Leaving the European Union

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Paul Scully

Monday 4th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Paul Blomfield]

I shall be echoing my hon. Friend’s point in a moment.

The immediate task that the Prime Minister has set herself is to reopen the deal that she said, two weeks ago, was unreopenable. On 15 January, she said:

“Some suggest that there is a fourth option…to vote this deal down in the hope of going back to Brussels and negotiating an alternative deal. However, no such alternative…exists.”—[Official Report, 15 January 2019; Vol. 652, c. 1112.]

It is worth remembering, too, with all this focus on the backstop, that the backstop was not the primary objection for the majority of us who voted to reject the deal. It was the impact that the deal would have on jobs and the economy. The hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) is right to say that we have the right to walk away, but we also have the responsibility to the British people to outline the consequences of taking that sort of step, and we have exercised that to some degree in terms of the impact of no deal.

With the country currently despairing of our politics and with business confidence collapsing, the Prime Minister might reflect—to return to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Sandy Martin)—that it did not have to be like this. At the outset, she could have said, “The British people have voted to leave the European Union, but by the closest of margins; it is a mandate to end our membership of the EU, but not a decision to rupture our relations with our closest neighbours, our main trading partner and our key allies.” She could have added, “Therefore, we will seek a deal that reflects that position: a deal that is right for people’s jobs and livelihoods, in a customs union, close to the single market, in the agencies and partnerships”—some of which the hon. Member for Glasgow North mentioned—“that we have built together over 45 years, retaining the rights and protections for workers, consumers and the environment, and keeping up with those rights and with the EU as we move forward.” If she had said those things, she could have secured a majority in Parliament. She could have united a country that had been so bitterly divided by the referendum, and the issue of the Northern Ireland border would never have existed.

[Paul Scully]

I set out a brief list of the reasons why I voted to leave: leaving the institutions, stopping the payments, stopping freedom of movement and being able to do trade deals. In the customs union that the Opposition are suggesting, can the hon. Gentleman outline which of those would be available?

[Paul Blomfield]

The hon. Gentleman will recognise that freedom of movement has nothing to do with membership of the customs union. Our position is that we cannot be a member of the customs union of the European Union, because we will no longer be a member of the EU, but we should have a customs union that replicates those current arrangements. That means having a common external tariff; it means recognising that we would not be able to negotiate our own trade agreements, but that we would benefit from the trade agreements, which we were part of negotiating as a member of the European Union, that exist with 70 countries, and hoping to have a say—not a deliberative say, but a say—in future trade agreements. Does that answer his question?

[Paul Scully]

What about the institutions and the fees we might pay?

[Paul Blomfield]

The hon. Gentleman raises a much broader question. There would not be fees in relation to the customs union, but, as the Government have acknowledged, there clearly will be payments for other schemes and partnerships that we might want to be part of; the Minister might want to comment on that. There are no fees in relation to the customs union, but there would be if we were to be part of the Horizon 2020 framework programme 9 on research across the European continent. We would pay something in and we would get something out.

There are many other schemes, if we were part of the agencies and partnerships: take Euratom, the European Atomic Energy Community. We are spending an enormous amount of money replicating arrangements that we could have continued to benefit from as a member of Euratom. There is no additional benefit to the UK in that; it is just a separation of functions because of the obsession with the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, which has never ruled on anything relating to Euratom that would be of any concern to the United Kingdom.

My point is that, at that juncture after the referendum, there was an opportunity to reach out to the majority that existed in Parliament for a sensible Brexit. I campaigned to remain, but I recognise the outcome of the referendum. Instead, the Prime Minister let the ERG set the agenda, set the red lines and box her in, leading to the deeply damaging proposal that the House so overwhelmingly rejected a couple of weeks ago. She is putting her party before her country, just as David Cameron did before her, and the country is facing the consequences.

It is not too late. As an Opposition, we are willing to talk about that sensible Brexit deal—a relationship with a customs union, single market, rights and protections, agencies and partnerships. To answer a question that I was anticipating the hon. Member for St Albans would ask, although she did not: if the Prime Minister will not go there, we will consider the option of a further public vote to break the impasse. Nevertheless, whatever happens over the next seven weeks, we cannot and should not rule out an extension of article 50.

EU Membership: Second Referendum

Debate between Paul Blomfield and Paul Scully

Monday 3rd December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Paul Scully]

I thank the Minister for his reassuring remarks. It was remiss of me not to have welcomed him to his place for his first Westminster Hall debate. He gave a good amount of reassurance that we will not get distracted from our important task by the so-called people’s vote. We need to concentrate on making sure that we deliver for the people of this country.

In the last couple of years, the Government and the Prime Minister have had the incredibly difficult job of squaring seemingly impossible circles. It is impossible to find a solution to the Labour party’s six tests when the last one says that leaving must deliver the exact same benefits as membership. Clearly, at the golf club that the Minister referred to, pay-as-you-play is not the same as membership.

[Paul Blomfield]

Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the Prime Minister said that she was determined to meet the six tests set by the Labour party?

[Paul Scully]

The Prime Minister will go as close as she can, but that last one is clearly impossible. She is working to satisfy as many people as she can in incredibly difficult times.

We then have the Liberal Democrats, who want to have their Bobby Ewing moment and pretend this all away, frankly. Those are the dynamics that we have been working on.

We are now at the dénouement—the end of the first part of the process. Let us try to get through this week and a half, get the vote next Tuesday, and move on to the exciting, optimistic global Britain thing that we can do—trade with the rest of the world and with our European partners. I look forward to the fact that our 40 or 50-year decision will allow us to make sure that our best days are still ahead of us.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 226071 relating to not holding a second referendum on EU membership.