Brexit: Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration

Lord Wilson of Dinton Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wilson of Dinton (CB)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow such a strong speech in favour of remaining. It is also a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, who—to my disconcertion—has made my speech, almost verbatim in some respects, because what I wanted to offer the House was the thought that the task which the Prime Minister undertook two and a half years ago was probably impossible. She could not deliver it, but she has done the best she could. It is not a deal which protects the interests of this country well enough. The price is too high. In the first half of my speech on 5 December I said that I could not recommend to my children or grandchildren a deal which left this country economically poorer, politically weaker and, arguably, less safe in the world. Nothing that I have heard in our three days of debate has changed that view. However, I want to add a point about the divisiveness of the debate.

We have been told that if we have a people’s vote—a second referendum—it might unleash strong passions, and that we should not do so because it is undemocratic. On the undemocratic point, I long for George Orwell’s comments on a criticism of asking the people what they think as being undemocratic. It is doublespeak of a kind which is quite hard to understand.

On the division, we have to recognise that the problem lies in a lack of clarity of thought about what Brexit was meant to achieve. I am not a politician, but it seems to me that the Brexit campaign, by vagueness, managed to unite some very disparate, different groups. For many years I worked for Ministers of different Governments, and in both the Labour and Conservative parties, there has been a strong streak of deep, visceral dislike of Europe. For one-third of my career I worked for Ministers who felt strongly against the Union, even though they were in Governments who supported it. I recall being told by Tony Benn, for whom I worked for four years, that I was a member of the politico-military establishment and that the EU was part of a global capitalist plot. He did not put it quite like that, but that was the essence of what he meant. I can also remember Mrs Thatcher passionately telling her Cabinet that the British people consented to join the Common Market but never consented to join a political union. The roots of Brexit in the Conservative and Labour parties, although they are strange bedfellows, are very deep.

Political movements succeed only when they resonate with the dreams, unhappiness, disappointments or ambitions and desires of the public. What did Brexit resonate with? Through its vagueness, it resonated with all sorts of different groups who wanted someone to blame and who had been encouraged, perhaps by an anti-European press—fairly or unfairly, usually unfairly—to blame Brussels. Those groups were disappointed, perhaps by austerity or the financial crisis. We should remember that financial crises ripple through the decades that follow them and have political effects 10 years later. It also fed into the north/south divide, resentment at not sharing in the prosperity which Europe has generated, and an unhappiness about the speed at which immigrants were coming to this country. Those are all very different grievances, and you cannot find one deal that meets all those problems and needs.

So, where are we now, on the eve of a big political crisis? We have only 10 weeks until the leave date. There are not many options left to be established on such a big issue in 10 weeks. The essence of where we are was summed up by the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong, when he said:

“When you’re in a hole, stop digging”.—[Official Report, 10/1/19; col. 2341.]


We need to stop for a moment; we need clear thought. Unless you know where you want to get to, you are not going to be able to get there. Unless you can agree your destination your path will be confused and muddled. It is a political process that can be solved only in the Commons. If the Commons accepts the deal before it, that settles it. We all have to accept that. If the Commons disagrees with the deal, it then has to consider no deal. For reasons I will not go over, that is far too risky and unacceptable. We cannot gamble with the fate of this country.

The question then is: are there any other options? Time is very short to explore that. The need for an extension of the deadline is almost inescapable. The question then becomes whether we have a referendum. If people say that it is too divisive to have a referendum, all I would say is that whatever we do, whether we remain or leave, our relationship with Europe will be divisive. It will go on only until we have clarity about the destination we want to reach and what sort of country we want to be. It might go on until we are all exhausted, or until a younger generation takes over. The young are the solution to the problem we are in. I believe the future will sort itself out only when they have the chance to take command. If we leave, I will simply drink a toast to the young, under whose leadership, in 30 or 40 years’ time, we will almost certainly apply to rejoin the Union. Until then, I shall vote for the noble Baroness’s Motion.