Baroness Ludford: ...that we could rely on the Conservatives to be rather resistant to extreme change. As I travelled in on the Tube today, I saw a poster advertising a book on Churchill by the aspirant Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. It is called The Churchill Factor and is apparently in the top 10 list in the Sunday Times. This is the same Boris Johnson who, like Syriza, wants to have two referenda, with the...
Baroness Ludford: ...that wants Brexit? The US trade representative has said that the United States is not interested in a trade deal with just the UK. We know, of course, that the leavers are all over the place. Boris Johnson—true to form—could not stick to his suggestion of a second referendum for more than five days. And 13 days before his announced “decision” to back leave, he had been singing the...
Baroness Ludford: ...EU action, and the noble Lord, Lord Luce, emphasised all the major challenges that we need to address. Yet much of the navel-gazing media focus in this campaign is about whether George Osborne or Boris Johnson might be our future Prime Minister. I have heard about as much from IDS and Jacob Rees-Mogg as I can bear in a lifetime. I exempt the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, who makes me laugh. I...
Baroness Ludford: ...EU needs to be clearer about what the end game is. We have seen in the referendum campaign the mischief that can be made out of the fact that Turkey is a “candidate country”. This has allowed Boris Johnson and Vote Leave to assert that “Turkey is joining the EU” when everyone, including Mr Johnson—who very recently expressed firm support for Turkish accession—knows that Turkey...
Baroness Ludford: ...The Andrew Marr Show” yesterday that he was determined to make sure that Britain does not fall off a cliff edge—in other words, does not leave without an agreement. Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told the rival “Peston on Sunday” that it would be perfectly okay if we were not able to get an agreement; while the last in the trio, Trade Secretary Liam Fox told Sky News...
Baroness Ludford: ..., Britain must be back in control. And that means EU law must cease to apply. To ensure continuity, we will take a simple approach”. It is all going to be a piece of cake—maybe even a piece of Boris Johnson’s cake, the type you can have while also eating it. But as the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, said, that gives you indigestion. Besides ease and simplicity, the other assurances we...
Baroness Ludford: ...the media, to be knowledgeable voters asked to pronounce on the EU. We all know who started the Euro myth business of bendy cucumbers and straight bananas: the unlamented ex-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, whose association with the truth has more than a touch of Trumpism about it. Other journalists felt under pressure after Boris Johnson, as the Brussels correspondent of the Daily...
Baroness Ludford: ...are listening to the nation beyond London. I understand that she was take part in a televised Q&A with workers at a local firm near Gateshead. I hope that she heeds the one valuable comment made by Boris Johnson in his Personal Statement last week—although in his case, it is a bit pot and kettle—when he said that, “we continue to make the fatal mistake of underestimating the...
Baroness Ludford: ...strong contributions across the House. My strongest memory of this debate might well be the recollection of the noble Lord, Lord Russell, of a banner from last Saturday that he felt was directed at Boris Johnson: “Testiculi ad Brexitam”. I have to be very careful to get the plural. The pithier Anglo-Saxon version is probably not suitable for this Chamber. My noble friend Lord Tyler...
Baroness Ludford: ...hubris of her Lancaster House speech. This has led to contradictory assertions too numerous to mention. Out of many examples, I would just mention the almost total neglect of services—cited by Jo Johnson as a major reason for his resignation—which account for 80% of our economy. Secondly, the Brexit proposition has been riddled with deceit. This started with the lies and alleged fraud...
Baroness Ludford: My Lords, the various backers of Boris Johnson, such as Dominic Raab and David Davis, have backed him on the basis that we must leave the EU on 31 October. However, in the debate on Monday the putative future Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, refused to give such an absolute guarantee. He thought that leaving on 31 October was only “eminently feasible”. Could the Minister tell us what...
Baroness Ludford: ...agony’, to sweep away proper scrutiny of what is a profoundly bad deal for our country”. Tony Blair is right that: “You don’t take a decision of destiny through a spasm of impatience”. Boris Johnson had previously damned the division of Northern Ireland and Great Britain through regulatory checks and customs controls down the Irish Sea, declaring that: “No British Conservative...
Baroness Ludford: ...and insular, wanting to pull up the drawbridge and look to the past. That is the key question that we as a country need to resolve. The UK is in a mess and needs to be rescued. The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, failed to meet his 31 October do or die, die in a ditch deadline to wrench the UK out of the EU. There was no early prospect of a referendum. The Prime Minister paused the...
Baroness Ludford: ...must stop running away from the false promises that they have made and be honest with the public about what they have in store for them with their hard Brexit plan. It’s about time that Boris Johnson started being honest with our people, rather than hiding the true price of a hard Brexit. What do they have to hide?” I bat that question to the Minister, to answer if he would.
Baroness Ludford: ..., the pledges made by the leaders of the leave campaign in 2016. Under those legal obligations, respect for the terms of the Northern Ireland protocol, which came at the request of the May and then Johnson Governments and which became, at their request, a front-stop instead of a backstop, is at the core of this. A few weeks ago, Tony Connelly of RTÉ wrote a commentary in which he noted...
Baroness Ludford: ...once again there are rumblings about the ECHR. Yesterday, the headline in the Sunday Telegraph—I had to go out and buy it, which was rather galling, because it is behind a paywall—was: “Boris Johnson set to opt out of human rights laws” and that meant the convention. Here we go again. The Sunday Telegraph reported that Mr Dominic Cummings, no less, has previously attacked the...
Baroness Ludford: My Lords, we bid adieu to the noble Lord, Lord Cavendish of Furness, as we welcome the noble Lord, Lord Austin of Dudley. I wish them both well. The wisest comment on the Johnson deal came from his Conservative Party colleague—if not friend—the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, somewhat puncturing the bluster and self-congratulation. He said: “We must welcome the news that Brexit does not end...