EU Referendum and EU Reform (EUC Report) — House of Lords, 2016-06-15
Topic: International Affairs
Michael Hastings Jay (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I speak as a member of the EU Committee and draw attention to my interests in the register My own view is that remaining in the European Union and playing a full and constructive role in its policy and development at a crucial time for Europe is firmly in the United Kingdom’s economic and political interest, all the more so after the Prime Minister’s renegotiations. As the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, said, that is seldom mentioned now by either side, but the measures to protect the single market of 28 against a more closely integrating eurozone, in particular, seems to me of great importance, not just for us but for other non-eurozone members, notably Denmark and Sweden The report on the process of leaving the European Union makes clear that it would be uncertain and lengthy. In the immediate aftermath of a no vote, I suspect that not a great deal would happen, although the Prime Minister’s renegotiations would immediately fall. I leave aside any effect on the currency markets, or any effect on the domestic political scene, which I think is not for a Cross-Bencher to comment on, but looking further ahead I cannot see how, in order to respect our international legal obligations, we can do other than invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty, leading to fraught and difficult negotiations with our 27 EU partners. Even if we did not invoke Article 50, it seems to me that we would still have to have the difficult, fraught and lengthy negotiations. I think that that is an important point As our report says, there would need to be two separate negotiations. What would be our relationship to the European Union? Would we be in the single market or not? What would be the implications for EU citizens in Britain and British citizens in the European Union? There would need to be a second negotiation on the process and timing of leaving. The articulation of those two negotiations is unclear, but it is clear that the outcome of those negotiations will be immensely important for the United Kingdom Those will be immensely important, too, for the rest of the European Union, but the context there will be entirely different. There will be a powerful desire to ensure that British exit does not stoke demands for other countries to exit or to seek a new relationship with the European Union. There will be other questions, too. What will be the relationship between France and Germany? What will be their relationship with the United States? And so on. We would not be immune from some of those concerns ourselves. We are already seeing the French start contingency plans for enticing London-based banks and bankers to Paris—I am sure Frankfurt will follow. At the same time, the European Union will need to continue to confront the huge challenges that it now faces: terrorism, migration, and the need for closer integration within the eurozone. Dealing with those issues will not be made any easier by the need to hold complex and difficult talks with the United Kingdom—indeed, quite the contrary. The idea that these negotiations will somehow be straightforward and constructive, and that it will be in the European Union’s interests to give us more or less whatever we decide to ask for, seems implausible to say the least We will not just be negotiating with a bloc or with the Commission; we will effectively be dealing with 27 member states with 27 sets of vested interests, which they will want to see reflected in the negotiating mandate that is given to the Commission to negotiate with us. The German Finance Minister is upping the ante already by saying that membership of the single market will not be on offer to us after a vote to leave. I was in Paris when the French tried to prolong the ban on British beef following the BSE affair, after the Commission had declared it safe. With the Commission’s support, we saw them off. I mention in passing that British beef is not accepted into the United States. The chances that the French and other member states will not seek to further their own interests during their negotiations with us seems to me to be exactly zero Here is the irony: a vote to leave the European Union will lead to two, five, or up to 10 years of fraught negotiations with the other 27—us against them, with the Commission on their side—which will make the present relationship with the European Union look like sweetness and light. The tougher the negotiations—and they will be tough—and the greater the dissension and the greater the uncertainty, the greater will be the disincentive to invest in this country and the greater will be the consequences for jobs All this leaves aside the consequences of Brexit for the cohesion of the United Kingdom and, in some ways most worrying of all, the implications for the external border of the European Union running between Northern Ireland and the Republic, on which my noble friend Lady O’Neill spoke eloquently in the debate on the Queen’s Speech. My guess is that it would not be long after a vote to leave before there was an agonising cry of "How on earth did we get ourselves into this mess?". It is my earnest hope that we do not take that risk.