King’s Speech

Lord Thomas of Gresford Excerpts

Thursday 21st May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow a fellow Petrean, the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Lympne, who I felt was in an almost emollient mood.

Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Minister for the Constitution and a fine academic historian—as it happens, he is an expert on Owain Glyndŵr, the last native Prince of Wales—told us last month that although the Government want to develop closer ties with the EU, any sort of deal that would lead to the UK and the EU entering even into the customs union was ruled out. Even a bespoke version, he said, such as the agreements the EU has with Turkey and Norway, would be “off the cards”. We might call that the Starmer line—a ticket for a day trip to Calais. Streeting wants to take us off on the grand tour on the Brussels express. Burnham, on the other hand, is seriously Augustinian in his approach: Lord, make me a pure European, but not just yet.

Where is the Labour Party going? In the other place the Foreign Affairs Committee, in an excoriating letter sent yesterday to Mr Thomas-Symonds, severely criticised the Government for their

“secretive, piecemeal and disjointed approach to negotiations with the EU”.

The letter said:

“The lack of a clear and comprehensive vision for the EU relationship will continue to hamstring the Government”.


That was a letter signed by Emily Thornberry.

In the notes to the European partnership Bill published last Wednesday, the Government say:

“Businesses across the UK tell us they are being held back by red tape when trading with Europe”.


It is not red tape that is holding back businesses; it is the Government’s red lines inscribed in that medieval manuscript that would appeal to the historical interests of Mr Thomas-Symonds, the cobwebbed Labour 2024 election manifesto.

Say it out loud: the Brexit experiment has failed. True, the Pied Piper has led us the way to gold, but it is gold bitcoins for the man playing the alluring pipes—it is Nigel’s gold. The Government tell us, in the notes to the Bill, that the loss to our gross domestic product could be as much as 8%. The trumpets last week sounded out fanfares for just a 0.6% increase in growth in the last quarter—the highest rate, they boasted, in the G7. That is only 2.4% in a year. It does not begin to make up the 8% we have lost already.

Next month, as my noble friend Lady Suttie reminded us, it will be 10 years since David Cameron’s referendum. At that time, we were safe behind the bulwark of NATO. International trade was based on the rule of law. Putin’s ambitions in Ukraine still seemed limited to its Russian-speaking borders and the Middle East was quietening down. Those who promoted Brexit relied on our special relationship with the USA for security and prosperous markets. We would, they promised, be free to cut unique special deals around the whole world. It has not happened. These assumptions have proved false.

The world today is a very different place. Trump has torn up the rules with his stupid tariffs. He is pursuing military glory for his own vanity. He has weakened the American commitment to NATO and destroyed the capacity of the USA to give moral leadership to the world. The Liberty Bell is well and truly cracked and rings with a jangled sound. Meanwhile, Putin and Xi have discovered eternal friendship in each other’s arms. I say to whoever sits in No. 10 in a month’s time: be bold. Go for the single market and the customs union and follow the road once again to full partnership with Europe, with full participation in decision-making and administration. Take the lead as we in Britain used to do. Owain Glyndŵr could have made a better case for it. It is back to the future time.