European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Andrew Percy and Alison McGovern

Wednesday 13th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern]

I rise to speak in favour of Lords amendment 51, on the EEA. I will focus on the main argument against the EEA and its single market, which I believe to be free movement and immigration more broadly, but I will not argue that the EEA is a perfect arrangement for our country after Brexit. It has its flaws—many have already been highlighted—but although I am not blind to those flaws, I am not blind either to the reality that our country finds itself in today. If there is one message from my contribution, it is that we do not have the luxury of choosing between perfect options. It is time to engage with the real choices.

There will be colleagues on the Labour Benches who disagree with my position, and there will be those who still do not know what to think. That is okay—we are all entitled to our views—but there is one opinion that unites Labour Members, the country and perhaps even Government Members: the Government are making a royal mess of Brexit. That is the central fact from which all our decisions must follow.

The Labour Front-Bench amendment to the Lords amendment has many merits, and I sincerely thank my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) and his team for how they have engaged on this issue. They do not have an easy job, but the way they carry it out is a credit to each of them. Their position today would have been an excellent place for a Labour Government to start the negotiations, but I say gently to colleagues that we are not at the start of the negotiations. We are nearly at the end, and our choice will be either to accept or reject a Tory Brexit deal that will tear up many of the economic relationships that have made this country strong, impose new border arrangements in Ireland, pull us out of key agencies and regulations, and leave us scrabbling to put in place new arrangements for which the Government have totally failed to plan.

In rejecting that deal, we will need to propose an alternative that is realistic within the timeframe, and that is where I have a slight difference with Labour Front Benchers, because their amendment is not quite enough. It leaves too many questions unanswered. The EEA as a backstop is appealing not because it is perfect in itself, but because it is infinitely preferable to a Tory deal or no deal. It is just not likely that other options will be deliverable in the time we have.

I turn now to immigration. I am a supporter of immigration and believe it has made us strong. To move to another country to work and live is a fundamentally decent, dignified and brave thing to do—it is the story of my family and the story of our country—but I understand the hesitation of many colleagues. It would be a rare Labour MP who did not understand the strength of feeling that exists in many parts of the country about levels of migration and the perceived lack of controls. I understand that many Members here are just trying to represent their constituents’ views, and that is to their credit, but I would say to those who are hesitating, “Yes, the EEA may be uncomfortable, but it is significantly less uncomfortable than any of the other realistic approaches that are available.” The reality is that a complete red line on free movement will put us on a road that leads to support for either a Tory hard Brexit deal or a no-deal Brexit, and I do not think that that is a road that we want to go down.

Ultimately, this comes down to one question: does concern about immigration trump all other concerns? We must ask ourselves, very honestly, whether it is worth shutting ourselves off from the rest of Europe to deal with the problems of immigration in this country. I do not believe that it is, and that is why I will be supporting Lords amendment 51.

[Andrew Percy]

So far, I have not put in my twopenn’orth at any stage of the Bill, largely because I believed the assurances from both parties at the time of the general election that the votes of my constituents would be respected. As I said in an intervention, nearly 70% of them voted to leave the European Union, and I believed that the vote by the country to leave the EU would also be respected. What is clear from this afternoon’s debate—it was clear from proceedings in another place—is that some people are intent on wrecking and overturning that result. There is no doubt about that.

I want to focus on the EEA and the customs union, but first I want to say a little about immigration. A smear has repeatedly been used against my constituents and the people of this country who dared to vote against the political class and against the establishment by voting leave. That smear is that the people who voted leave did so on the basis of some racist, anti-foreigner sentiment. My constituents voted leave, and my constituents are not racists. They are not people who have a problem with immigration; they are people who have been subjected to, and have been at the receiving end of, large amounts of immigration—particularly from the European Union—over a very short period, and that has had a big impact on our community.

My constituents do not resent those who have come to this country. If I walk through Goole, for instance, they say to me, “The people who have come here have worked really hard, but there is no doubt that immigration has put pressure on our housing, has made it easier to employ people in the gig economy”—there is no doubt about that—“and has put huge pressure on our health services.” My constituents do not want to see those people leave the United Kingdom, but they want to know that there is a system that controls immigration properly.

I want us to go out and make the argument for immigration once we have left the European Union. As the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) pointed out, we can make the case for it only once we have some control over it, so that the public know that their elected representatives are the people who will determine the appropriate net migration and immigration figures for each year. That is what countries such as Canada, Australia or New Zealand manage to do.

I am sick of hearing the suggestion—we have heard it again today—that people who voted for Brexit only did so because of immigration, and that that was only because they were racist. I am also sick of hearing the suggestion—we have heard this today as well—that they did not know what they were voting for. That is a complete and utter insult to the good, hard-working, decent people of the north of England, and particularly to my constituents, who voted leave for very good reasons. One of those reasons was to do with control of our laws and our parliamentary sovereignty.

The one argument that I think the remain campaigners won was that leaving the European Union also meant leaving the single market. That is why I think that the EEA model is not acceptable. Before the referendum, some leave campaigners suggested that the two were separate, but by the end of the campaign that had ceased, and we heard what I thought was an honest debate about the fact that leaving the European Union meant leaving the single market.

I want to say something about the customs union. In this instance, I think that things are a little bit more nuanced. There is no doubt that customs arrangements were not a big part of the referendum campaign. Let me say this in the 30 seconds that are left: I am not a hard Brexiteer, and I am sick of hearing from people who are at both extremes of this debate. Let me associate myself with my parliamentary neighbour, the right hon. Member for Don Valley. I agree that we need to reach a sensible customs arrangement, and the two tests we should apply are, “What is in the economic interests of the UK?” and, “What is in the best interests of maintaining the integrity of the UK?” There should be less debate at the extremes, and more common sense in the middle.