I was shouted down when I tried to speak up for Brexit, says Lib Dem peer

In politics, unlike other areas, membership of your tribe really does matter. For more than thirty years, I have aligned my political identity with the Liberal Democrats.

So it was with sadness that I found myself agreeing with Chris Patten in last Wednesday’s debate on the EU Withdrawal Bill when he said "there are times in one’s political career when what is alleged to be party loyalty comes behind trying to stand up for the national interest."  

The national interest is always a matter of judgment. For me, to respect the outcome of the 2016 referendum, as long as it is deemed to be legal, is fairly straightforward.

To then seek to act on the necessary legislation to give effect to that is also a no-brainer.  But detail does matter, and the amendment to force the government to negotiate a customs union as part of the framework for a future UK-EU relationship was misguided on several points, which is why I voted against it, defying a three-line whip as the only Lib Dem to vote with the government.

First, my principled objection was that this was a blatantly political attempt to change the government's negotiating position to keep the UK in the EU customs union.

Which is not to say that I am so naive that I rule out politics in these matters (why be in politics if you are repulsed by its dark arts?) but on a bill of this significance, so late in the negotiations in Brussels, I am not up for damaging, eleventh-hour attempts to now try to reverse the referendum, and/or damage further our negotiations in Brussels.

If there was ever a right time for that, it would have played out in the 2017 general election result. It didn’t, as both main parties stood to withdraw without this caveat, and garnered large votes.

My other reasons to support the government were to do with the amendment itself. If one believed its proponents, for Lord Kerr the mover, it was simply "a call to the government to explore a customs union".

 The ‘a’ customs union is significant as the most likely example of it is the Turkey-EU customs union deal. It covers only trade in goods, and excludes important areas such as steel, coal and most agricultural products.  

Significantly, the government's current negotiating position is to also go for "a new customs partnership" or "a highly streamlined customs arrangement", which is not that far from what was proposed. But, as became clear as the debate went on, it was not ‘a’ customs union but ‘the’ customs union which was sought. 

This would be a full alignment with the EU’s Common Commercial Policy, inhibiting the UK’s ability to strike its own trade deals with other countries, as well as accepting the terms of all trade deals the EU has and will have in the future - without any say in whether they align with UK interests.

Importantly, either straitjacket would not cover trade in services with the EU. This matters hugely, as 80 per cent of the UK economy compromises services, while manufactured goods are only 10 per cent. The amendment only sought to protect the latter.

Moreover, our overall trade with the EU is on a declining trajectory, from around 55 per cent in the 1990s to 43 per cent in 2016. Once the goods ‘exported’ to Rotterdam are taken out of the 43 per cent figure, it comes down to around 40 per cent. 

So the bulk of UK trade currently is with the rest of the world, and its biggest component, by a country mile, is in services which would not be protected by ‘a’ or ‘the’ customs union. The UK needs to protect both kinds of trade - goods and services - both with the EU and elsewhere, which needs it to be as unconstrained in the current negotiations as possible, not tied in to a relatively small gain at the expense of the bigger and more profitable sectors which actually provide the trade surplus to the UK economy.

Timing also matters. With the bill not due to become law until late May, the government has been negotiating on the basis of leaving both the single market and the customs union for the last year.

The withdrawal agreement is due to be agreed by the European Council on 18-19 October, which will give the UK just about 20 weeks, or less, given a summer break, to negotiate the deal. This dramatic change in negotiating strategy will distract us from securing precious compromises which are needed on a myriad of economic measures including services, which the EU has finally indicated are part of the discussion.

So for me this was a politically motivated, ill-thought-through attempt to derail the negotiations, and I voted as I did.  

However, leaving aside the amendment, it was the manner of the debate which also left a bad taste in my mouth. In Lords debates, we have no speaker so the House self-regulates, by indicating when it wants to hear from whom. 

The front benches of the parties get an automatic right to speak, but backbenchers like myself find it harder to get in. However, as I’m chair of one EU committee and a member of the other most senior EU one in the Lords, I am well known for speaking on EU matters. 

I also led for the Lib Dems on the EU for four years till 2014, so I was a little taken aback to be shouted down by Labour peers. What was even more curious was that the Government Chief Whip, whose job is to be mindful of the balance of speakers, let them silence me. Fair cop, one might say, but for the fact that of the ten backbench peers who spoke, not one was a woman. 

At a time when there is rightly more sensitivity across society to the status and equality of women, when it comes to political tribalism, the alpha male is still alive and well in the House of Lords - in all parties.

Baroness Falkner of Margravine is chairman of the House of Lords EU Financial Affairs Sub-Committee and Visiting Professor at King’s College, London