My Lords, I was wondering last night what a cynical Government would do if they knew they could get only a poor deal because they had limited their own hand so much in negotiations. Leave it to the last minute? Issue inaccurate and misleading press statements when it was made? Allow only for minute scrutiny? Seek to prevent any post-legislative scrutiny and refuse to publish an impact assessment, perhaps? But, as others do, I love my country and it was a rather heartbreaking exercise, over the last few days, to read, side by side, the Conservative Government’s draft negotiating document for a free trade agreement, published on 19 May, and the final agreement. In almost every single area, from the betrayal of fishermen and Gibraltarians through to the vast new burdens on our businesses, the consistency and scale of the poor negotiating was laid bare in cold text.
The independent UK Trade Policy Observatory assessment stated:
“Even with the free trade agreement (FTA) announced on Christmas Eve, Brexit increases UK-EU trade costs, reduces trade between them, and requires resources for form-filling, queuing, etc. These in turn, lead to changes in consumption which reduce UK residents’ welfare.”
It goes on to a sobering conclusion:
“Exports of value added will fall by nearly 5.5% relative to a pre-Brexit scenario and GDP by 4.4%.”
My noble friends Lord Fox and Lady Kramer will outline this in more detail. The refusal yesterday of the noble Lord, Lord True, to commit to publishing an impact assessment, in direct contradiction to a letter he sent me in May, is likely to be seen more cynically by those communities and sectors that will be impacted most.
The punishing absence of services was expected, as the UK’s “red line” on securing services continuity turned to pink and then to a white flag ages ago. We knew some of the details of this already. The noble Lord, Lord Grimstone, was appointed Trade Minister from being chair of one of the UK’s biggest banks, and when he moved Barclays’ European headquarters and almost €200 billion in assets from London to Dublin last year, he said:
“We believe this will give us a competitive advantage”.
Those of us warning of the damage of this course were told, first, that we were scaremongering and then that we were sore losers, but I looked at the Leave.EU website archive and in the questions and answers it said this to the question of what impact leaving the EU would have on trade:
“The remaining EU member states will seek a trade agreement assuring the same level of free exchange of goods, services and capital as is the case today.”
They did not, and this promise was made in falsehood and fully realised in its egregious breach. However, the lies, tangled webs of deception and parliamentary obfuscations are nearly over, and we will have to deal with the consequences.
Liberal forebears joined together to ensure the widest benefit of free, fair and open trade well over a century ago. We fought relentlessly against Conservative protectionism at the turn of the last century. We split from the Conservative and National Government over their imposition of tariffs all round. Now, a century on, we need to try to militate against the worst elements of this poor agreement. We will have to be in the vanguard of supporting women entrepreneurs in the service sector to tackle the new barriers, helping our businesses export against the new burdens and supporting those wishing to seek advantage not by moving out of the UK but by staying in it and working with others to reconnect with Europe. I never thought we would need to rejoin this fight, but we do—we must, and we will with vigour.
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