European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Antoinette Sandbach Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. There have been some exaggerated claims about the impact of a no-deal Brexit, and the British economy is resilient. He is absolutely right, however, that farmers in some of our most vulnerable sectors, in constituencies that Members across this House represent, would be significantly adversely affected in the short term.

[Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for quoting my constituent Richard Walker, who has highlighted the fact that the jobs of 24,000 employees at Iceland depend on frictionless trade and that it is really important to support a deal, because no deal would be catastrophic for not only Iceland, but Arla Foods and several other food producers in this country.

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is always important to get things in proportion, but across the business spectrum—from those who argued for remain and for leave—there is a strong consensus that no deal would, in the short to medium term, cause significant harm.

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[Sue Hayman]

I will make some progress, because many Members want to speak and the Secretary of State was generous with his time.

The Prime Minister said that the environment Bill will be world leading, so where is the duty and obligation within the agreement to reduce the UK’s global environmental footprint? Labour wants to see good-quality, affordable food available to all but that must not come at the expense of environmental and animal welfare standards, workers’ rights or societal protections.

[Antoinette Sandbach]

The managing director of Arlo Foods warned that a no-deal Brexit would see shortages of products and a sharp rise in prices, turning everyday staples like butter, yoghurt, cheese and infant formula into occasional luxuries. Does the hon. Lady therefore agree that, by voting against this deal, the Labour party risks that outcome?

[Sue Hayman]

Labour does not want no deal. We understand the risks that that would bring, which is why we are saying that if the Prime Minister’s deal is voted down next week, we should go for a general election. However, we also think that the Prime Minister has had nearly two years to negotiate this deal. She could have had something much better. It is unacceptable that we have so little after two years.

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[Royston Smith (Southampton, Itchen) (Con)]

I do not want to use my speech to talk about parliamentary procedure or the detail of the various options to withdraw from the EU—I will leave that to others to do. What I want to talk about today is trust: not trust in MPs, which the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) has just alluded to, but trust in the electorate, which my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) spoke about.

In 1997, I, like many others, was unhappy that Tony Blair became Prime Minister, but I did not start campaigning for a people’s vote to remove him, and the same was the case in 2001 and in 2005. In fact, I think the situation was the same in 2010, 2015 and 2017, as the Opposition would have been disappointed about the outcome of the election, but they did not start campaigning for a people’s vote to overturn it. That is because we accept the results of votes in this country, and we should accept this one.

Turning to the point of this whole debate, in June 2016, the British people were given a say on our future relationship with the EU through a simple in/out referendum. We chose to leave. The numbers who voted or the margin of the majority are irrelevant; the question was put and the answer was given.

It should come as no surprise that, in a contest, some people will be disappointed. We should not dismiss their concerns; we should instead try to be as accommodating as possible. That is what people have been talking about today, but we must stay true to the referendum result—we have a duty to do so.

[Antoinette Sandbach]

Does my hon. Friend accept that when Vote Leave registered, it was registering for a simple “out” vote, but said it was not binding itself to a particular form of out, and that it would be up to MPs to decide how that result was implemented?

[Royston Smith]

I appreciate my hon. Friend’s intervention, but it is not for me to talk about what Vote Leave decided; it is for me to talk about what I think and what my constituents think.

Everyone in the Conservative party, including my hon. Friend, stood on the 2015 manifesto. They promised to give the British public a straightforward in/out referendum. Everyone who voted in December 2015 to legislate for that referendum did so promising to honour the result. Everyone who voted and campaigned in the referendum did so in the spirit of what had been agreed before the vote took place, and again promised to honour the result—at least I assume that they did. Can we really imagine that people were wandering around campaigning for in or for out, but saying to their constituents and friends, “Whatever happens, if we don’t win, we’ll just renege on the result”? Of course they did not do that; they campaigned saying they would honour the result. Everyone in here who voted to trigger article 50 and everyone in here who voted to pass—[Interruption.] I am not saying that everyone here voted in that way. I am talking about everyone who did vote in that way—[Interruption.] If Members listen, they can intervene on me. Everyone in the Chamber who voted to trigger article 50 and who voted to pass the European Union (Withdrawal) Act did so because at that time they were doing what they promised their electorate they would do.

In 2017, both two major parties stood on manifestos that promised to honour the result. In my constituency, the Conservative and Labour candidates shared 93% of the vote. Two parties that promised to honour the result of the referendum shared almost the entire vote while all the other parties lost their deposits. Almost every Conservative and Labour Member has promised to deliver Brexit at one time or another. At the time, those who supported remain accepted the wording of the referendum. At no time did they say that the result needed to have a particular majority, or that the consequences needed to be spelled out. Why was that? Quite obviously it was because the remain voters thought they would win. I thought they would win, even though I campaigned for and voted to leave.

The country has followed this soap opera for two years. It has joined us on this journey, which began with the referendum and was followed by a prime ministerial resignation, a new Prime Minister, a general election, Lancaster House, Florence, “Brexit means Brexit”, “No deal is better than a bad deal”, a delayed vote, a vote of confidence in the Prime Minister and, finally, “This deal, no deal or no Brexit at all”. No Brexit at all is not an option. This place voted for the referendum and promised to honour the result. This place voted to trigger article 50 and, in so doing, reconfirmed to the British public that our democracy is more important than political convenience. We all accepted the terms before the campaigns started, and if Members fail to implement the result or attempt to frustrate the will of the people, they are not democrats and I have no idea why they are here.

I would like to offer some clarity for those Ministers who like to appear on the “Today” programme saying that people like me know what they do not want but not what they do want. I met the Prime Minister and I could not have been clearer to her: I want a deal but, as it stands, I do not want her deal. The Prime Minister promised to protect our precious Union. Her deal does not do that, because it treats one part of our Union differently from the other parts. So, for those who repeat that people like me know what we do not want but not what we do want, I will say it again: take the backstop out, and I will compromise again and reluctantly vote for the deal.

This has been a dark time in our nation’s history. It has laid bare the divisions in our country and, by reneging on the promises we made to the British public, we would plunge our country into an even darker place, and I would not blame the voters if they never trusted a politician again. Many of the people outside this place believe that politicians are untrustworthy. They think that we spend most of our time talking to ourselves and not caring about what they think. If we fail to honour the result of the most important vote in living memory, we will prove them right, and I will have no part in that. I made promises to my constituents and I fully intend to honour them, whatever that takes. I would rather lose my seat, honour my commitments to my constituents and preserve what integrity is left in this place than behave as so many others are, in their own self-interest.

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[Antoinette Sandbach (Eddisbury) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods). She might wish to refer to the speech made by the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon), given her knowledge of Northern Ireland, who made it very clear that this agreement does in fact protect the Good Friday agreement.

I made a promise to my constituents that I would work to deliver the result of the referendum by implementing a pragmatic Brexit. I will be voting for the Prime Minister’s deal, despite my concerns—and I have very many—because of that promise. However, I want to quote my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton), who spoke powerfully yesterday. He said:

“There are many Conservative Members who, like me, voted to remain but accept, admittedly reluctantly and with some misgivings, that we are leaving the European Union. We have compromised at every stage of the process to try to find a way to make this work, and the deal before us is as far as I am prepared to go. If some of my colleagues want to blow this up in pursuit of an ideologically purist fantasy, fine—go ahead—but I am done. My patience and good will will be gone, along with the patience and good will of many other Conservative Members.

Would it not be something if, when the history books are written, it emerged that it was owing to the arrogance and belligerence of the hard-line Brexiteers in refusing to compromise that, rather than ending up with this imperfect Brexit, they ended up with no Brexit at all?”—[Official Report, 9 January 2019; Vol. 652, c. 472.]

That encapsulates perfectly how I feel. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green), my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) and my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith) that I stood on a manifesto that committed me to a “deep and special partnership” with the European Union, including a “comprehensive…customs arrangement.”

I say to ideological colleagues that after this vote I will have done my duty and delivered on my promise. From then on, my duty will be to do what is best for my constituents and for future generations. Of those constituents, I want to talk about farmers. I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Farmers are one of the groups likely to be most affected by Brexit. The first and biggest risk to them is tariffs, and the second is phytosanitary checks. Even Brexiteer Ministers such as the Environment Secretary know the risk. He told the Oxford farming conference about the impact of tariffs, pointing out that there would be no upside—he might have said different things during the referendum campaign, but I cannot comment on that. He said that

“new tariffs would undoubtedly exceed any adjustment in the currency markets”.

We export 15% of our beef and more than 30% of our lamb. Of those exports, more than 90% goes to the EU. A tariff on those goods can be as high as 87% and averages around 40%. That would be devastating for livestock farmers. Eddisbury is a big dairy constituency, producing about 3% of UK dairy. Some 90% of all UK dairy exports were to the EU. A report from the LSE warns that tariffs of between 41% and 74% will be imposed on dairy produce in the event of no deal. The UK managing director of Arla Foods has warned that

“most likely we would see shortages of products and a sharp rise in prices, turning everyday staples like butter, yoghurts, cheese and infant formula into occasional luxuries.”

It would make exports from both sectors uncompetitive and would send my local farmers to the wall. With half of all farms making less than £20,000 a year, and a fifth making no profit at all, such a huge increase in costs would be the death knell for many UK farmers.

Beyond tariffs, non-tariff barriers could hit farmers hard. Sustain noted in its evidence to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee:

“Generally, when standards start to diverge then costs start to accrue in tracking the difference between the products. What kind of paperwork will have to be provided? What kind of proof of certification or standard-setting will there have to be, and also what kind of inspection regimes, particularly at borders?”

Those are questions that the farming community is having to wrestle with daily as a consequence of irresponsible rhetoric about no deal. I urge all Members to give some much needed certainty and reassurance to farmers and other businesses across the UK by voting for the deal. It may not be perfect but if Brexit is to be delivered, it is the only way forward.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon) said, though, if the spirit of compromise is not present in the House, I will no doubt ultimately join my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) back on the campaign trail. I say to my ideological colleagues that if they do not support this deal, they risk no deal. From now on in, after the vote on this deal, I will vote for the best interests of my constituents, which is definitely not no deal.