EU-Turkey Agreement Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Bernard Jenkin
Main Page: Bernard Jenkin (Conservative - Harwich and North Essex)Department Debates - View all Bernard Jenkin's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Ah! It is very good for me to be able to call the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) today.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
You are very generous, Mr Speaker, and I am very grateful.
May I put it to my right hon. Friend that this is actually a rather grubby deal? We all know that our Government in particular, but the rest of the European Union as well, are desperate to be seen to be trying to resolve the migration crisis. We also know that it is, to some extent, a self-inflicted crisis. The free movement in the Schengen area is a temptation and an attraction to refugees who want to get into the European Union so that they can travel everywhere. The EU’s refusal to close down the Schengen agreement means that it wants to keep that invitation open, so it is doing a very grubby deal with a country that has a very indifferent human rights record to subcontract the deportation of the refugees back to their country of origin.
May I draw my right hon. Friend’s attention again to what we have given up in this agreement? Let me return to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood). The statement of the EU Heads of State of Government says that we are going
“to accelerate the implementation of the visa liberalization roadmap with all Member States”.
I do not doubt my right hon. Friend’s sincerity, and I do not doubt that he intends that to apply only to the Schengen area, but will he take care to ensure that it does apply only to the Schengen area in any future drafting of the text of the agreement next week?
Mr Speaker
It seems to me that the hon. Gentleman has enjoyed a double helping. That is a very satisfactory state of affairs.