negotiations break down, because Parliament has been promised a meaningful vote and can, and almost certainly will, reject no deal.

What then? What will be the alternative? To tell the Government to negotiate a better deal is mission impossible, especially after their chaotic record of incompetent negotiation. A general election, leaving aside the complications of overcoming the rule of five-year Parliaments, will hardly be seen by the Government as an attractive option after the last one.

At the same time, there has been a surge of support for letting the people have the final say. Early this year, only 10% favoured a new referendum; now, it has overwhelming support among the trade unions and, as polls show, among Labour voters. In my view, it is likely to become official Labour policy at some stage. Polls also show that it has majority support among the public generally, not least because the politicians cannot agree among themselves. There has also been a major shift in public opinion about Brexit. The last poll showed as much as 59% for remain against 41% for leave, and there is a lot more bad news about Brexit in the pipeline, which is bound to have an influence on MPs’ votes. A new people’s vote is the obvious and likely solution.

The only meaningful choice in a new referendum would be between no deal and remain. It would not be a re-run of the last and would not show a disrespect for the people’s verdict, because the facts have changed. This time, we would know, or certainly have a much clearer idea, of what Brexit means. In a democracy, people must be allowed to change their minds, if it is clear they want to. I believe that the result of a new referendum will be to stop Brexit, but the remain campaign will have to be a very different one and show that it understands the reason why so many voted leave.

Nowhere has the effect of Brexit and the positive case for our membership of the European Union been put more eloquently and persuasively than in a recent booklet by Will Hutton and the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. It is a small booklet called Saving Britain. It gives good reasons why, despite all the sorts of eloquence and insights we have had displayed in this debate, today’s debate will prove irrelevant because Clause 15 will never take effect.

It is very important that industry recognises that there is a real possibility of no Brexit, both here and abroad, and that they think again before they take too many irreversible decisions which are so damaging to the European Union as well as Britain.