EU: Withdrawal and Future Relationship (Motions)

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts

Monday 1st April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nigel Evans]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Peter Kyle]

I am going to make some progress. I promised Mr Speaker that I would take about six minutes, and I am trying hard to honour that promise.

Last week, 268 Members voted for the principle of a confirmatory ballot—the largest number of votes for any alternative Brexit proposition up to that point. The principle has effectively been used twice in the past 20 years to solve complex, divisive issues.

The first occasion was on the Belfast or Good Friday agreement. Many people, institutions and organisations were asked to give a lot to cement the deal, but they gained a lot together despite sections of Northern Irish society strongly rejecting it. The Good Friday agreement was put to a confirmatory ballot that confirmed the deal and led to a decisive end to the arduous process and a peace that has endured to this day. I do not want to risk undoing those gains, which is another reason why we need to unlock our politics.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Kyle]

The Labour manifesto was published two and a half weeks after I agreed to stand as a Labour candidate, and the deal we are now debating was reached a year and a half after the general election. We did not see the Chequers agreement, the Government’s negotiating stance or the deal until months after that general election. By standing on either manifesto, we did not give the Government a blank cheque to deliver any deal.

[Mr Vaizey]

The simple answer to the manifesto point is that the coalition Government worked out a completely different set of policies, literally behind closed doors, after the 2010 election, and the Conservative party lost the 2017 election. The reason why the Brexiteers cite the manifestos is that they are trying to stop Parliament having a say on Brexit.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware, as I read in The Times this morning, of a secret letter that was sent to the Prime Minister by 170 Conservative MPs, and which they refuse to publish, apparently advocating no deal, in direct contravention of a resolution passed in this House? That shows a complete lack of respect.

[Peter Kyle]

I am not aware of that letter, but it is something we have seen time and again. We have to ask ourselves a fundamental question: people going to Chequers to discuss stitch-up deals behind closed doors, and people writing letters to the Prime Minister that are not in the public domain—is that an elitist stitch-up? Alternatively, is getting Brexit out of Parliament, out of Westminster and into every community up and down our country an elitist stitch-up? One of those two is an elitist stitch-up, and I believe in my heart that I am on the right side of the argument so far.

Motion (E) offers two benefits that Members cannot afford to ignore. It breaks the deadlock in Parliament; I reassure Opposition Members that the motion makes it explicit that Parliament is withholding consent for the deal until it is confirmed by the public. It cannot be said that, by supporting the motion, Members are supporting the deal.

Secondly, the motion allows us to offer a definitive end to this nightmare. It is a sign of failure that we could not resolve Brexit alone, but it is at least honest to admit our failure. We owe the public an apology for the need to return to them one more time, but at least it will be only one more time.

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[Stephen Barclay]

With all due respect to the right hon. Lady, the passion and persistence with which she campaigns for her specific view is perhaps an indication of the lack of compromise that there sometimes is in the wider debate.

[Mr Vaizey]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Stephen Barclay]

I have just five minutes, but I will take one further intervention. Then, I think, Mr Speaker, your steer is that I should press on.

[Mr Vaizey]

I am sorry to intervene on the Secretary of State. I was going to raise this point in my speech with the hope that he would respond to it, but he is now speaking before me. Will he illuminate the House on the letter that has gone to the Prime Minister from 170 of our colleagues? Did he sign it? What is in it? Is it true, as the papers are being briefed, that it keeps no deal on the table, despite the resolution of this House?

[Stephen Barclay]

All of us, as politicians, are often accused of not answering questions, so let me be very specific. I have not signed any letter of the sort. I have the opportunity to meet the Prime Minister most days and if I have a point to raise with her I do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Con)]

I want to start with my usual mantra. I have voted for Brexit three times, and I have backed the Prime Minister's withdrawal agreement, but I will be supporting the customs union and common market 2.0 tonight. I want to make it absolutely clear to anyone who is thinking of not doing so that supporting those options will not preclude them from supporting the withdrawal agreement, should it come back as MV4.

It is clear that we need a plan B. The House needs to show what it is in favour of if we cannot get the withdrawal agreement through. The reason for that is that, sadly, certain elements in my party are hellbent on shoving through a no-deal Brexit. I apologise to the Secretary of State for putting him in the same category, but I read on the cover of The Times this morning that 170 Conservatives had signed a letter to the Prime Minister—they kept it secret from all their other colleagues, by the way, so keen are they on debate—calling for no deal, despite Parliament’s resolution. Parliament has to vote tonight in support of these measures to show that it remains in favour of a reasoned exit from the EU, and it must not be taken in by some of the absurd arguments that we are hearing.

I am confused about how, three years after the referendum, we have got to a place in which no deal turns out to be allegedly what people voted for. I look aghast at some colleagues who I have long admired, who have spent the last three years attacking the judges for daring to suggest that Parliament might have a vote on article 50; praying in aid the manifesto which we lost on, despite having supported for five years a coalition Government who governed on a manifesto that had not existed in 2010; and berating remainers for treating with foreign powers and then merrily going off to the Polish and Hungarian Governments and asking them to force a no-deal Brexit on the United Kingdom.

The fact is that too many of our colleagues have decided that they are the self-appointed interpreters of Brexit, and that anything that gets in their way has to be stopped. When those of us in this House—I count in this almost everyone in the Chamber this evening—want to make reasonable progress and deliver Brexit in a reasonable way, the constitutional experts from the hard Brexit wing emerge to tell us that what we are doing represents the biggest constitutional outrage, oblivious to the fact that one of their colleagues has called for the prorogation of Parliament to get through a hard Brexit, and for a no-confidence vote in the Government from which he still takes the Whip.

The fact is that we seek a compromise. I voted for the withdrawal agreement. It has been supported by Gove, Leadsom, Fox, Grayling and Leigh—all people whose Brexit credentials cannot be second-guessed. For those who worry about the manifesto, it accords with the manifesto. If we cannot have the withdrawal agreement, we need a reasonable way to leave the European Union and deliver on Brexit. According to what the Brexiteers said during the leave campaign, Norway was on the table, Switzerland was on the table and EFTA was on the table. The House wants to leave with a deal, but if we do not show tonight that we are in favour of a deal, I guarantee that my colleagues will do their level best in the next two weeks to drive through a hard, no-deal Brexit.