Government’s EU Exit Analysis

Debate between Alison McGovern and Anna Soubry

Wednesday 31st January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman—I nearly called him my Friend, although on this he is, because he is absolutely right. The agreement made in December between the European Union and ourselves is such a fudge that it is impossible to put it into a text that could become a treaty. It is a superb fudge, and it has delivered the political outcome, but the reality, which has been accepted by this Government, is that in order to solve the problem in Ireland we are staying in the—not “a”, but “the”—customs union and single market. That is what the Government basically agreed to do in December.

[Alison McGovern]

The right hon. Lady has hit on the heart of the problem, which is that the Government will not say what they want. However, turning to this issue, does she agree that the reason why the public are in the dark is that we have excellent independent economic forecasters in the Office for Budget Responsibility who say that they simply cannot do their job because we are all in the dark about what the Government actually want? Ought they not to rectify that?

[Anna Soubry]

The hon. Lady is quite right—she can be my Friend in this debate, because she makes an important point. What responsible Governments do, quite properly, is to say to impartial, objective officials, “Right, these are the options. Cost them out, or assess them, and so on and so forth,” and yet bizarrely the Government did not put forward their own preferred option. What on earth does that say about our Government’s position? What further evidence does anybody want that they have not worked out their position? They have got to do that, because at the end of March the European Union will publish what its position is going to be, and there is every chance that our Government will still be messing about, fighting off hard Brexiteers and not grasping the nettle and doing their duty by the country.