UK and EU Relations — House of Lords, 2017-09-12
Topic: International Affairs
Archibald Gavin Hamilton (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I would like to use my five minutes to talk about the progress of the negotiations with the EU or, perhaps more accurately, their lack of progress. Michel Barnier, the EU negotiator, has made it clear that he needs to see progress on three issues: the rights of EU citizens living in this country and British citizens living in the EU; the Irish border question; and, of course, the money It strikes me that if there was any political will behind it, agreement would already have been reached on the EU citizens. We want them to stay here and it cannot be impossible to find the means by which that happens. We do not have to agree to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice for its citizens who live in this country because that would admit that our legal system was rather inferior to that of the EU. I do not think that anybody in this House would really go along with that At the same time, the Irish border issue is one where there seems to be complete unanimity. Everybody seems to agree that we should continue with the frictionless border between the north and southern Ireland, which existed decades before anybody joined the EU. If there was any political will there, I believe that issue could have been solved. The problem is that if it were solved, that would create a template of frictionless borders which could then be applied to the rest of the EU. That would then draw the EU into the question of the next phase of discussing our trade relationships with it Then there is the money. I always think that the whole debate about how much we should pay the EU was rather snarled up at the beginning by its absurd claim that we should pay it €100 billion. Not unnaturally, the UK position seems to be to go back to the EU and say, "We will of course honour our international obligations, but produce us the evidence that we actually owe you money. If you do, we’d be more than happy to pay up if we are clearly liable for those debts". That does not seem an irresponsible position to be in However, the problem is that the question of whether we are making progress on these issues is a subjective judgment in anybody’s language. I expect that the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, was right to say that the advice to be given to the Council of Ministers in October will be that insufficient progress has been made, so we will not be able to move on to the more serious issues of our future trading relationship with the EU The most important question put in this Chamber today came from my noble friend Lord Caithness. I repeat it to my noble friend the Minister: is it right that the United Kingdom made a proposal to the EU that we should have a rolling programme of negotiations, which should just continue, and that the EU turned this down by saying that we had to wait for the next scheduled meeting? If that is the case, it is quite clear that—as per the alarm bells sent ringing by my noble friend Lord Blencathra—it does not want an agreement but wants to push it right to the end of the period. If you have negotiations going on between two parties, one of which wants an agreement and one of which does not, it will clearly be very difficult to get an agreement. This brings us back to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Jay, who made it clear that we might reach the end of the period without any agreement because it has just been impossible to get any agreement during that period If there was an agreement, it does not follow that it will be ratified and agreed by the European Parliament, which might well take the view that it does not want to encourage anybody to leave the EU. It would therefore be very important not to approve it in the European Parliament. The agreement then has to go to 27 different countries in the EU. There are also something like 11 regional Governments—I do not know whether they all have a veto on it as well. So there are many hurdles to be cleared and it seems not inconceivable that we might end up, through no fault of our own, with no deal whatever There are moments when I feel quite sorry for Michel Barnier. He is trapped between businessmen and sensible people in the nation states, who want to go on trading with the United Kingdom, and lunatics in Brussels who want to punish anybody who has the nerve to leave the club.