United Kingdom-European Union Future Economic Partnership — House of Lords, 2018-03-05
Topic: International Affairs
Richard Newby (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, the Prime Minister has set five overarching tests for a successful Brexit. Three are simply vacuous: respecting the referendum, being enduring and being consistent with the kind of country we want to be. Two are more substantive, but both are being actively undermined by the Government’s own Brexit stance The first is protecting people’s jobs and security. Has the Prime Minister given any thought to how that sounds to the 300 Ryanair workers at Glasgow Airport as the company closes its international base there, on the basis of Brexit, to the 288 workers at Landis+Gyr in Stockport as it moves its production to Romania, or to the small businesses which have contacted me explaining how leaving the customs union and single market will impose costs on them that will force them out of business? The Statement contains some welcome shafts of realism, none more so than the statement that our access to EU markets will be less than now. Does the noble Baroness the Leader accept that less access means less trade, which in turn means fewer jobs, lower national income and higher prices The second substantive test set by the Prime Minister is that Brexit must strengthen, "our union of nations and our union of people" Leaving aside the impasse in discussions with the devolved institutions about the transposition of EU law, how does the noble Baroness think that sounds in Northern Ireland? The Prime Minister has come up with absolutely nothing new to reassure people that there will be no customs border between the north and the Republic. Of the options on the table, one simply says that SMEs, which represent 80% of trade, can carry on as if the border did not exist. How could that possibly work if standards diverge or if the UK strikes its own trade deals with different tariffs from those applying in the EU? This is the only example I know of where the Government’s policy is indeed bold and imaginative—but it is hardly credible As for the technological solution to the border, does the noble Baroness agree with Pascal Lamy that there is no such thing as a virtual border? Does she agree with the report, much touted by Brexiteers, from Lars Karlsson, which explains on page 11 that, on the highest tech option he can see, an app on a mobile phone of a lorry driver "opens the gate automatically" as the lorry approaches the border—that is, a gate, a physical thing, not a virtual border. Has she read his description of the Norway/Sweden border, the most technologically advanced in the world according to him, where at staffed customs posts most goods traffic is cleared "within 3-9 minutes"? There is no soft border there either The Prime Minister refers briefly to our being able, in theory, to negotiate new trade agreements after Brexit. When she rang Donald Trump over the weekend to complain about his plan to slap a punitive tariff on UK steel, did she ask him how that fitted into a comprehensive free trade deal? Did she consider that in fighting any US steel tariff, the EU as a whole was likely to have a bit more clout than the UK on its own More generally, the speech sets out a range of areas where the Government plan to follow EU rules but pay for the privilege and lose any say in how they are set. Having associate membership of various EU bodies is better than nothing, but in reality we become rule-takers. On the trade in goods, the PM admits that we will have to follow standards "substantially similar"—that is, as near as makes no difference to identical—to those set by the EU The rationale for becoming rule-takers instead of rule-makers is that Parliament retains the right to diverge from the EU rules if it chooses. But the speech demonstrates how in practice it will not dare do so because of the damage it would cause to business and the economy. The Prime Minister wants to exchange the reality of influence for the pretence of sovereignty—and what is worse, she clearly accepts that it is a pretence. The Government are going through extraordinary contortions of both policy and language to try to replicate as far as possible the existing terms of our EU membership. It all begs the question, "Is it worth it?"—and invites the response, "No".