EU Exit Day Amendment

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

My understanding is that that was the Council’s view of when we would have to give notice that we would be holding European elections, if we were staying in for longer, and that is why it set that date as the date by which we would have to have made our mind up as to whether we are leaving. But that is for the European Council to determine. I am not a spokesman for it.

Currently, major changes to our domestic statute book reflecting our exit from the European Union are due to take effect on exit day, which is defined in the EU withdrawal Act as 11 pm on 29 March, despite the extension terms that have been agreed at international level. These changes apply across a huge number of policy areas, from emissions trading to Europol. All these changes are designed to ensure that our statute book works when we leave the European Union, and all are due to take place on exit day. This definition has effect across the whole UK statute book. Now that an extension to article 50 has been agreed in EU and international law, we need to amend that date to reflect the new point at which the EU treaties cease to apply.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Has the Minister learned any lessons about putting exact times and dates on the statute book in primary legislation just so that his Prime Minister can blackmail her own party?

[Mr Walker]

The hon. Lady makes a political point, which is not particularly appropriate for a debate on technical legislation. The instrument has been laid under the EU withdrawal Act to do just what I said. Section 20(4) of the Act contains a power to amend exit day through a statutory instrument.

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[Mr Speaker]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. Obviously I well remember the exchanges, and I am aware of the particular interaction to which he is referring. The normal principle applies: every Member is responsible for the veracity of what he or she says in this Chamber. If a Member inadvertently errs, it is incumbent upon that Member to correct the record. The Minister, perfectly reasonably, said that he had not seen what was said. However, it is not beyond the wit and sagacity of the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) to arrange for a copy of the extract from the Official Report to wing its way to the Dispatch Box during the course of this consideration, and the Minister might then be in a position further to respond to him.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Could you advise me on whether what Conservative Members are objecting to is the use of the royal prerogative, which allows us to sign up to international treaties using that power? If so, the logic of what they are arguing is actually that we should get rid of the Queen.

[Mr Speaker]

I simply say to the hon. Lady that it is not for me to offer an exegesis of what individuals might think about our constitutional arrangements, including the use or otherwise of the royal prerogative, but she has made her own point in her own way, with some panache, and it will be studied in the record.

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[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

We have seen today elements of the Conservative party in high dungeon, or dudgeon—[Interruption.] Maybe they should be in the high dungeon. We have seen them in high dudgeon about the fact that the Minister has brought a statutory instrument before us today to take away the cliff edge they were relying on plunging this country over in order to get the kind of clean break, catastrophe Brexit that many of them secretly want. I never thought in this House that I would sit here and see considerable numbers of Members of a Government party—the party opposite—planning on that basis to cause such damage to our economic prospects and the prospects for prosperity of all of my constituents and everybody else’s constituents; it is a period of history that I hoped I would never see.

The Prime Minister is entirely responsible for getting all of us into the mess we have seen develop over the last few months as she has repeatedly, after putting a definite leaving date on the face of the original withdrawal Act, put off the vote and put off the vote on her withdrawal agreement because she wanted, I believe, to face this House with an unpalatable choice between her deal, which many from all parts of the House have serious problems with, and the catastrophe of no deal. In a modern, mature Parliament I believe that that kind of process and choice should never be allowed to face us. Whether we voted leave or remain—whichever side of the argument we were on in 2016—we should not have been put in that position, and it was the date on the face of what is now the withdrawal Act that allowed the Prime Minister to have the leverage that she somehow thought would work to her advantage.

The Prime Minister has now been forced to resort to the leverage that we hear happened at the 1922 committee tonight, where she basically said “Back me so you can then sack me,” and gave another date, 22 May, for when she would announce her departure. So now, while the country’s future is still in the air and not decided, we have the horrible, self-regarding spectacle of the next runners and riders in the Conservative party seeing who will inherit the poisoned chalice that the Tory psychodrama of Brexit has injected into the body politic in this country.

The Minister’s statutory instrument is an inevitable consequence of creating a false cliff edge. That cliff edge was created for blackmail purposes, but there remain many sensible, responsible people on both sides of the House, and we have expressed our wish not to allow the country to plunge over it. The Minister was correct to bring forward the statutory instrument, and to surmise that this Parliament will not allow a choice involving the catastrophe Brexit of leaving with no deal. We will not allow this or any future Prime Minister to blackmail this country with such appalling, disrespectful and dangerous tactics.

I will support the Minister’s statutory instrument tonight. I hope that in due course we will be able to have a much longer delay, to start the process again and to do it properly with some of the respect that we have seen developing in today’s indicative votes debate and with the responsible, cross-party debate that is beginning to develop and which should have happened in this country when the Prime Minister crossed the threshold of Downing Street two years ago. She has got the process exactly the wrong way round. Permanent damage has been done to our economy, our prospects, our prosperity and, more than anything else, our reputation in the world, because this Prime Minister has got this so disastrously wrong. Whoever her successor is, I hope that they will not take this to be a place that can be blackmailed, as she has done, and that they will not play Russian roulette with the prosperity and future of this country. Anyone who decides that that is a reasonable way to behave does not deserve the honour of being our Prime Minister.