European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Deidre Brock and Ian Paisley

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow a thoughtful contribution from the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael).

A Government who were confident in what they were doing and confident that they were pursuing the right ends would have had no difficulty in engaging with Parliament. In fact, they would have welcomed the opportunity. What we saw instead was a Government and a Prime Minister hiding from Parliament and the democratic processes on which good governance is built. They were forced into coming to the House and doing the right thing only because they were dragged before the courts, defeated, and defeated again by campaigners holding up the principle of parliamentary democracy as something to which the Government should bow. I, too, would like to take this opportunity to thank those democracy campaigners—I single out Gina Miller in particular—for their contribution, which, as I have mentioned before, will have long-lasting effects on this and other issues.

This Bill—these few paragraphs, this poor excuse for legislation—has been wrung out of the Government, and its brevity is childish and disrespectful to this place, the courts and the people whose representatives come here on their behalf. The Government should be ashamed of themselves. The suggestion is that no preparation was done by the Government in advance of the Court judgment—not even when the judgment was going back to appeal without much hope of success. That would smack of the same kind of arrogant laziness that marked the approach of David Cameron’s Government to the referendum. There was no preparation; they just winged it and hoped. After hearing Members from the Government Benches, I am shocked that they do not think that the people should be entitled to know what the plan is. People like to mention the independence referendum very often: in Scotland, we debated the details for two years. In this place, the Government still do not what the details are two months before kick-off.

A clear indication of the lack of preparation is the attitude that the Government have struck towards the devolved Administrations, promising consultation and open dialogue, but delivering little—almost nothing. The Scottish Government, who have put some thought into how to proceed, offered some constructive suggestions but had nothing in return other than a promise that the paper that they presented would be read. There was no real engagement, no dialogue, no offer to discuss the negotiations as they go along, and no offer of a seat at the negotiating table for Scottish Ministers. That is what a United Kingdom Government would offer if they were serious about taking the devolved Administrations with them and if they were confident of their ground.

Scotland and Wales have particular reasons to be anxious about what the UK Government are doing in Europe, but Northern Ireland, despite the warm words of the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), has more reason than most to worry. The prospect of a return to a hard border is horrendous for communities and businesses in Northern Ireland and any threat to the common travel area extremely serious. The Government’s attitude to date seems to be an approach that says that everything will be fine, that Northern Ireland has always been treated as a special case by the EU and will be treated so again. That ignores the fact that it was treated as a special case while it was part of the EU. There are no guarantees that any EU institution or member state will feel like giving special dispensation to Northern Ireland. If there is a case to be made there, it may only be by the grace and good will of the Irish Government that it is made.

The UK is approaching Brexit in the same way that this Bill was made—with hope, arrogance, swagger, disdain and, frankly, nothing in its pockets. There is nothing on offer to our European partners because the arrogant assumption of this Government and of the Brexiteers around them is that the EU needs the UK more than the UK needs the EU, and that London is the epicentre of world trade, which means that the EU’s financial institutions will come begging rather than that firms will move staff to the EU.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way. She is absolutely right to raise the matter of the Irish border. If I were living in the Irish Republic, I would be greatly concerned that my single largest trading partner—the USA—is not in the EU and, pretty soon, my other single largest trading partner—the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—will not be in the EU either. The Republic should be getting out along with us.

[Deidre Brock]

Maintaining a close trading relationship with Northern Ireland will of course be in the best interests of the UK, whether or not it is in Europe, and it is the same with Europe as well.

Let me return to my point about the Government believing that the EU’s financial institutions will come begging rather than that firms will move staff to the EU. That is how it appears and how it will continue to appear, because this legislation, perhaps the most important constitutional legislation considered by this House in 40 years, has come without a White Paper or an intelligible Government position. It has come without a manifesto commitment and without preparation. This Bill cannot be entrusted to carry the intent of this House, because this House does not know the intent of the Government in leading negotiations with the 27 other EU states. What does the trading agreement they seek look like? Does it give us full access to the market? What about the movement of people between EU countries and the UK? We hear a constant barrage of comments about taking back control of immigration, but nothing about how those controls will be exercised. We know neither the starting position nor the hoped-for end effects of the triggering of article 50. We saw a supposed 12-point plan recently, but frankly that looked more like a wish list. In the great field of evidence-based policy making, this Bill does not figure. The devolved Administrations on these islands have been operating without knowing what position the UK Government are taking, each trying to find some kind of satisfactory rescue for their people, but all hampered by the UK Government.

I should be astonished that the Government are seeking to take the UK out of the EU with this pitiful “dog ate my homework” excuse for a Bill and I should be shocked that most of the loyal Opposition are not opposing it, but I am not. We have come to expect nothing more from this clueless, rudderless Government and this apparently fratricidal official Opposition. The SNP will not support the triggering of article 50. We believe that Scotland’s place is in the EU and we are here to speak up for Scotland’s best interests. I hope that enough Members on the Government and Labour Benches have the character to join us in the Lobby, but I am not holding my breath.