United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Monday 21st September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)]

The Bill is objectionable in a very broad sense, and my colleagues and I will not rest in detailing its egregious impositions on Scotland and our people. Like others, I look across the Chamber and I cannot see a single Scottish Tory MP in here. Perhaps they are not worried about how goods will move freely between Scotland and Northern Ireland, but I can assure the House that I and my colleagues are.

As we debate part 5 of the Bill, like many other hon. and right hon. Members I focus on clauses 42, 43 and 45, which would see comprehensive powers afforded to Ministers to disapply wide-ranging elements of the protocol and the withdrawal agreement, therefore breaching established international obligations and international law. All this would essentially be applicable unilaterally and without the burden of impasse having been established beforehand between the EU and the UK, which also dismisses the obligations to unblock any such disputes through arbitration as set out in article 68 of the withdrawal agreement—another distinct breach of faith.

This calamity is not some unconventional wheeze, such as fantasy extra funding for the NHS as a Brexit dividend, or describing this deal to the exhausted UK public as oven-ready just before an election. This is breaking international law: it is in a different league altogether. If the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) were still in his place, I would say to him that amendment 66 is a slight improvement on where we were a number of days ago, but he has warned the Government that it is not a green light—it is certainly not a red light and it is barely an amber light, because with a majority of 80 the Government will have no difficulty whatever in getting it approved by willing Tory Members.

Clause 42(3)(b) is binary, if not wholly myopic in its abstract assertion that there exists uniquely the need to maintain the integrity and smooth operation of the UK internal market, as though that works in one direction only. Without an agreement, the EU will, of course, have every legitimate claim to protect the completeness and integrity of its single market, so what is the takeaway from that? It is border checks.

The Northern Ireland protocol agreed by this Prime Minister in this Parliament in January this year is now to be rowed back on by this Bill. At one stage, we were told that a border in the Irish sea would be the solution to this, and now it turns out that that is as unlikely as it sounded. Brexiteers championed hollow assurances about technological solutions for the movement of goods, but could not identify a single instance around the world where that existed at scale. We were told this would be achieved with good will on all sides, but I suggest that good will is a resource that the Government have now thoroughly exhausted. The Government stand ready to sacrifice any country in the UK, to jettison any basic measure of international responsibility and to compromise the UK’s international reputation, such as it is, to their ideological thirst for the purest of all Brexits.

As regards the EU establishing checks on the border, that too would appear to be in contravention of the protocol, which states that the UK and the EU made a guarantee of avoiding a hard border, including any physical infrastructure or related checks and controls. But make no mistake, when a customs infrastructure goes up, it will be the United Kingdom and this Government who will be found to be delinquent and not the EU. The EU is not legislating to renege on the withdrawal agreement, but the UK is. A border between Northern Ireland and the Republic—how can it have come to this, many ask. I do not know how familiar the Minister is with border installations in Northern Ireland, but I recall very well what a menacing scar they were on the Irish countryside. I say that with all due deference to my Northern Irish colleagues, whose lived experience I cannot even hope to comprehend. The irony is not lost on those of us with a closeness to that corner of these islands that the erasing of that border and the securing of peace in the 1990s was a product of real statesmen and women who possessed and deployed political courage, wisdom and foresight. Contrast that with the reckless disregard of this Prime Minister and—let us call them—his associates, who would not be fit to carry the bags of people such as Mo Mowlam, John Hume, David Trimble, Senator George Mitchell and many more. What will the clauses in part 5 of the Bill, so enacted, mean for people in Northern Ireland—in not just the Six Counties but the neighbouring counties in the Republic, with cross-border economies? What hardship and anxiety awaits the people and businesses in counties such as Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal?

The pride of all British nationalists is the alleged strength of the Union but, as we see in the Bill, Northern Ireland is, like Scotland and Wales, important to the British state only when it can further a British ambition or generate a British receipt. The toll that takes on our peoples is merely collateral, and it was ever thus. It is hard to know which is the less competent: signing a treaty that stymies their own Brexit ambitions or trying to defend and protect their precious Union by tearing up the basis of devolution and smashing the principles of subsidiarity asunder with the Bill. The further disintegration of the UK was always going to be a consequence of Brexit and the Bill merely hastens the essential crisis that the UK now faces. Although this is in step with my own ambitions for the UK’s demise, Scottish independence is close at hand with or without the immediate impositions of the Bill, which my colleagues and I will continue to oppose.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

I shall speak against clauses 42 and 45 standing part of the Bill.

When five out of the last six leaders of the Conservative party and all five living Prime Ministers are on the same side of the argument, it is time to sit up and take note. It is not often that I agree with the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), but her remarks earlier in the debate were absolutely right. The Bill’s attempt to enable the UK to break an international agreement made in good faith is both reckless and damaging. There have been protestations that the measures in the Bill would be used only if an agreement cannot be reached, but their price is the trashing of Britain’s reputation as an honest broker. The Bill will forever allow those regimes that flout international law to counter any criticism and point a finger back at the UK. Is that really a price worth paying? Of course it is not.

How did we get here? The withdrawal agreement clearly made reference to the state aid rules in article 10 of the Northern Ireland protocol. The clue was in the title of the article—it was there in black and white: “State aid”. Did no one notice that section? Did no one read that? If not, the Government are grossly negligent. We have learned that article 10’s impact was made fully known to Ministers at the time. Even if it was not picked up in October, it was certainly referred to in those January days when Parliament debated the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill at length before passing it into law. If state aid was such a big deal, I am surprised that Government Members who were so ebullient in their support of the withdrawal agreement Bill are now so eager to say it was flawed and explain why we must pass this Bill instead. Why did they not kick up a fuss at the time? Where were they?

Many from the Conservative party will say that the measures in the Bill will be invoked only as a last resort, but even passing the Bill and allowing the Government to break international law is doing untold damage to this country’s reputation. The United Kingdom is a signatory to and has ratified the Vienna convention. One of the principles that underpin that convention is negotiating in good faith. Passing this Bill will fly in the face of the Vienna convention and give a green light to other countries wishing to break agreements. With the Government having taken this step, how will anyone ever trust anything that they say in negotiations ever again? Far from making trade deals easier, this legislation has made negotiations much harder, with the United States leading the outcry as it sees renegotiating the Northern Ireland protocol as a gross act of bad faith.

The former Conservative leader Lord Howard was right when he asked how the UK could reproach Russia, China and Iran for their actions when the UK itself was willing to break international law, as he lamented the damage to Britain’s reputation for probity and respect for the rule of law. Perhaps the Bill’s intention is to ensure that we leave the transition period without an agreement. Perhaps it is a negotiation tactic, or perhaps it is designed to be a big distraction. Whichever one of those it may be, saying that the Bill breaks the law

“in a very specific and limited way”—[Official Report, 8 September 2020; Vol. 679, c. 509.]

has diminished Britain’s global reputation.

Just as conspiracy offences carry the same maximum sentence as the original offence itself, even if the powers in the Bill were not used, the fact that the intention was there to do so is proof enough of bad faith. If the Bill passes, even if the power to disapply is not used, irrevocable damage has been done to Britain’s international reputation. Once that reputation is lost it will be very hard to get back.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I wish to speak to my amendment 42. I am optimistic that we can reach a deal for the benefit of both the UK and the EU. My amendment outlines a way whereby in the event that the implementation period ends without a UK agreement we can still provide reassurance on the integrity of our internal market. The statement that EU negotiators made on 10 September, threatening, on the record, that the EU could control the movement of food from Great Britain to Northern Ireland was a regrettable escalation. The reality is that we do not need to accept its interpretation of the protocol. The alternative in the face of unreasonable demands is to state clearly our interpretation of what we agreed to when we signed the protocol.

As I highlighted in the debates last year—I also had numerous meetings with the then Prime Minister and the then Attorney General, and the ideas I promoted were incorporated in the previous Prime Minister’s last suggestion—there is an instrument of diplomacy that can be applied to treaties of this kind and it is called an “interpretative declaration”. Any party to a treaty can use this legal instrument on its own initiative. To emphasise that, we refer to it as a unilateral interpretative declaration. I am sorry to get into detail, but this is terribly important. The law is important and we must uphold the law, which is why I have concerns about the current direction the Government are taking. If the Germans have given the world great music and the French have given it great pictures, we have given the world freedom under the law, under parliamentary democracy, so we must remain within the law.

The point is that there may be a way for the Government to achieve their objective without breaking international law. If the EU were to act on its threat, it would violate our sovereignty—one of the most basic principles of international law. This is what lawyers call an act of bad faith in negotiations. It can also be called a manifestly absurd interpretation of the protocol, and under international law no one is bound by an absurd interpretation of a treaty that is entered into in good faith. If we use a unilateral interpretative declaration to spell out our objections, the EU must respond by either explicitly rejecting or implicitly accepting our interpretation. If it rejects, it must formulate and justify an alternative interpretation. If the EU goes along with a unilateral interpretative declaration made by the UK, it becomes a legally binding joint interpretation. If the EU opposes our interpretation, we have at least strengthened our negotiating position, pushed the EU negotiators on to the back foot and gained a basis for appealing to EU national Governments for new instructions to be given to EU negotiators.

Importantly, an interpretative declaration would hand the EU a way out of the escalation, which is why I am putting this forward as a constructive idea to get us out of the impasse we are in. So much of diplomacy is about saving face, and this would help the EU to do so, while securing an agreement. We would not be reopening or unpicking the protocol; we would just be making a small explanatory statement of our interpretation of what we had signed up to in good faith. Stage three of Brexit starts in January, when we will have established a series of new relationships between the UK, the Republic of Ireland and the EU. There have been deep and bitter rifts over this, first about the backstop and then about the new protocol, but two major improvements have taken place. First, we no longer have the backstop. Secondly, the new arrangement will last only as long as it has the consent of the people of Northern Ireland. Critics say, “Oh, but Northern Ireland is part of the UK. We will still be linked to the EU.” That is a valid point, but what clear alternatives are they offering?

We have a fundamental logical difficulty here. We have three important goals, and it is difficult to see how they can all be reached compatibly but in full: first, we want to support the Belfast agreement; secondly, we want to leave the customs union; and thirdly, we want a cohesive, sovereign, independent United Kingdom. We cannot reach each of those three goals in full simultaneously without a little bit of give and take, and that is all I am suggesting. We need to invoke the great British spirit of compromise. It may be called muddling through, but it is what we do best.

It is the same in the family of communities that is the United Kingdom and the family of nations in the world. We need to make sacrifices in order to work together. With a little bit of malleability, making some tweaks to the integrity of our internal market, we can preserve the peace in Northern Ireland that has taken so long to achieve. Equally, if we are making some adjustments and sacrifices, the European Union needs to sacrifice its rigid attitudes. That is the compromise I propose, and I hope it is helpful to the debate.