BREXIT WRECKER LORD AND HIS EU HANDOUTS
Meddling Duke of Wellington pocketed farming subsidies
THE House of Lords ringleader defying the will of the people over Brexit receives significant EU land subsidies for his vast country estate.
The Duke of Wellington is chief among a group of unelected peers
who have helped inflict 14 defeats on the Government’s flagship Brexit legislation in the Lords.
The ninth duke – Arthur Charles Valerian Wellesley, 72, – has spearheaded a cross-party move to delete the exit date, March 29, 2019, from the EU (Withdrawal) Bill.
The duke has claimed he is trying to help the Government and not “thwart the process”.
But the apparent conflict of interest over the subsidies he and others receive has sparked fury. He is one of just four dukes among the 92 hereditary peers entitled to vote in the Lords and was joined in the attack on Brexit by another, the Duke of Somerset.
The Duke of Wellington, educated at Eton and Oxford, is believed to have received over £80,000 in EU subsidies for part of his 7,000 acre Hampshire estate in 2015.
He is also believed to have claimed other separate subsidies for land he owns in Spain and Belgium.
He is one of 17 of the UK’s 24 nonRoyal Dukes who receive large annual EU farm subsidies for the land they own.
In 2015, according to official figures, the total figure was around £4.6billion, the bulk paid to aristocrats directly or to trusts, companies and entities controlled by them. The Duke of Somerset, a landowner, receives the subsidies and a number of life peers have sizeable EU pensions.
Tory MP and Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg accused peers of ignoring the views of 17.4 million Leave voters expressed in the EU Referendum on June 23, 2016.
Mr Rees-Mogg said: “The arrogance of the House of Lords is unbelievable. They think they know best and people like them should be listened to rather than voters.
“The European Union is entirely unaccountable, which is why perhaps it is natural the House of Lords is its biggest cheerleader. Unelected, unaccountable people support each other, vested interests come together, birds of a feather flock together.”
Mr Rees-Mogg added: “The vitriol against Brexit, the condescension, their sheer arrogance and therefore their willingness to burn the constitutional conventions weakens public acceptability for the House of Lords.” Tory MEP David Campbell Bannerman said: “Former EU Commissioners and MEPs in receipt of EU pensions, farm subsidies and other EU payments seem to have a major conflict of interest when voting for single market and other measures. It’s time to come clean on this.” The 14 defeats mean peers have set themselves on a collision course with the Commons by demanding MPs rethink Brexit.
Among those leading the charge to derail Brexit is Viscount Hailsham, who as MP Douglas Hogg claimed upwards of £2,000 from the taxpayer for cleaning the moat at his sprawling Lincolnshire estate.
He was supported by scores of peers, 19 of them Tory. Also voting against Brexit was former Labour leader Lord Kinnock, an ex-vice president of the European Commission who is estimated to get almost £90,000 a year from his Brussels pension pot. Lord Tugendhat and Lord Patten both served in the European Commission and are believed to get close to £40,000 a year in pensions. Former EU trade commissioner Lord Mandelson, who was twice forced to resign from government, has also voted for amendments to the Bill. Other peers playing key roles in Government defeats include former pensions minister Baroness Altmann and former deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine, who has a £300million personal fortune.
Tory MP Henry Smith said: “By voting against the largest majority decision ever taken by a British electorate the undemocratic House of Lords are inexorably moving towards abolition.”
Neither the Duke of Wellington or the Duke of Somerset responded to requests for comment last night.
UNITY of political purpose is essential for the delivery of Brexit. But unfortunately any spirit of determined solidarity is missing at the top of the Conservative Government. Instead, division and conflict prevail. As authority drains from the Prime Minister, there is talk of splits and leadership challenges.
The flames of discord have intensified this week, fuelled by Downing Street’s continuing attempt to foist a tortuous customs arrangement with the EU on post-Brexit Britain. Byzantine in its complexity, this scheme would not only shackle us to governance by Brussels but would emasculate our ability to trade freely across the world.
The Downing Street plan, known as “the new customs partnership” and dreamt up by the Prime Minister’s Europe adviser Olly Robbins, has already been rejected by the Cabinet’s powerful Brexit committee. But now, with only a few tweaks, it has been resurrected. Yesterday there was even speculation that Theresa May could try to bypass the Brexit committee and take the proposal to the full Cabinet, where she has more support.
But any agreement to pursue this policy would be a disaster. Far from representing a solution to the trade question, the partnership idea amounts to a gross betrayal of Brexit.
ACROSS the Tory party, Eurosceptics are dismayed. In an explosive intervention, the Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson described it as “a crazy plan” which would “create a whole new web of bureaucracy”, “make it very difficult to do trade deals”, and prevent Britain from “taking back control”.
His move was an extraordinary one. By mounting a direct attack on the Prime Minister’s strategy, he smashed the constitutional convention that Cabinet members keep their disputes private.
Foreign Secretaries who publicly disagree with their Premiers usually have to resign. In 1938 the suave Anthony Eden quit because he rejected Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement towards Mussolini’s Italy, while the mercurial George Brown left office in 1968 after a row with Harold Wilson over monetary policy. More recently, Robin Cook departed because he could not support Tony Blair’s desire for military intervention in Iraq. But there is no sign that Boris will leave. In a further indicator of the weakness of her position, Theresa May declared that she has “full confidence” in him.
For all the unorthodoxy of his conduct, Boris is right about the new customs partnership. This plan would tie Britain to EU regulations, forcing us to collect Brussels tariffs, creating new layers of officialdom and robbing us of the ability to reach our own international deals.
A better alternative is the “maximum facilitation” – or maxfac – plan that aims to reduce customs controls between the EU and Britain through the use of advanced technology and trusted trader operations. Such an arrangement is perfectly practicable. After all, Switzerland has a frictionless border with the EU yet is not in the customs union.
The Government should concentrate on this realistic maxfac proposal instead of causing more friction over the desperate, unwanted fudge of the customs partnership.
Sadly, the present mess is the culmination of Theresa May’s botched handling of Brexit since she took office. Her rhetoric has occasionally been impressive, as in her Lancaster House speech of January 2017, but her actions have not always matched her words. Her approach has been fearful and hesitant and she has failed to embrace the opportunities for change that Brexit has to offer.
Throughout the withdrawal negotiations, Britain has made concession after concession, whether on the transition period, EU migrants’ rights, or the so-called divorce bill. But rather than securing Brexit this timid approach has only emboldened both Brussels and the Remain lobby.
The EU feels that its bullying arrogance is working, as shown in how it has cynically weaponised the comparatively minor issue of the Northern Irish border. Similarly, many Remainers are now quite open about their willingness to overturn the referendum verdict. That undemocratic attitude was graphically on display in recent days in the unaccountable House of Lords, whose peers have defeated the Government 14 times over the Brexit process, including a vote on Tuesday night demanding that Britain stay in the European single market.
FACED with Cabinet revolts and EU intransigence, Mrs May is paying a heavy price for her dismal election campaign last year. She called it partly to strengthen her hand in the negotiations with Brussels. She succeeded only in the obliteration of her Commons majority, forcing her to rely on the Democratic Unionists to stay in office.
She may have proved her resilience in office since then but up against a Marxist clown such as Jeremy Corbyn she should have never been in this predicament. It was her reluctance to engage with the public and her decision to produce a hugely unpopular manifesto that wrecked the Tories’ chances of a big majority. Now Brexit is in real danger.
The Labour statesman Denis Healey once said that “when you’re in a hole, stop digging”. Theresa May will not break free from her troubles by further retreats and EU entanglements. It is only by delivering real Brexit and British independence that she will revive her fortunes.
‘It would tie Britain to EU regulations’