My Lords, this afternoon, we have had the glorious sight of many noble angels dancing on the head of a pin, effervescing with enthusiasm for the virtues of parliamentary oversight. Of course, they are absolutely right, but I just wonder where this particular angelic host was hiding during the previous 40-odd years, when rule was piled upon regulation and then dropped from the commanding heights of Brussels on to this so-called sovereign Parliament. There was not much debate then, or much protest from the usual suspects. There were not many Tarzans swinging through the jungle, if I may put it that way. You do not get back in your car, with your windscreen smothered in almost 50 years of parking tickets, and then decide that you can drive away while peeling them off one by one—although some noble Lords have come up with an answer: they want to drive away in reverse gear. That is what a good deal of the criticism is really about: going back to the future and reliving the glorious past, with all its myths, fantasies and metric martyrs.
It is suggested that the Bill is a cut-and-paste exercise. Thank goodness for that, because, while we use paste, the EU uses superglue. We can move things around, but it cannot: once you are in, you are stuck. We have a dashboard. We have this debate, we will have a stringent Committee—I hope it will be prosperous—and future Governments will be able to have their way, too. So, yes, let us defend the rights of Parliament against the Executive, but let us not forget that the Bill has already passed through our elected House of Commons. Yet we have heard threats from Opposition Benches today that they intend to tear the Bill apart—that is unacceptable, irresponsible and utterly undemocratic.
Sadly, politics is not the pursuit of perfection; it is usually a choice between the unappetising and the totally inedible. What is inedible, and impossible to stomach, is that knot of prejudice that simply refuses to accept Brexit. I will not point a finger at anyone in this House, although I suspect that some volunteers may like to step forward, but I will point a finger at Guy Verhofstadt—Mr Europe—who, the other day, offered the conclusion that Putin invaded Ukraine because of Brexit. Perhaps his foie gras had gone off or something. There was me thinking that independent post-Brexit Britain had pulled Europe towards its senses on Ukraine and into action, just as we did with Covid vaccines. Thank goodness we were able to make those decisions with some speed then. Mr Verhofstadt’s words are truly appalling.
Other words I find more compelling are those of Jonathan Reynolds, the Labour spokesman on the Bill in the other place. I was glad to hear them echoed today by the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman. During the Commons Second Reading, Mr Reynolds said that this Bill
“is not about Brexit—Brexit has happened; it is a fact.”—[Official Report, Commons, 25/10/22; col. 191.]
So we must stop pretending that the European parliamentary system was so much more democratic and its laws so much better considered. Brexit is a fact—a democratic fact—and it is our duty to get on with it.
7.17 pm