European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Angela Eagle and Richard Drax

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

With regard to this list of all the rights that we are going to lose, allegedly, or that those who wish to remain in the EU think we are going to lose, why can we not make all these decisions in this place, for our country, for the benefit of our people? We do not need other people to make our rules.

[Ms Eagle]

When we joined the European Union we pooled parts of our sovereignty so that we could have a bigger bang for the buck that we spent, particularly on issues such as the environment. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has noticed, but pollution does not stop at national borders.

The most hallucinatory of the Eurosceptic nostalgics in the Tory party dream of a frictionless divorce with no real consequences, economic or otherwise—a trade deal swiftly done which grants the UK all the benefits of EU membership with none of the costs. Some of them even imagine a new mercantilist British empire, forgetting that times have almost certainly moved on. They are content to gamble with 50% of our trade and 100% of our prosperity.

I argued passionately against the isolationist leave side in the referendum, and fought back against the alternative facts and magical thinking that underlay many of the arguments put forward by the other side. I especially disapproved of the downright lies on the NHS cynically perpetrated by the leading lights of the leave campaign and repudiated by them on the day after their victory. Who will ever forget that bus, now a byword for cynical manipulation? As it happens, the Wirral voted narrowly in favour of remaining—a tribute to its good judgment, along with its record of returning a full deck of Labour MPs at the last general election.

But we are where we are, and it is undoubtedly the case that the country as a whole voted 52:48 to leave. The referendum split the country down the middle. A Government interested in building a decent future for our country would have sought to bring us together, but this Government have done the opposite. They have chosen to interpret the results of the referendum as a victory for Nigel Farage’s very own version of “Little Britain”. First there were the xenophobic speeches at Tory conference announcing the creation of lists of foreign workers, then the months of confusion about the nature of the Government’s plan, then the Prime Minister’s speech, and finally a promised, but as yet unpublished, White Paper.

If she does not get her way in Europe, the Prime Minister has threatened to create a low-regulation Britain with fewer human, civil and workers’ rights guaranteed in law, unmaking decades of social progress. That is unacceptable to Labour Members and I believe it is unacceptable to the British public. The narrow majority of British voters who cast their ballots for Britain to leave the EU did not, to a person, have in their mind’s eye a libertarian fantasy state as their end goal. They were told they could expect, and they voted for, more money for crucial services, and sensible controls on immigration. In reality, they continue to get massive cuts to the NHS, policing, local services and schools, as this Government’s austerity cuts continue to decimate our public services and care for the elderly.

I fully endorse the amendments tabled in the name of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition—they would make the best of this difficult situation—but I know that Opposition amendments, no matter how sensible, rarely get accepted by the Government, especially this Government, who seem obsessed with bringing about the most extreme Brexit possible. Labour will fight to get the best possible Brexit deal.

I surveyed members in Wallasey this past weekend, and I received responses from a substantial number of them. To the hundreds who responded I say thank you for shaping my approach to this most difficult of votes. A huge majority thought that the Bill would make them and their families worse off. Just over half thought that we should engage but beware of the Government’s motives, and that we should give the Government authorisation to proceed only once we had guarantees on workers’ rights and tariff-free access to the single market.

As democratic politicians, we have to recognise the result of the referendum, but that does not give the Government carte blanche for an extreme Brexit. It does not give the Government permission to destroy the social settlement and make our society poorer and even more precarious. Labour’s amendments guaranteeing rights at work, equality rights and the environmental standards that we take for granted now are crucial if the Bill is to be acceptable and to help to bring our divided country together.

Rather than presenting the House with the most perfunctory Bill possible, I wish the Government had wanted to engage and involve Parliament in what will be the most crucial project we have undertaken in generations. I wish we had a Government who wanted to grant meaningful votes and real influence to Parliament rather than simply trying to reduce parliamentary sovereignty to a take-it-or-leave-it rubber stamp.

We swap the known for the unknown in one of the most volatile political eras that I have experienced in my lifetime. We throw away established relationships and economic connections, including deeply integrated European supply chains and cultural affinities. We alienate our closest allies in perilous times. We have a divided and angry country. Social injustice and poverty are soaring, and many regions are being neglected. I am in politics to defend them, and defend them I will.