My Lords, it would be a brave tribe that took on the noble Lord. The noble Baroness the Leader, in introducing the debate, made a point of saying that this was a technical Bill. However, she has since had the experience of listening to the forensic dissection of the Bill by my brother advocate, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. If the noble and learned Lord takes part in these proceedings in the way in which he foreshadowed, the government Bench will have to be about its business.
I do not believe it is possible to debate this Bill, technical or otherwise, without having some account of the political context in which it is brought. I want to deal first with the question of Scotland. I have little to add to what the noble and learned Lord or indeed my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace have said. However, the Government’s approach has been playing into the hands of those in Scotland who seek independence by blaming London for everything. If you want to give wind to the sails of those who wish for a second referendum in Scotland on independence, then continue
to proceed in the way in which the Government have done so far. I cannot emphasise strongly enough the importance of accepting the nature of the relationship between the devolved parts of the United Kingdom. As the Constitution Committee pointed out in its report, failure to secure legislative consent would have “significant constitutional repercussions”. To that I would add, “and significant political repercussions as well”.
Another area of uncertainty to which noble Lords have referred is that of Ireland. I want someone to tell me, perhaps by the end of the two days of this debate, precisely what constitutional and legal mechanism the Government propose in order to achieve the fact of Northern Ireland continuing to have the same border arrangements with the south of Ireland but that does not involve membership of the single market and the customs union. I have seen no evidence that such a thing is possible. If the Government have it, let them tell us it now.
As if these things were not enough, we now have a Government who are infused with discord, weakness and ambition. Why is that so? Here I seek to answer the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Higgins: it is not because they will not reveal their negotiating position but because they cannot agree one. They have said they want a good bespoke deal, but what is a “good” deal and what is “bespoke”? What is it that the Government actually want? It is not just Members of this House who want to find out; Mr Barnier and the 27 other nations of the European Union want to know what we want. So far, we have been unable to provide that because of the divisions in the Government and the Cabinet. As for Mr Macron, he came, he saw and he conquered. We gave him the red carpet treatment and he promised us the loan of a tapestry. The whole visit was an outstanding success until someone said: “What about access for financial institutions?”; to which he said, “Be my guest”. People’s hearts rose, thinking that this was all going to be easy, but then he added a coda: “Be in the single market, and be in the customs union”. That is deeply illustrative of the attitude that the European Union has taken and will continue to take.
In the meantime, the Brexiteers seem determined to undermine the Chancellor and, now, civil servants. If you undermine the Chancellor on Brexit, you undermine him on economic competence. The more that the Prime Minister is undermined by her party over questions of leadership, the more that she will be undermined in her capacity to negotiate with Mr Barnier. The more that she is undermined by her own party, the less influence she will have with President Trump on the proposed trade deal. The Prime Minister has had to cancel making a speech that she was going to make setting out the Government’s position, and is going to the security conference in Munich instead. If she has the same experience in Munich that the Foreign Secretary had last year, she will find that Brexit is on the table all time and that any effort to, as it were, hide behind the fact that this is a conference normally committed to discussing security will not provide a defence for her. I hesitate to say this but, in the light of the conduct of the members of the Conservative Party in the Cabinet, there must be the possibility that during the passage of
the Bill through your Lordships’ House the Prime Minister could face a leadership contest. This is Chamberlain territory, and its consequences for this legislation are beyond understanding.
Finally, let me make this point. The noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, was quite right to refer to tumbrils. Those who want us to leave the European Union have already got their own committee of public safety. Mr William Rees-Mogg bids to be Robespierre, and he has threatened this House—