To the House of Lords to hear the old stiffs debate the Starmerite ‘re-set’ with the European Union.
Crowbar-under-tombstone time. A dank, dusty miasma seeped forth. Tortoise-necked ancients creaked to their legs. A thicket of grey, bushy eyebrow here, a tremulous claw there.
And barely a mention of democracy. It was as if the Brexit referendum of 2016 – yes, for ten years these miserable bastards have been frustrating that great vote for liberty – should never have been held.
The Duke of Wellington, keener on Continentals than his great forebear, drawled through a Europhile speech. Could have been dispensing orders to a footman. Snooty ex-diplomat Lord Hannay, parading a winter suntan, huskily pooh-poohed ‘facile’ notions about national sovereignty and said it was ‘the height of absurd’ to talk about ‘betraying Brexit’. Lib Dem frontbencher Lady Ludford warbled that she intended to stay alive, if necessary until she was 100, to see us rejoin the EU.
She’s only 74 as things stand and is already starting to look a little Sellotaped-together. If she has to keep going another 26 years she may resemble something dug up by Howard Carter.
The House also heard a spluttering speech from Lord Liddle (Lab) who, in addition to being married to one of the BBC’s grandest fromages, is also Peter Mandelson’s dearest lackey in politics.
As Roger Liddle he was trade commissioner Mandelson’s bag-carrier in Brussels. Now he nurtures New Labour’s guttering flame on Westminster’s red benches. It was at soirees chez Liddle that Peter’s friendship with Morgan McSweeney (former chief poisoner to Sir Keir) was cemented. It was at the Liddles’ Kennington gaffe, quite possibly over goblets of Chianti and mounds of ortolan, saddles of swan and squirts of foamed sea-urchin, that Peter’s ambassadorship in Washington DC was plotted. Dear, roly-poly Roger. Last of the true believers.
His call to arms yesterday was an anguished, saliva-flecked demand not only that Britain rejoin the EU but also that we start paying EU membership fees, even before we apply to rejoin.
Lord Liddle worked with Peter Mandelson when the former British Ambassador to the US served as EU trade commissioner
Lord Lilley denounced Trade Secretary Peter Kyle’s comment that EU alignment is ‘where the magic happens’
We NEED to be part of the EU! We have to get much closer to our European allies!’ he cried, mopping his leaky chops with a sleeve, clenching a chubby fist to convey his fervour.
He noted that the likes of France, Germany, Holland and Sweden already paid massive membership fees to prop up ‘the weaker members’ of the union. We, too, should cough up inflated subscription fees as a sign of our decency and community-mindedness, ‘to convince EU partners of our seriousness’.
There was a temptation, watching this blubbery fool, to laugh. But he was talking about the wilful disposal of billions of pounds of public money, at a time when our taxes are already fiendish, at a time when defence budgets need so much more, when businesses are going bust owing to employment costs, when the British people feel ground down by the state and its leeching suction.
And he wanted to hose billions more into the European Commission’s bank accounts as some sort of diplomatic gambit. This from a man whose wife is senior independent director at the BBC and whose political patron is helping police with their enquiries.
‘The public believe overwhelmingly that Bwexit was a mishtake!’ bellowed his buttery lordship in a sub-Roy Jenkins fashion. Stick him on breakfast telly and public opinion might turn faster than a shoal of herring.
More level former envoys such as Lord Kerr and Lord Ricketts sounded unease about the EU’s intransigent, rapacious attitude, particularly to our defence exports.
There was a tacit sense that the Starmerites have been a push-over. Brexiteer Lord Frost suspected that Sir Keir & Co simply didn’t mind how much they gave away – they were just interested in gradual drift back to Brussels.
And Lord Lilley (Con) denounced Trade Secretary Peter Kyle’s comment that EU alignment is ‘where the magic happens’. Lord Lilley: ‘I’m afraid he’s off with the fairies.’
I wouldn’t have been bold enough to put it like that.
