UK’s Withdrawal from the EU

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Barclay]

Although I obviously respect the considerable experience of the Father of the House, I frankly do not accept that merely restating the legislative position is presenting issues in a stark way; nor do I accept that the Prime Minister will fail. The Prime Minister is working in the national interest, is seeking to bring our country together, and is seeking a deal for our country. A short extension of article 50 does not take no deal off the table. It simply prolongs that uncertainty; it leaves in place the risk of no deal in a few months’ time.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

The Prime Minister met hon. Members in the Boothroyd Room before the first vote, which she lost by 230, and said that if her deal was not accepted, it was either no deal or no Brexit. An amendment could have been moved to revoke article 50 today, but should not the Government be moving towards that point? We should put it to the House: we either have the Brexit that is going to crash the economy, or, with one letter from the Prime Minister to the European Union, we forget this silly game and revoke this nonsense. It could be over in an afternoon. Get on with it.

[Stephen Barclay]

Given the propensity of the Scottish National party to have referendums and not respect the result, the one thing that we can always be sure of with the SNP is that it will not be over in an afternoon.

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[Keir Starmer]

I will just make the next point and then I will give way.

The idea that the vote on 29 January for the Brady amendment gave clarity is for the birds. The Government united around a proposition that they want an alternative to the backstop, but uniting around an alternative that means different things to different people does not get anybody anywhere, and that is the central problem.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Keir Starmer]

I will in just one minute.

On Tuesday, in another non-update from the Prime Minister, she said what she wanted on the backstop and listed three things: a time-limited backstop; an ability unilaterally to end the backstop; or alternative arrangements. That is how she put it. The first two of those have been repeatedly ruled out by the EU for months, and there is no sign of any movement. The Secretary of State, from his discussions in Brussels in recent days, knows that very well—there is no room for a move on those two fronts.

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[Keir Starmer]

I do agree with that. One of the things that saddens me most from the discussions I have had in the last two or three weeks—the Secretary of State and others who have had such discussions know exactly what is being said—is that decisions are having to be made because of the fear of no deal. Such decisions are being triggered, but the chilling bit from the discussions I have had is that some of those steps are now irreversible. This is the first time we have come to that point.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Keir Starmer]

I promised I would give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Is not the thing this House has to understand that the backstop is there in case the Malthouse compromise turns into the Malthouse fantasy—if all the technologies are technological fantasies —and that Europe cannot give up on the backstop just because of all the wishy-washy promises from the UK Government? The EU has to stick with it, and Conservative Members just do not understand that.

[Keir Starmer]

The EU has been very clear about the backstop. It is to be observed that there are hon. Members working on the Malthouse compromise, but it is equally to be observed that the Government have not adopted it as their policy position.

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[Anna Soubry]

I would not disagree with my hon. Friend at all. I have indeed seen those very same papers myself. When I was a Health Minister, I saw the risk assessment documents that took the firm view that it would not be in the public interest at all for some documents to be disclosed, for the very reasons that I have outlined. These papers are different, however, because members of the Cabinet who have seen them have unsuccessfully made arguments in Cabinet that they should be made public. That is the profound distinction in this case.

It really would be to the eternal shame of the Conservative party if it were to continue to support a no-deal Brexit. As ever, I make my views with perhaps too much robustness and sometimes with some passion, but I am one of the founding members of the people’s vote movement—I am very proud of that—and I believe that the only way through this impasse and mess is for this matter to go back to the country. However, I have now taken the view that the bigger national interest—I say this without any fear—is that I am no longer prepared not to vote in the interests of my country and my constituents and in accordance with my conscience. I am now of the view that ensuring that we do not crash out without a deal is my absolute priority and that is why I tabled amendment (e). I make that clear to my right hon. and very dear learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke). We disagree on the people’s vote, but on this we are absolutely—probably as ever—as one.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Anna Soubry]

I will not, just because I am running out of time and I want to make several important points.

The Conservative party is the party of business. This party is the party of competence when it comes to the economy—[Interruption.] Oh yes, and history shows that a Conservative Government always leave office with the economy in a better state than when they inherited it, because we always have to clear up the mess made by a Labour Government. That is the simple fact and reality of history. However, will this great party be so reckless and go against all that we value in our principles by actually suggesting that we should leave without a deal in the face of overwhelming evidence? How many more car manufacturers—Ford, Toyota, Nissan—have to make it clear that if we leave without a deal, that will seriously impact the way that they do business? In the real world, that means our constituents will risk losing their jobs. Over 800,000 people work in just the automotive sector, never mind all the other millions who work in our manufacturing sector. Everybody with a scintilla of knowledge of the real world and of business and trade knows that the worst thing that could happen to our country is to leave without a deal. That is the view of the majority of Members of this place.

I gently say to the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, who is a thoroughly good and decent man, that his speech chilled me to the bone. He is a Conservative, yet he stood at that Dispatch Box ignoring the amendment that was passed that was tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman)—a former chairman of the Conservative Party—and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) for which 318 Members voted. The other amendment that was passed, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady), was passed with 317 votes in favour. It is therefore shameful that the Secretary of State spent almost the entirety of his speech addressing the latter, not the former, even though the former had won cross-party support and the support of more hon. Members.

However, my party is in hock to the party within the party: the ERG. As others have said, it is funded by the taxpayer and others, with its own leader and its own Whip. The Secretary of State stood up and tossed out red meat to keep the ERG on board, instead of doing what each and every one of us must do, which is to do what is right for our country. The right thing for our country is to be as one in rejecting no deal and standing by, as this party once did, the people of this country, their jobs, their futures and the prosperity of business and trade.

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[Hilary Benn]

My hon. Friend is, of course, entirely right. Nothing I heard from the Prime Minister on Tuesday and nothing I heard from the Secretary of State at the Dispatch Box today persuades me, or anyone else, that those alternative arrangements will miraculously appear in the 43 days that remain.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Just a slight nuance on the earlier debate. The European Union is not so rude as to say that it has rejected this, but it is saying, “If your fantasies don’t come through, let us have the security policy of a backstop. We don’t say your fantasies are wrong, but we are taking our insurance policy just in case.”

[Hilary Benn]

The backstop is, indeed, an insurance policy, and we cannot put a time limit on it, because it would not be an insurance policy if it is not there when it is needed. We cannot allow one side to withdraw unilaterally. The tragedy that the backstop illustrates is that we are spending all this time on something that is necessary because the Prime Minister created the problem in the first place when she casually announced that we are leaving the single market and the customs union, probably not thinking through the consequences that have brought her to this point.

We have these debates every two weeks, but we are spending barely any time focusing on the real problem. As the Father of the House pointed out in his wonderfully eloquent speech, we have no idea what Brexit actually, finally, means, because the Government have refused to make the choices that confront them and have failed genuinely to reach out across the House.

Nothing illustrates that more clearly than the example of a customs union. In her heart, the Prime Minister knows that, if we want to keep an open border in Northern Ireland and if we want to keep friction-free trade, we will have to remain in a customs union with the European Union, yet she cannot bring herself to confirm that fact, not because it would be economically damaging—it would be quite the opposite—but because it would be politically damaging to the party she leads.

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[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman). While listening to this debate, it struck me that it is Valentine’s Day today—you would not know it the way that this place carries on, with everyone going at each other hammer and tongs. Perhaps we should go back a little bit and remember why we are in this situation. We are in this situation because people voted to leave the European Union. I backed remain, but I had a strong mandate from my constituency: two thirds said that they wanted to leave. I regard it as my job to make sure that we execute those instructions and leave the European Union.

It is important to remember why people voted in the way that they did: they believed in building a land of opportunity; they believed in building an independent sovereign nation; and they believed in taking back control of our borders, our trade policy, our money and our prospects across the world. Many Members of this House reject that view to this day, but that is what people wanted to do, and they are not wrong to have wanted that. They are not wrong because, in recent decades, Europe has been in relative decline. A few decades ago, it had a third of global GDP; today it has just 15%. Some 90% of future world growth is coming from outside, not inside, the European Union.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I just want to pull up the hon. Gentleman on that point. He said that Europe was in relative decline and produced a statistic. Europe is not in decline. It is just that other places in the world are coming up, which is great to see. It is great to see that other people outside Europe are becoming richer, but Europe is not in decline.

[Charlie Elphicke]

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point. The fact is that Europe is becoming relatively less important in the world and the rest of the world is becoming relatively more important. Is our national destiny best served by more involvement in Europe or more involvement in the world and more globalisation? [Interruption.] I shall not take any lectures from a Member of Parliament who represents a party that wants to tear Scotland away from its biggest market. That is just crass, irresponsible and, frankly, reckless.

We need to bear it in mind that people want the kind of future that they can build, and we need to make that happen. The people whom I represent in Dover and Deal say to me, “What is going on? Why don’t you just get on with it? Why are you still talking about it? Why is Parliament not just getting on with it?” Those are the right questions. We need to get on with it, end the uncertainty, leave the European Union and make the best of it.

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[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Well, 43 days to go and here we are—still pretty clueless in the House of Commons. When people ask what is going to happen, nobody really knows. I did hope to bring this to an end with my amendment (d). I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby), and my hon. Friends the Members for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) and for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) for supporting it. I think it is going to gain some currency over time. In the end, we are going to come down between taking the crazy Brexit route wanted only by the militant tendency of the Tory party or else revoking article 50.

Brexit is bad. Even Brexiteers do not want Brexit on 29 March. There are no Brexiteers: it is only the utterly deluded who want Brexit on 29 March. The International Trade Secretary says that it is damaging to the economy. We have heard other Brexiteers describe Brexit on 29 March as “a catastrophe” and as “a disaster”—not something they wrote on the side of a bus when they were going round calling for Brexit. They were making all sorts of promises about Brexit. If people were convinced to vote for Christmas every week, or free chocolate on Thursdays, or slices of cheese from the moon on Fridays, we would have to tell them, “This is as undeliverable as the ERG militant tendency Tory Brexit.” It is impossible without damaging the economy, and those on the Government Front Bench should be straight about that. That is what is about to happen.

The Netherlands is preparing for damage to its small businesses, and Ireland is giving its small businesses advice about Brexit, but that is not happening in the UK. What are the Government doing to bridge the gap for small businesses in the UK when the damage of Brexit comes? If any Conservatives can sit there comfortably—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) wants to intervene and tell us that no businesses will go to the wall because of Brexit on 29 March, I will give him the floor. Does he want to take that opportunity?

[Stephen Kerr]

The hon. Gentleman is making a valid point—he is giving strong reasons why we should have a deal. The way we get a deal is by supporting the Prime Minister’s deal, which creates an orderly Brexit.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman should know that we have a deal at the moment with the European Union. It is a good deal, and any other deals we have with the European Union that involve us leaving the customs union and the single market will damage the economy. He should be straight about that. I notice that he will not give small businesses a guarantee—no Conservatives will, but none of them will go to the wall because of their political adventures. They should be aware, and the rest of the country should be aware, of what they are doing.

The chemical industry is very worried about exactly what regulation it will have. It describes itself as the “industry of industries”, underpinning pharmaceuticals and automotive in the UK, and aerospace. If it is outside the REACH regulation and cannot license chemicals, some chemicals might not be available in the United Kingdom.

[Bill Grant (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I am happy to give way to the hon. Gentleman. Can he guarantee that all chemicals will be available after Brexit?

[Bill Grant]

I am concerned at the view that businesses in Scotland will go to the wall. Having spoken to businesses in Scotland, I know that they want to work within a deal. Can the hon. Gentleman explain why he will not support a deal for his businesses?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

They have been working within a deal, which is why I want us to revoke article 50. I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to say that.

I want to say a word or two about the trade continuity agreements. This nails a big lie of Brexit—that we can trade on WTO terms. The reason we want to roll over trade agreements instead of trading on WTO terms is that trading on WTO terms is an expensive way of conducting businesses. It involves tariffs, taxes and—[Interruption.] I hear laughter on the Government Benches. Clearly Tories do not know that that is the case. Other Governments will get in the way and tax business transactions. That is why we want to roll over these trade agreements. Without them, we will trade on WTO terms, which is an expensive way to conduct commerce, and businesses will go to the wall.

The Tories march blithely on, happy to rip up agreements and deals with our biggest customer—the 27-member trade bloc of the European Union. When I spoke recently to Alan Wolff, deputy director general of the WTO, he described the area between trading on WTO terms and within trade deals as the “Brexit gap”. There is an inevitable loss for the United Kingdom from following this crazy way.

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the Faroe Islands, I am delighted to see that Poul Michelsen was down last week to sign their deal, which ensures a big slice of trade for them. But these trade deals with the Faroes, Chile and everywhere else are merely standing on the shoulders of what the European Union has already achieved—the European Union that Brexiteers decry so much, but whose trade deals they want to follow.

The Government find themselves in a very funny place indeed. They wanted at one stage to resist having any meaningful votes in Parliament, but they have ended up having so many that they have rendered them all meaningless. A number of people in business have told me that there is a danger in extending article 50 because it extends uncertainty and further postpones investment. It does, however, allow them to move assets more readily to the United Kingdom when nothing seems to be appearing down the line.

The UK is heading for an existential choice: it is either going to revoke article 50 or head for a no-deal catastrophe. We have to get our heads around that fairly quickly, because those will be the choices. The Brexit promises have been reduced by the Prime Minister to jam tomorrow—in fact, it is not even jam tomorrow; it is jam tomorrow if you scrape the mould off the top. It is a shame that that was not on the side of a bus.