My Lords, all of us at Westminster are responsible for the tangle we are in, and have only ourselves to blame. As we think about getting out of Europe, we should think of how we got into this state.
We pushed on as internationalists with a well-intentioned daydream of a united republic of Europe. We set out to minimise the distinction between natural citizens and outsiders. We gave complete disdain to patriotism, which—inescapably—is the tribal loyalty that gives the social cohesion that glues society together. We wilfully overlooked the democratic deficit that is the inherent weakness of the European Union and which, coupled with the demise of the euro, will lead to its eventual downfall.
We, the economically privileged, preached about the benefits of immigration, damned as racist those who disagreed and moaned about the inadequacies of the health service. But we refused to face up to the effects of population growth of half a million a year. I have sat here most of the day and hardly anybody has mentioned the horrendous problem we will have in this country of trying to accommodate a further 5 million people over the next 10 years, in the same way that we have been bottlenecked by 5 million over the past 10 years. It is nothing to do with race, creed or anything else. It is to do with the huge overload on our services. We have not faced up to this, and to the effect that it is having on our hospitals, schools, prisons and housing, and not least on the wage levels of those less fortunate than ourselves. The silent majority who have had to suffer the consequences used Brexit to express their concern. They voted for reasonable control of immigration and there will be riots if this is not implemented.
Then we come to the problem of the young. Everybody says that they voted to stay in. The problem there is that they have yet to experience that democracy is a frail concept. Democracy when it works gives social stability while it is believed in, but it is incompatible with the coming reality of a centralised, unaccountable governance of Europe. The noble dream of ever-closer union is having the opposite effect. Many of those who voted for Brexit felt that their views were being ignored, particularly by the party that hitherto represented
them. They felt deserted by the Labour Party and theirs was a cry for help. They were patronised and assured, but not convinced, that all was well and that, being at the heart of Europe, we could influence policies. Little did they know that at the Council of Ministers, where we have only 14% of the votes, of the last 72 proposals put forward by our Government, none was accepted. So much for having influence. The EU is a dysfunctional system that depends on arm-twisting and the pressure of a thousand lobbyists. It is a perfect example of regulation without rectification—an updated version of “no taxation without representation”—that has caused those who care about democracy to demand the bringing back of self-administration.
On a more positive note, trade crosses all borders. Tariffs may hinder trade but they seldom stop it. The Woolsack in front of us is a symbol of our timeless trade with the continent. Some 14 million jobs in the EU are partly dependent on our custom. They need to trade with us—and will. You do not have to be a member of the single market to trade with it, so the only obstacle to trade is tariffs—which on average are less than 2%, except on cars where, as we buy so many more cars from them, a deal is bound to be done. Of course, we never did get, in spite of trying, free trade for services.
Meanwhile the good news is that the pound has dropped some 7%, so that the tariff cost is now well offset. Our pound has been overvalued for years. A lower pound will help correct the huge imbalance of trade and borrowings. It will make our manufacturing industry, and farming, very competitive. That is greatly to the benefit of all those out of work who have good manual and dextrous skills—skills, incidentally, that are unsuitable for coffee shops, through which it is difficult to get the productivity that the economy needs.
So now we have the perfect moment to get our economy moving along the right lines. A revitalised Government should encourage saving, not even more debt. We are borrowed up to our eyes, both personally and nationally. We should start a new form of infrastructure bond that is pension suitable, and use the proceeds to develop, as a priority for job creation, a massive investment in our decaying infrastructure. We should get on with Heathrow. We should scrap the entirely unsuitable HS2. We should get out of the engagement with Hinkley Point, which is already a dying technology. There are better nuclear ones on the immediate horizon. We should, regretfully, look at our wasteful overseas aid, every penny of which adds to our overseas indebtedness because we have to borrow it before we can spend it. We should use the savings to increase our defence expenditure, which sometimes is the best sort of aid we can give to other countries. We should now have the opportunity to borrow cheaply and to get on with the massive building of hospitals, schools and transport that our infrastructure needs. We should get Britain cracking.
Unshackled, in due course free from excessive EU bureaucracy, and with compliance only when needed, this great country—one of the largest economies in the world—will prosper, with control of its own borders and sovereignty restored, as a major trading nation on the right side of history.
8.18 pm