European Affairs

Debate between Matthew Pennycook and Caroline Lucas

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her intervention. We do need to be honest about this. An issue of this magnitude and importance is bound to create different views in all parties, but I would argue that the divisions on the Labour Benches are nothing like the fundamental divisions in the Cabinet and on the Government Benches. Certainly, the divisions on our side are not preventing legislation from being brought forward for us to vote on.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I just want to make a bit of progress, if that is okay.

The Prime Minister’s Mansion House speech on 2 March was as much an attempt to muffle those divisions as it was to provide clarity on the Government’s vision of the end-state relationship. To be fair, it was a more serious and detailed speech than those that had gone before, and it was pleasingly devoid of empty sloganeering. There was no repeat of earlier banalities such as “Brexit means Brexit” or “a red, white and blue Brexit”. At last, we heard a speech that started to engage with many of the hard truths about our departure from the EU. It stressed the need for compromise on all sides and conceded that inevitable trade-offs would have to be made if we were to avoid the hardest and most damaging of departures. As with her Florence speech in September last year, one wished that that content could have been delivered far earlier in the process. Had it been, I suspect that the country would have been in a better position today.

Judging by the raft of tortuous cherry and cake metaphors that we heard from the Government Benches in response to the Prime Minister’s statement on Monday, she might have succeeded in her immediate objective of holding together her deeply divided Government and party and in giving herself a small degree of room to manoeuvre in the months ahead. However, it is patently obvious that those divisions remain as deep as ever. That is blindingly obvious. If they had been healed, we would now be considering the Report stage of the Customs Bill or the trade Bill, rather than having a general debate such as this. Make no mistake, those divisions will have to be confronted, and the sensible majority in this House will have to be given the opportunity to shape the Brexit process sooner rather than later, not least because, although the Prime Minister’s speech was more realistic in important ways, it was still not realistic enough.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

I am going to make progress, as lots of people want to speak.

A sensible, pragmatic Government focused on the economic interests of the country would adjust their policy accordingly and consider the option of a new, comprehensive customs union along the lines that Labour has suggested. Importantly, so would any Government committed, as this Government are under the terms of the phase 1 agreement, to the avoidance of a hard border on the island of Ireland, including any physical infrastructure or related checks and controls—a border that is frictionless, not as frictionless as possible. Let us be clear: a border that has checks, even “very, very minimal” checks, as the Foreign Secretary suggested to a business audience last week, is still a border that would require some kind of infrastructure and patrols.

A version of the Canada-US border, which the Prime Minister suggested was being explored, is simply not good enough. The threat that such an outcome would pose to the politics, security and economy of the island of Ireland, as well as to the daily lives of citizens on both sides of the border, are obvious to most hon. Members.

We recognise that a new, comprehensive customs union, in itself, is not a complete solution to the Irish border issue. To obviate the need for physical infrastructure on and checks at that border and to uphold the Good Friday agreement in its entirety, in all three strands, full regulatory alignment in relation to all goods production and trade would be required. That alignment would, of course, have to be maintained over time as EU legislation evolved.

That is one of the reasons why we need to secure a new agreement that gives us the closest possible relationship with the single market: full access to European markets; no new impediments to trade; no drop in the rights, standards and protections built up over our 43 years as an EU member state; and no prospect of falling behind them in the future. We must recognise that our future economic relationship depends on maintaining a level playing field and the same standards that business wants.

But when it comes to goods, a conversation with the EU27 about full regulatory alignment, and the institutional mechanisms that might be required to facilitate such alignment, is not even possible when the Government have ruled out membership of a customs union. The idea that

“a comprehensive system of mutual recognition”

is an alternative solution—something that EU member states do not even expect of each other—is mistaken. There is no solution to the Irish border issue that does not involve some form of customs union. That is why the Government must reconsider their red line in this area. If they do not, it will be difficult to see what their solution to the Irish border issue—or, indeed, the issue of a customs border at Dover—might be. That matters because, although the Government may be able to fudge some of the difficult decisions for now, the issue of the Irish border issue can no longer be fudged.

[Caroline Lucas]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I am just coming to a close.

The draft withdrawal agreement merely needs to include a political declaration on the future relationship—that is, its broad outlines—with the details to be hammered out after the UK has left the EU.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Matthew Pennycook and Caroline Lucas

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 15th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case. Does he agree that if we are to have the deep and special relationship that Ministers say they want with the rest of the EU, we have no choice but to continue to harmonise our standards on employment rights, equality, and health and safety? Even if they were not good things to do in their own right, which they are, it will be crucial to keep those standards at the same level as the EU or higher if we are to have that kind of trading relationship.

[Matthew Pennycook]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. Of course we will need to do that, and businesses will have to comply with those standards. That is why we need to ensure that the EU and EU-derived rights we have are underpinned by an enhanced status. We will then need to move on to the conversation—which we will have to have—about how to stay in some form of regulatory alignment, if we want the type of deep and comprehensive deal that I think both sides envisage.