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Liz Truss’ first big parliamentary battle? Brexit
(of course)
The Northern Ireland Protocol Bill will return to
parliament this fall.
BY CRISTINA
GALLARDO
AUGUST 30,
2022 6:56 PM
LONDON —
Crossbench peers in the House of Lords are preparing a full-frontal attack on
the U.K. government’s controversial plans to rewrite the Northern Ireland
protocol when parliament returns from its summer break.
At a crunch
meeting behind closed doors next week, senior peers — including leading
ex-judges and barristers — will agree their strategy to try to take down the
Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, an explosive piece of legislation designed to
give U.K. ministers the power to ignore crucial parts of the painstakingly
negotiated Brexit deal.
The
protocol bill sailed through the House of Commons this summer with no
amendments, but is facing a real battle in the U.K. parliament's upper chamber,
where it arrives for its first debates after the party conference season in
early October. The showdown will likely prove the first major parliamentary
test of the new prime minister — widely assumed to be Foreign Secretary Liz
Truss — who will be in place from September 6.
The stakes
are high, and peers are in no mood to compromise.
“There will
be weeks and weeks and weeks of battle over this bill, because there’s a lot in
it that many lords on all sides will really hate,” said Peter Ricketts, a
crossbench peer and the former head of the U.K.'s Foreign, Commonwealth and
Development Office.
Two aspects
of the bill are driving concerns in the Lords: the U.K.’s plan to use the
legislation to switch off parts of the Northern Ireland protocol — which many
observers believe would amount to a breach of international law — and the
significant delegated powers ministers would gain under its provisions.
As ever,
parliamentary tactics will be key. Peers opposed to the legislation are divided
among those who would like to vote it down completely at its second reading,
and those who favor amending it heavily and sending it back to the Commons with
a stark message of disapproval.
Rejecting
the bill outright would make it clear the Lords considers the legislation
“really unacceptable, in any shape or form," said one leading peer,
speaking on condition of anonymity. But the peer also warned such a move could
be interpreted as an “insult” to the elected Commons. As an unelected chamber,
the Lords' role is normally to scrutinize and improve legislation rather than
blocking it altogether.
Amending
the bill, many peers believe, would be a more reasoned way of highlighting the
bill's most problematic areas, though may prove less effective in achieving a
change of policy.
Peers
recognize the battle is likely to be tougher than the struggle over the
incendiary Internal Market Bill in 2020. In that case, Northern Ireland
Secretary Brandon Lewis' acknowledgement that the proposals did indeed break
international law — in what he described as a “specific and limited way” —
helped the opposition's cause. The bill did eventually become law, but only
after the government withdrew its most controversial clauses.
This time
ministers insist their approach is legal, arguing that the Northern Ireland
Protocol Bill is the only remaining way to protect the Good Friday / Belfast
peace agreement. The government claims the historic 1998 deal ending decades of
sectorial violence is now at risk because of the way the EU is trying to enact
the protocol. Peers insist this argument is flawed, because the government knew
full well the impact the protocol would have in Northern Ireland when it was
agreed.
‘Power
grab’
Liz Truss
is considering buying herself time by triggering Article 16 of the Northern
Ireland protocol | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
The bill is
also seen in the Lords as an executive power grab due to sweeping new powers it
would grant to ministers, allowing them to change policy regarding trade in
Northern Ireland without the need to secure parliamentary approval.
A damning
report published by the Lords delegated powers and regulatory reform committee
in July identified as many as 12 cases of power being delegated to ministers,
which peers found “inappropriate." Many of those cases are expected to
form the basis for possible amendments.
The
committee concluded that the bill “represents as stark a transfer of power from
parliament to the executive as we have seen throughout the Brexit process,” and
“is unprecedented in its cavalier treatment of Parliament, the EU and the
government’s international obligations.”
Several old
amendments that failed to pass in the Commons are also expected to resurface in
the Lords, including symbolic changes designed to send a clear message to
Belfast — and indeed Washington — about the overriding importance of peace in
Northern Ireland.
Peers
believe this would send a “strong signal to all of the flavors of Northern
Irishness that there’s no change from that perspective,” said crossbench peer
Charles Kinnoull, who chairs the Lords European Union committee.
David
Pannick, a human rights lawyer who won the Article 50 Brexit case; Igor Judge,
a former Supreme Court judge and convenor of the crossbenchers; and David
Anderson, a barrister who previously served as the U.K. government's
independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, are thought to be among the
crossbench peers leading the charge against the bill.
Assuming
peers settle on amending the bill, its process through the Lords could take one
full day for second reading; as many as six days for committee deliberations;
three days for the report stage; and a further full day for its third reading.
Ping-pong, the process by which the bill is sent back and forth between the two
houses as they try to resolve disagreements about the final text, could then
take several more weeks, potentially delaying the bill’s passage until the end
of the year.
In the
meantime, Truss is considering buying herself time by triggering Article 16 of
the protocol — a more legitimate, if likely temporary, way of suspending parts
of the agreement.
Eyes on Labour
Keir
Starmer has been cautious so far not to take up positions which could be
portrayed as siding with the EU against Britain | Christopher Furlong/Getty
Images
The bill's
ultimate passage may now depend on the Labour Party, which has been cautious under
Keir Starmer's leadership not to take up positions which could be portrayed as
siding with the EU against Britain.
The main
opposition party is “very conscious of what the electorate might think,” and
this will need to be “a factor” in whichever strategy the Lords adopts,
according to the crossbench peer quoted above. Labour votes — along with the
other opposition parties and some rebel Tories — would be required for the
crossbenchers to have any hope of winning key amendment votes.
Jenny
Chapman, a senior Labour frontbencher in the Lords and one of Starmer's closest
political allies, told POLITICO her party “will engage as constructively as
possible” with the government's plans.
But she
added: “If we were in government, we would not be proposing this legislation.
The only way of solving this is through dialogue and negotiation [with
Brussels]."
Chapman
believes many Tory peers opposed to the proposals might vote against them
initially, but would eventually align with the government as the ping-pong
process plays out — “especially if this becomes an issue of authority for a new
Conservative prime minister.”
Peers are
well aware any amendments they make are likely to be rejected by the Commons,
where the Tories have a large majority. But they hope a drawn-out scrutiny
process may at least create room for further political talks between the U.K.
and the EU this fall.
“In the
end, this is only the background music to what actually needs to happen — which
is discussions followed by a deal between the two great unions,” Kinnoull said.
“But it’s very unpleasant background music, and not a tactic I’d applaud at
all.”
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