European Council

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Chuka Umunna

Tuesday 14th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

That was not one of the issues that we discussed within the business of the European Council last week. However, it is an issue that I have discussed with other member states on a number of occasions in the past, and we are all well apprised of the need to ensure that we have a means of identifying those who are returning. We are working to deal in the most appropriate way with those individuals who are returning. Of course, so far as the United Kingdom is concerned, individuals will be looked at on a case-by-case basis.

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

On single market membership, in their 2015 manifesto the Prime Minister and her party made an unconditional commitment to

“safeguard British interests in the Single Market.”

She castigated my hon. Friends the Members for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) and for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) for raising that issue, but on 26 May 2016 she told an audience of Goldman Sachs bankers, in relation to single market membership, that

“the economic arguments are clear. I think being part of a 500-million trading bloc is significant”.

Why is she waving the white flag and starting these negotiations without even trying to keep our membership of the single market, with the reforms she seeks? We are the second-biggest economy in Europe and the fifth-biggest military power in the world, and she is waving the white flag before the negotiations have started.

[The Prime Minister]

I am doing nothing of the sort. The hon. Gentleman needs to recognise that there is a difference between access to the single market, protecting our ability to operate within the single market, and membership of the single market. Membership of the single market means accepting free movement, accepting the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and, effectively, remaining a member of the European Union. We have voted to leave the European Union, and that is what we will be doing.

European Council

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Chuka Umunna

Monday 24th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I think that member states and the EU are increasingly looking at this in relation not just to what it means for the UK, but what it means for them as well. I have said consistently that this is not just about the UK, in some sense, being a supplicant to the remaining 27 of the EU; it is about us negotiating a relationship that works for both sides.

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

Article 50 puts any country seeking to leave the EU at a disadvantage, in that if you have not got the deal you want within two years, you could flip on to trading with the EU on World Trade Organisation terms, putting your companies and sectors at huge disadvantage. With that in mind, we need to create a certain amount of good will from our European partners, and making them think that their EU citizens living here are the cause of all our problems is not the way to build good will. I accept that the Prime Minister will want to find reforms to the way that immigration works, but will she guarantee that her Cabinet—I see the Home Secretary sitting next to her—will exercise more care in the language they use on these matters?

[The Prime Minister]

The Government, and all Ministers in the Government, exercise every care in the language they use in these matters. I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that the image he portrays of the impression we have given for EU citizens is quite the wrong one; I have been very clear about our expectations and intentions in relation to EU citizens living here in the United Kingdom. But he must accept, as must other Members of this House, that we also have a duty to British citizens who are living in EU member states, and that is why I want to ensure that the status of both is guaranteed.