European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

I thought that I had earned myself a reputation for brevity, but I think I have been resoundingly beaten. I offer the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) my congratulations.

[Mr Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Con)]

You can sit down now.

[Ms Stuart]

Tempting as that invitation is, I will not take it up.

This is an historic debate. It is immensely historic not because of what we as Members of Parliament will do, but because of what the people did on 23 June 2016. They have now given us the task of implementing that decision—to avoid any arguments about the figures, let us just say that the Bill is less than 150 words long—and we are now charged to do so because the people told us to leave.

When the people told us to leave, there were some broad principles behind what they said. The first principle is that parliamentary sovereignty does not mean being sovereign over the people. It is about the relationship between the sovereign and Parliament. We are representatives in a parliamentary democracy, but when we decide to have a direct mandate, it is our duty to implement that direct mandate. I would not for one moment pretend that it is easy to adapt the structures, but that is our challenge.

The second principle relates to the fact that there was a 72.2% turnout. It is absolutely true that just over 16 million people voted to remain, but more people voted to leave. It is now our duty to do two things: to implement the decision of the majority; and immediately afterwards, to focus on representing the people as a whole.

I chaired the official leave campaign. The leave campaign was clear that it was about taking back control of our borders. That meant we wanted an immigration policy based not on geography, but on skills and economic need. We wanted to take back control of our laws and of our trade negotiations. I also happen to think that the Government should actually honour the election pledge that was made that at least £100 million a week—money saved from not making direct contributions to the EU—should go to the NHS, which is short of money.

That brings me to the nature of article 50, which is where history is important. I was the draftsman—or draftswoman—of the original provision that led to article 50. It was actually an expulsion clause in the draft European constitution, which said that any country that did not ratify the European constitution would be asked to leave within two years. It is in the nature of the European Union that anything on the drawing board is never allowed to go away, and it became a leaving clause—hence the period of two years—but nobody seriously thought through how it should be implemented. The challenge for us is therefore to do what has not as yet been imagined. All the current structures are designed for countries to move increasingly closer, not to leave the European Union, but we are leaving.

Numerous speakers have referred to nationalism, but one of the reasons why the United Kingdom is in a unique position is that, under George I, the British Isles developed a concept of supranationalism. That is why someone like me—I was born in Munich—can say with great comfort that I am British, although I will never be English. The British people have therefore never felt the need to overcome the darker side of nationalism with supranationalism. At the same time, there is one thing, which we have not mentioned, that makes the whole European Union debate different. Various people have relived their youth, but when the euro was introduced, the whole dynamics of the European Union and its relationship to countries that said they would not join the single currency changed. I regard the outcome of the referendum as a logical conclusion of Maastricht. We said that we would not join the single currency and the Schengen common travel area. In the negotiations, we could not come to a deal to accommodate that.

I chair Change Britain, which we set up after the referendum. It is important, irrespective of how we voted, to bring people together. We have been working on a number of principles, including—I welcome what was said from the Government Front Bench—enshrining workers’ rights. It is equally important to enshrine environmental rights and ensure our communities are protected. It is extremely important for us on the Labour side to realise that we now have to fight for the Labour heartlands that never recovered from the 1980s.

It is also extremely important to protect the rights of EU citizens. Let us remember that, of the 2.8 million EU citizens living here, approximately 1.8 million have already established their right to be here. It is those who have been here for less than five years whom we really need to protect.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I might support unilateralism, but does the right hon. Lady concede, given the Government’s policy, that the only obstacle to guaranteeing reciprocal rights is that our European partners have dogmatically insisted on no negotiating before notification?

[Ms Stuart]

There is a rational case for what the hon. Gentleman says, but as we enter negotiations that is the one area where a unilateral decision on our part would set a tone for those negotiations that would serve EU citizens and UK citizens living in the EU.

I want to finish with one basic observation. I take a different view. I do not think it is economic success and peace that deliver us liberal democracies. I will not trade liberal democratic structures for anything else. I believe that it is liberal democratic structures that deliver economic success and peace. Therefore, a new modern 21st-century economic liberal democratic structure would give us that democracy and that peace. That is why I hope everyone in this House will vote to trigger article 50.