Lord Hain: ...use traditional methods, earning low incomes. These boats are also particularly important for remote coastal communities with limited employment opportunities. There is no doubt that, because of Brexit, media coverage of the UK’s fishing industry has increased. However, this may have given undue prominence to the views of representatives of larger fishing enterprises, such as those in...
Lord Hain: ...which requires co-operation and efforts to agree rules on access to waters, as well as setting catch limits and standards on conservation and management of marine resources. In the bizarre world of Brexit, the fishing sector—which represents a fraction of 1% of the UK economy—may be the issue that determines whether the current trade negotiations with the EU succeed or fail. Escape...
Lord Hain: ...UK currently benefit from passporting, with financial exports worth £26 billion, while 8,000 companies in the European Economic Area use this mechanism to offer services in Britain. After the post-Brexit transition period, UK financial services will lose their EU passport rights and be forced to rely on equivalence for their market access to Europe. Under that scheme, the European...
Lord Hain: ...agree—and a competence that was devolved only in 2017. The truth is that the Government did not consult any of the devolved Governments properly over a series of European Union withdrawal and Brexit-related Bills. Instead, UK Ministers tried to indulge in a series of power grabs, as previously devolved functions were returned from Brussels back to the UK. There were a series of...
Lord Hain: ...the food we import and targets for reaching net-zero emissions for the agriculture industry are all deliberately omitted from the Bill. Presumably, this is to preserve the prospect of future post-Brexit trade deals with the United States and Pacific Rim countries, which may initially lead to cheaper imports but at a devastating long-term cost to both UK producers and consumers. The truth...
Lord Hain: ...on the matter of proper consultation, which it would require. As a former Secretary of State for Wales and still living here, I am aware that no legislative consent Motion is required for this Brexit-consequential Bill and that the Welsh Government appear to seem at least content with it. But, as my noble friend Lady Kennedy highlighted, there are real concerns about the delegated powers...
Lord Hain: ...UK, Italy, Spain, France and the US—all have official death tolls far exceeding those in comparator Asian states, with the UK worst of all in Europe and the US the worst in the world. As no-deal Brexit beckons, the UK even failed to take advantage of joint EU procurement of PPE, our nationalist zealots instead espousing British exceptionalism and national self-sufficiency. Why have we...
Lord Hain: ...racist attacks? Never before in our history have we seen these three forms of race hatred all converge; that is what makes it particularly threatening. Does she also agree that the many UKIP and Brexit Party members who have been accused of Islamophobia should stand condemned?
Lord Hain: My Lords, without any scrutiny apart from the excellent report from the European Union Committee, since the election the Government have been rushing to an extreme hard Brexit which will simply compound the profound economic damage already triggered by the coronavirus into quite unnecessary and reckless national self-harm. Incredibly, the Prime Minister has unilaterally committed—come what...
Lord Hain: ...cross-party but all-party support in Northern Ireland—the Chancellor of the Exchequer has confirmed what many of us had long believed: that the Government are hell-bent on an ideologically hard Brexit that could do untold damage to the small and medium-sized enterprises that make up the overwhelming bulk of businesses in Northern Ireland. When he told the Financial Times last week that...
Lord Hain: ...to trade across the Irish Sea. The purpose of these amendments is to protect the Northern Ireland economy from the clear and inevitable damage that leaving the European Union in the hard Brexit way seemingly envisaged by the Government will otherwise cause. They are not delaying or wrecking amendments—nor are they the last frantic efforts of deluded remainers or remoaners to thwart the...
Lord Hain: ...agreement for the UK and the EU to agree an extension before 1 July 2020, the Bill also brings back the real threat of a catastrophic “no trade deal” at the end of the year. The hard-line Brexiteers support such an outcome, but let them bear in mind that no country in the world trades on WTO terms alone without additional agreements, especially with their nearest neighbours. In just...
Lord Hain: ...will be a big price to be paid for frictionless trade with a club of which we are no longer a member. No one expects the EU to stand idly by while the Prime Minister pursues his vision of a post-Brexit Britain: a low-tax, lightly regulated Singapore-upon-Thames haven on the EU’s doorstep, intent on winning a race to the bottom. Boris Johnson did not get his EU withdrawal agreement by...
Lord Hain: My Lords, there is no question that the deep divisions over Brexit have poisoned the process of resurrecting devolved government in Northern Ireland. I want, therefore, to make some points pertinent to resolving all this, especially in the light of the series of parliamentary amendments initiated by Northern Ireland’s business community, crucially, supported by all the political parties in...
Lord Hain: ...On the same morning that the UK Supreme Court judged the Prime Minister to have tried unlawfully to prorogue Parliament, Boris Johnson outlined to a New York business audience his vision of a post-Brexit Britain. It was one of the UK undercutting European tax rates and adopting lower regulatory standards than those set by the EU: a low-tax, lightly regulated haven on the EU’s doorstep,...
Lord Hain: ...and the Executive. Although he has repeated his determination to get it up and running and we support him in that object, the increasing and alarming prospect is, instead, of a calamitous no-deal Brexit. In my view, that will lead inevitably to direct rule, not least to provide the necessary civil contingency and security powers which the civil servants currently administering Northern...
Lord Hain: ..., Signal or other encrypted services or email accounts have been used by special advisers, ministers or senior civil servants to discuss Government policy on prorogation, dissolution or a no-deal Brexit.
Lord Hain: ...has to be stopped in its tracks. We in your Lordships’ House have a chance to do that today in supporting the elected House of Commons. A salutary measure of the reckless dogmatism of the Brexiteers is that surveys show that two-thirds of Conservative Party members and the same proportion of Leave supporters simply do not care if Brexit means a hard Irish border or Scotland leaving the...
Lord Hain: ...to “direct action” and road blockades. I fear that that is an understatement. Next, there is the Northern Ireland Civil Service, an organisation under considerable pressure because of not just Brexit but the shameful lack of a Government in Belfast. Its top official said bluntly that the impact would be much more severe than in Great Britain and would have profound and lasting social...
Lord Hain: ...of Ireland. This is vital because the bilateral relationship between our Government and the Republic’s is the lynchpin of the 1998 Good Friday agreement and the peace process. Yet a no-deal Brexit would have profoundly damaging consequences for both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, which voted by 56% to 44% to remain in the EU in 2016. Back in late 2010, the coalition...