European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 5) Bill

Lord Willoughby de Broke Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Willoughby de Broke (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I agree with only two things that the noble Lord, Lord Warner, said: one is the lack of trust in the country for this Government; the other is the botched mishandling of all our negotiations with the EU and in Parliament. But the lack of trust is largely due to the way Parliament is seen to have tried to block the result of the referendum.

I remind noble Lords in this House, who seem to have forgotten it, that in June 2016 the people of this country voted to leave the European Union. The turnout for the vote was 72%, which was one of the biggest turnouts for a democratic vote in this country’s history. The result was conclusive: 52% to 48%. The remainers understandably did not like that and said that we did not understand what we voted for. Of course we understood what we voted for: we voted to leave. In fact, each household in the country was sent a leaflet by the Government of David Cameron, who was then Prime Minister, extolling the virtues of remaining in the EU, which said we would be absolutely mad to vote to leave. At a cost of about £9 million, that was a pretty shabby little exercise at the taxpayers’ expense.

The last page of that leaflet was interesting, and I want to remind the House what it said:

“The referendum on Thursday, 23 June is your chance to decide if we should remain in or leave the European Union… This is your decision. The government will implement what you decide”.


That seemed to be echoed by the current Prime Minister in her Lancaster House speech, which was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. At that point, she clearly accepted that the result of the referendum was a clear out. There would be no single market; no customs union; no part in, part out; and the famous,

“no deal is better than a bad deal”.

Parliament seemed to agree with her on that, and with the vote in June 2016. I remind noble Lords of what the votes were, both in this House and the other place. The European Union Referendum Act 2015 was carried in the other place by a majority of 491 votes. The Commons voted to give the Bill its Third Reading by a majority of 263 votes. The Bill received its Second and Third Readings in this Chamber without Division. On the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017, the Commons divided, and the amendment was defeated by a majority of 236 votes. The Bill was given its Second Reading by 498 votes to 114; a majority of 384. The Commons gave the Bill its Third Reading by 494 votes to 122; a majority of 372. The same applied to the European Union (Withdrawal Act) 2018, which was passed by majority votes in both Houses. There is this sudden idea that this is somehow unconstitutional.

[Lord Robertson of Port Ellen (Lab)]

Can I ask the noble Lord a question? Had the referendum gone the other way, would he and his friends have accepted it absolutely and stopped campaigning for Britain to withdraw from the European Union?

[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

Of course we would have accepted the referendum result—we would have had to. We would not have said that the whole thing was illegitimate and that we wanted another referendum; we would have had to accept the result, just as we were forced to accept the result of the 1975 referendum which unfortunately brought us into the clutches of the European Union, or the Common Market, as it then was. We accepted that, so the answer is that we would have accepted this.

Today, we were presented with a wretched Bill that orders the Prime Minister to go to Brussels as a supplicant, on bended knee, to request an extension until an unknown date. That we do not have a date in the Bill is a matter of contention which will be dealt with in Committee. It is a complete negation of the vote at the end of June 2016.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who spoke earlier to introduce the Bill, and other noble Lords, have said there is no appetite for no deal. I must disabuse them of that idea, and tell them that there is an appetite for no deal. Only this morning, a YouGov poll came out—not of Parliament, because we know the flavour of Parliament and have had enough of that for a long time, but of the country at large. Among the Conservatives polled, 72% were in favour of no deal and only 15% against. From the Labour Party, 21% still voted no deal and 34% against. In London, 26% were for no deal and 45% against. In the rest of the south of England, 44% were for no deal and 34% against. In the Midlands, where I come from, 46% were for no deal and 31% against. In the north, 41% were for no deal and 34% against. That was today; it is not imagination.

[Lord Bilimoria]

Could the noble Lord clarify the results he has just cited? When he says, “against”, is it no deal versus revoking Article 50? If not, what is it against?

[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

It is no deal versus remain in the EU. That is what the question was in the YouGov poll this morning. I have it on my mobile; I will talk to the noble Lord afterwards and give it to him.

[Lord Bilimoria]

I have got the figures right here. The latest YouGov poll, which I looked at today, says that 37% were for a second referendum, 26% for no deal and 11% for the PM’s deal. No deal being a bad outcome was 50%, versus 25% for it being a good outcome.

[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

That is very different from the poll I saw. Perhaps after this debate the noble Lord and I might share a drink and we can compare polls. However, I stand by the figures that I cited from today’s YouGov poll.

Earlier this afternoon, the noble Lord, Lord Owen, who is generally admired, warned this House to be very careful. He was right to say that. The reputation of this House has been damaged by the perception—perhaps no more than that—that it is against leaving the EU and against the result of the referendum voted for by 17.4 million people. If this goes on, and the House continues to thwart and block the result of that historic vote, I fear that the feeling will quickly turn to downright contempt, and deservedly so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Liddle]

My noble friend, as always, has taken the best parts of my speech. However, he is right.

We are in the gravest political and constitutional crisis that this country has seen since the Second World War. I am troubled by the tone of the debate this afternoon. There seems to be—certainly on one side of the argument—little realisation of how serious the crisis is. This might be a flawed Bill, brought here by an extraordinary process, but nevertheless it is part of the solution to the crisis in which we find ourselves, and that is why it should be supported.

The idea that Britain could leave the European Union credibly with no deal has always been a fantasy. The popular view was that coming out of Europe would be like bargaining about buying a house or a second-hand car and that unless you are prepared to walk away you will never get anything. This is a complete fallacy about the nature of our relationship with the European Union.

We have been in the European Union for 45 years and in that period the depth of integration across whole fields of our national life has been huge. It started mainly as a customs union, developed into a single market and in recent times there have been important developments in the security field which are vital to the safety of people on the streets in this country. The idea that we could simply walk away from all of this without any consequences or massive disruption is a complete nonsense.

I say with a heavy heart that I blame the Prime Minister for the fact that this argument has gained strength. I greatly admire—perhaps it is a false view—her sense of dogged public duty, but she made a terrible mistake in her Lancaster House speech in January 2017 when she allowed her chief-of-staff, Nick Timothy, to insert into that speech the populist line that,

“no deal … is better than a bad deal”.

That has been the driving force for the argument that has grown about no deal being a credible alternative for coming out of the European Union.

[Lord Willoughby de Broke]

Does the noble Lord therefore support a bad deal? Is that what he is saying?

[Lord Liddle]

I am certainly not saying that. I am saying that you have to recognise the realities of the 45 years of the relationship. It is almost certainly impossible to walk away from that relationship—which is what no deal involves—without massive disruption in all kinds of spheres.

We have heard a lot tonight of evidence from the association of entrepreneurs—or something—that no deal will not do us any harm, but every respectable business organisation takes the view that no deal would be very damaging. We have heard a lot about the views of the noble Lord, Lord King of Lothbury. We have heard very little about the views of Mark Carney, the current Governor of the Bank of England, who was devastating in the Financial Times today in what he said about his predecessor and the rank foolishness of what he was proposing.