I am not sure how far I should follow the noble Baroness except by making a few obvious points. First, the Good Friday agreement and
the Northern Ireland protocol were warmly welcomed in Northern Ireland; this is not being done to Northern Ireland against its will. These provisions are very warmly welcomed because the people of Northern Ireland see them as a guarantor of peace and stability there; this requires an open border with the Republic of Ireland, so I do not follow the noble Baroness on that point.
I also did not follow the noble Baroness when she said that the House of Lords was standing “in the way” of parliamentary sovereignty. We are part of Parliament and performing our functions as a part of it. In that respect, I pay great tribute to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and—I never thought I would hear myself saying this—the noble Lord, Lord Howard, who have played an absolutely central part in the ability of this House to perform its proper constitutional role to see that the House of Commons is invited to reflect further on provisions that it believes are injurious to the public interest.
We have reached this point in a very convoluted way, because the Government changed their mind mid-way through the parliamentary process. However, the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, likened the noble Lord, Lord True, to the prodigal son, and we welcome all those who have seen the error of their ways and repented. The process by which they do so is not significant; what is significant is the opportunity that this House gives to Parliament at large—including the Government, which operate as a part of Parliament—to consider its view on these big and important matters that are of concern to us. We have reached the right decision on this matter.
The only point I want to make is about the consequences because, as we now move forward, they are significant. To understand them, we need to understand why the Government did what they did. It was never my view that they intended these provisions to become law; they knew that the noble Lord, Lord Howard, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and a whole galaxy of the most heavyweight Members of your Lordships’ House would object to them—they knew that.
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They knew that there was virtually no prospect of these provisions becoming law because so serious are the points at issue, with the breaches of international law, that we would insist, and we would be completely and constitutionally entitled to insist, under the Salisbury/Addison convention, on removing these provisions from the Bill. Not only were they not in the Conservative Party manifesto last year, but that manifesto promised the opposite: that the deal that the Prime Minister had done with the European Union would be the one he would implement. Therefore, they knew that these provisions would not become law.
In my view, the Prime Minister was seeking to give himself a stronger negotiating hand in the negotiations taking place in Brussels at the moment—this was always a tactical ploy that he sought to exercise. There is an important gloss on this: those of us who have observed the Prime Minister closely over many years know that he has pretty much straightforward contempt for rules of any kind. He does not regard himself as
bound by rules, and he certainly does not think that the Government should be bound by rules. When faced with rules, even those that he has himself negotiated, as in the case of the Northern Ireland protocol, he does not believe that he should be bound by them.
He was seeking to up the ante in respect of the European Union in the hope that this would provoke more concessions. I have to say that I was surprised that the European Union agreed to negotiate with him after he announced the decision to withdraw from international law. If it had been the noble Lord, Lord Howard, on the other side, I imagine he would have upped sticks and stopped the negotiations immediately if the other side had announced that it were going to break the very agreement that it had last made; I can imagine the hard line that would have followed from that.
However, the European Union has the patience of Job; it is a consensual-minded institution that very badly, and rightly, wants to have good relations with the United Kingdom hereafter. In particular, I applaud Chancellor Merkel, who understands that the long-term interests of Germany and this country are, and should be, aligned and that, though we are temporarily under very bad leadership here in Britain, they will become aligned in due course. She has a duty to see that she achieves, so far as she can, that alignment, and I pay tribute to that.
Our problem, which is really serious for us as a country is that we now have a reputation with international partners, including the European Union, as being a country that does not observe the rule of law and will play fast and loose with agreements that it has reached. In particular—I will be blunt about this—under the leadership of the present Prime Minister, you simply cannot trust a word he says because he has gone back on his word only months after he solemnly gave it in a treaty that he signed as the head of the Government. Part of the reason why we are clearly in such a difficult situation in Brussels at the moment regarding the arrangements for arbitration on issues to do with state aid and subsidies is precisely that the European Union is not prepared to accept normal, conventional ways of behaving because it is not dealing with a normal, conventional Government or politician; it is dealing with a semi-revolutionary Government and leader here in Britain.
I latch on very much to the final words of the noble Lord, Lord Howard, who is very wise in matters concerning reconciling differences: the machinery that was put in place by the withdrawal agreement for resolving difficulties between the European Union and the United Kingdom hereafter could play a part. The problem we have—we need to be frank about it—is that the European Union clearly does not trust that machinery because it does not trust Her Majesty’s Government to act in good faith.
We welcome the prodigal son and the fact that these clauses have been removed, but they have left a deep and damaging legacy for this country in its conduct of international relations and our future relations with the European Union. We have to do the best that we possibly can to undo the damage for the good of our long-term relations with our European partners.