EU Withdrawal — House of Lords, 2019-02-13
Topic: International Affairs
Richard Cavendish (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, it is fascinating to follow such a fluent speaker. I do not think that I am qualified to challenge what he told your Lordships As a convinced supporter of leaving the European Union, I recognise that I am in a tiny minority in your Lordships’ House. I invite noble Lords to pause for thought that this House, for the first time since 1910, has parted company with the people. There was a trust, I believe, between the people and the Peers that we would support them against a high-handed other House. I am not sure that that is entirely significant, but what I would say about people who are very gloomy about the churn and bad temper that the noble Lord, Lord Wilson, touched on is that we might look back and say that this was an extraordinary moment of change in British history and British politics where there was a realignment of people, and the bad temper and hot debate was all part of that and was perhaps more constructive than we see it now on a day-to-day basis I was interested, as perhaps other noble Lords were, to read an article in last week’s newspapers drawing our attention to the treaty of Utrecht of 1713. The author—of the article, not of the treaty—Mr Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, made the point that the famous treaty still holds force today because, unlike agreements such as NAFTA, NATO or the World Trade Organization, it contains no escape clause. The withdrawal agreement has no escape clause either. By signing it, we would be bound by its terms literally for ever. No country that I can think of with any significant stature in modern times has ever committed an act of such suicidal folly and self-harm as throwing away indefinitely fundamental sovereign powers I accept the advice that the term "best endeavours" may indeed have some force in international law, and, for all I know, "protocol" or some other comfortable form of words might, in diplomatic terms, add value to negotiations, but this is simply not good enough. We have been here before. I remind noble Lords how Mr Tony Blair affected to meet concerns about the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights, which became legally binding under the Lisbon treaty. He told the other place that, through securing Protocol 30: "It is absolutely clear that we have an opt-out".—[Official Report, Commons, 25/6/07; col. 37.] The rest is history. As a consequence of that contemptible episode, the ECJ acquired jurisdiction over swathes of our commercial, social and criminal law that was not intended by Parliament Of course, I am not remotely exercised by President Tusk’s preferred choice about where I spend eternity. What I cannot ignore is the EU’s increasingly aggressive attitude to this country in general and its relentless attacks on the City of London in particular. I remind noble Lords, as I have before, that we are morally and legally entitled to leave the European Union A gulf is fast developing between the very well-paid and arrogant officials of the EU and the citizens and institutions of individual states. I meet men and women from continental Europe who express acute embarrassment and shame at what is being done and said in their name. A group of top German economists have told the EU to tear up the Irish backstop and ditch its ideological demands in Brexit talks, calling instead for a flexible Europe of concentric circles that preserves friendly ties with the United Kingdom. Brussels must, they said, abandon its indivisibility dogma on the EU’s four freedoms to come up with a creative formula or risk a disastrous showdown with London that could all too easily spin out of control. What welcome and sensible mood music that is, compared with the vile-mannered stuff issuing from the mouths of some Eurocrats. The vexatious backstop is, for me, only one of the wholly unacceptable aspects of the withdrawal agreement. If there is any merit in the political declaration, I think it is that it has little or no legal force. By my reading, it gives away control over the environment, labour law, competition and state aid. Through non-regression clauses, none of this body of law would be capable of repeal. There is no mutual recognition for future trade in services. Accordingly, under the scope of the withdrawal agreement the most valuable and critical part of the economy will have been sacrificed During these debates I have asked the opposition parties from time to time what they like about the EU. I do not think there is much interest in the Liberal Democrat view, as it becomes daily clearer that, as a party, they have more appetite for virtue signalling than for governing. Their attitude to EU membership at the last election decimated their numbers, but it has not led them to moderate their actions here in your Lordships’ House to be more in line with their representatives in the House of Commons, a practice followed, I suggest, by both Labour and Conservatives in the past. Labour politicians, as distinct from Labour voters, have an obvious taste for EU membership, as it shields them from any responsibility for their redistributive policies. Their appetite for helping themselves incontinently to money they have not earned is something they can and do blame on the remote people of Brussels.