Leaving the European Union

Debate between Catherine West and Tom Brake

Monday 19th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Tom Brake]

Absolutely. The Government do not want us to go to the ECJ to get clarification. Regrettably, they are keen to block such action so that we cannot know the answer. The Government have five QCs working on the case, including the top two QCs in the country. I would like to see the bill that the Government will get for trying to hide from Members of Parliament whether article 50 is revocable, because that is what they are trying to do. I think that is incredibly reprehensible.

Lib Dem party policy is that if we reach 29 March without a deal we will seek to revoke article 50 unilaterally. The Government have set out the consequences of no deal in the technical notes, and those consequences are so dire that we need to have such a stop gap to prevent us from falling over the cliff. I am afraid I must briefly touch on Labour party policy. It seems to me that the Labour party has more obstacles than the grand national that have to be crossed or cleared before it will come out formally to support a people’s vote. I know some in the Chamber on the Labour Benches will not support one, but others have already stated their support.

We need to hear from the Labour Front-Bench spokesperson today whether the Labour party will support a people’s vote, because we will quickly get to the vote on the deal. If the Government dare to introduce the motion that was so soundly rubbished by people such as the hon. Member for Morley and Outwood, there will be an amendment calling for a people’s vote. Then the Labour party, which has been playing a little dance—more dances than “Strictly”—will have to come clean to the public, its own Members of Parliament, its own supporters and the large number of people who have joined the party in recent years about whether it will support a people’s vote or will, in fact, aid and abet the Government in crashing us out of the European Union.

[Catherine West]

Will the right hon. Gentleman clarify whether the Liberal Democrats were split two or three ways on the vote on article 50?

[Tom Brake]

I assure the hon. Lady that we will certainly not split three ways. One Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament has some reservations, but I am confident that between now and the vote he will have changed his position, and will fall in line with the position that the party has overwhelmingly adopted.

[Catherine West]

Three ways.

[Tom Brake]

No—that is potentially two ways, but I am confident that we will all be going through the same Division Lobby for this vote. I hope that the Leader of the Labour party will join us. We know that we will end up with either the Government’s deal or no deal if the Labour Front-Bench team does not support a people’s vote. I hope that they will.

Leaving the EU: Parliamentary Vote

Debate between Catherine West and Tom Brake

Monday 11th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Tom Brake]

I am very happy to do that. Of course, I think of Members of Parliament as people. Clearly we are entitled to a people’s vote, as are the people.

Does Parliament want to have a vote on this subject? Certainly, the Lords have made their views clear. From votes that have taken place so far, it seems there is perhaps not yet a majority in the House of Commons in favour of a people’s vote or a parliamentary vote that would allow us to choose between the deal the Government secure and staying in the European Union. That would be a meaningful vote. Parliament’s meaningful vote cannot be a choice between a deal that we know will be bad—the Government’s impact assessments have told us that whatever deal they come up with will be bad for us and shrink the UK economy—and crashing out of the European Union, which we know would be an absolute catastrophe and lead to blockages at every single port and airport around the country and to huge job losses. That is a not a meaningful vote. A meaningful vote would be one where the Prime Minister conceded that Members of Parliament could send it back.

Frankly, I think the Government are going to come up with a deal that no one likes. Which Member of Parliament, when the Government come forward with a deal, will stand up and say, “This is a brilliant deal—I absolutely love it”? I do not think a single Member of Parliament will stand up and say, “The deal the Government have struck is brilliant.” I will not, because I am a remainer, but nor will the members of the European Research Group, because they can see that the Government are making compromises. I suspect we will end up in a position where Members of Parliament are presented with a deal that no one will support.

[Catherine West]

Will the right hon. Gentleman reflect on the closeness of the original vote? A no-deal exit is so far from any interpretation of the very close original referendum result. It would be different if it were a soft Brexit. Perhaps it could be argued that that was okay, but a no-deal exit is so different from that 52% to 48% result. We all have to interpret the wishes of our constituents, but no deal is so far removed from what people wanted from Brexit in the best case scenario.

[Tom Brake]

I agree entirely with the hon. Lady. Members of Parliament should be offered a choice that reflects the choices that people made in the EU referendum campaign. I certainly cannot remember anyone saying to me, “I think the best thing for the United Kingdom would be to crash out overnight, on World Trade Organisation rules. That would be brilliant for British businesses and jobs.” If anyone had a constituent come to them and say, “That’s a fantastic solution,” they should stick their hand up now. No one will do so, because no one thought that that was a solution. Yet it seems that that is the choice that Members of Parliament will be offered.

Either we go for a deal that no Member of Parliament will support, whether they are a supporter of the ERG or a remainer like me, or we go for no deal, which nobody has ever supported from the outset. We are in a strange position. If the Government want to do this the right way, I suggest to them that remaining in the EU should be on the ballot paper. If it is, we might end up with a parliamentary outcome that reflects more closely the views of Members of Parliament and possibly those of the public more generally.

Members of Parliament should have a meaningful vote, for the reasons that I have set out. We are entitled to a real choice—not a Hobson’s choice between something catastrophic and something even more catastrophic. I will touch briefly on why there should also be a people’s vote. I have heard worrying reports from some Members of Parliament. Unfortunately, during the EU referendum campaign two years ago we had the murder of Jo Cox. Since then, Members of Parliament have been threatened for their views on our membership of the European Union. The only threats I have had are the comments that everyone who stands at a stall in favour of remain gets. A person stops, says, “You’re a traitor,” and then walks off.

That is the only sort of threat I have had, but I am aware that other Members of Parliament have had much more serious ones. There is a question mark over the extent to which they will be able to vote fairly and cleanly in the forthcoming votes. Potentially, a very small number of votes will determine the outcome, one way or the other. If Members of Parliament are scared of making the decision that they think is right because they have had threats to their lives—often the threats are not as serious as that, but they still have to be reported to the police—that is another reason why throwing this open to the country might be the right thing to do.

I thank the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) for her earlier intervention, ensuring that I came back on track and that, as opposed to focusing all my effort on the people’s vote, I came back to the parliamentary vote, which is just as significant.

Brexit Deal: Referendum

Debate between Catherine West and Tom Brake

Monday 11th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Thank you for chairing the debate, Sir David. I will make a few comments about some of the contributions that have been made. I start by thanking the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) for introducing the debate and for setting out the range of views in the petitions. She drew attention to the fact that it is dangerous for the Prime Minister and the Government to seek to represent the views of only one section. When I specifically asked the Prime Minister when she will stand up and speak for the 48%, her answer was, “I am representing the 52%.” Other Members have asked, “Why has this debate been quite binary?” I think it is because our Prime Minister has adopted a binary position on whom she is representing, and that is very dangerous.

I was amused when the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) referred to the fact that the European Union has been a running sore through the body politic. To be more precise, it has been a running sore through his political party, and that is why we had the referendum.

[Catherine West]

Perhaps the case in point is the fact that we would not be having this discussion had a certain former Prime Minister not brought it on, due to the running sore within his own movement.

[Tom Brake]

Indeed; the measure was clearly designed to try to bring the Conservative party together for a general election campaign. The hon. Member for Cleethorpes also asked why we would want to settle for a worse deal than the one we have. That is exactly what we will do as a result of his Government’s actions.

I welcome the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies), who is not in his place. A vote on the deal is Liberal Democrat policy. There will be an opportunity to test the House on day eight of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, when amendment 120 will be voted on. On 20 December, I hope that many Members of Parliament from all parties who are in the Chamber today will support that and enable that further vote to happen.

The issue of young people and the fact that they voted heavily to remain has been rather set aside by Government Members. Although I would not support the idea of weighting for votes, disregarding those concerns and not accepting that there is a difference between the impact on young people and the impact on the older section of the population who voted to leave is a concern.

The issues that were raised about the impact on Wales are a concern, too. If farmers in Wales are expecting to get the same level of subsidy that they do now, they need to rethink things, because frankly, they will not. Farmers are certainly very worried by the prospect of no deal, so a positive thing about Friday was that the possibility of no deal has receded a bit. I met a farmer last week who potentially faced tariffs of 40% on lamb if we fall back on World Trade Organisation rules. If anyone thinks that a single hill farmer will continue to operate in Wales or Scotland with 40% tariffs on lamb, if we fall back on WTO rules, they need to think again.

The hon. Member for Swansea West said that there was no one who has experience of doing trade deals. When I asked the question, I got one name—Crawford Falconer—so at least the Government have one person. It is a pity, however, that Mr Falconer came from the Legatum Institute, which, frankly, has adopted a rather biased position on Brexit and is very much pushing a hard Brexit agenda.

The hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton) referred to the value of trade. He said that he supported remain because he recognised the value to trade and business of being in the European Union and because we were so integrated. Yet he is now fully endorsing something that he knows will cause damage to trade and business. That is why I find it difficult to understand the position that Conservative remain-voting Members of Parliament are now adopting, with their wholesale endorsement of something that they know will cause damage. Yet they are willing to proceed with it; the will of the people dictated it, so we are going over the cliff edge, come what may. They know that it will cause damage but they are endorsing it.

The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) was right to say that the referendum was at a point in time. She said that she found hope in the statement on Friday, as did I, but my little bit of hope was somewhat reduced within 24 hours, when the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said that if people do not like the deal, they can tear it up at the next general election and have another one. I am not sure what message it sends to the European Union about our negotiations with it, or indeed, to the Irish about the certainty they can have about what our Government agree, if a very senior Cabinet Member says, “Actually, if you don’t like it, we’ll give you another one. We’ll give you the real hard Brexit that I support, as Secretary of State for DEFRA”—or as the spokesman for foreign affairs. I do not have confidence that this will stick for very long. Members are waiting in the wings and keeping remarkably quiet at the moment, and I wonder how long, for instance, the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) and the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) will do so.

I would like to comment on many other things, but I am aware that we need to move on to the Front Benchers’ contributions soon. The hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) should not be surprised that this has not been an academic debate on the benefits of referendums versus parliamentary democracy. He has strong views on this debate, as do I and many other Members of the House. We on the Opposition side have strong views because we believe that this will be the single most damaging, dangerous thing that the UK has embarked on in the past 50 years. I am afraid that we are not going to have an academic debate about the merits of referendums; we are actually going to focus on what we think will cause major damage to the United Kingdom.

If people do not believe that, I recommend that they talk to foreign diplomats, from the European Union and outside it, about what their perception of the United Kingdom is now. That is not just down to who we have as our Foreign Secretary, but because they believe that we are isolating ourselves and taking a step backwards. We are far from being the global Britain that the Government talk about. Our friends believe the opposite. That is not me saying that; it is what I hear from my contact with diplomats, who are conveying that message to our Government. They do not understand. We used to have a Government who were pragmatic and well organised in negotiations and who played a central role in the European Union; now we have a Government who are disorganised, do not know where we stand and have not even yet had significant Cabinet debates about what the future of our relationship with the European Union should look like.

Finally, I was wondering whether there was anyone who was perhaps more pessimistic about Brexit than me, but I have found in the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) someone who feels as strongly—indeed more strongly than I do. I also support entirely the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), who I think is in the same place as me. She rightly highlighted the very legitimate concerns that the people who voted leave had during the course of that campaign. I challenge the Government to say what they have done about some of those most significant concerns.

On housing, we need 300,000 new homes. How many of those will the Government build? How many will they build when many of those construction workers who work in London do not return after Christmas because they prefer to stay in their countries in the European Union? So that is not going to happen. On the skills agenda, the number of people doing apprenticeships, which are about giving people the skills to take the jobs here so that we do not have to rely on people from the EU, has halved. The Government are simply not addressing those concerns.

On 20 December, I hope that people will support amendment 120. Other Members have referred to the Survation poll and I agree that we cannot claim that everything has changed on the basis of one poll. However, a number of polls—not just the Survation poll—point to a shift. Peter Kellner has pointed to the same thing: a shift, for instance, from working-class voters on this issue. Other Members quoted the figure of those responding to the Survation question—

“When the UK Government’s negotiations over the terms of Britain’s exit from the EU are complete, would you…support holding a referendum?”—

which is just under 50%, whereas 34% oppose such a referendum.

When I was quoting those figures, I saw the Minister shaking his head. I am not sure whether he disagrees with Survation’s methodology—perhaps he does and would like to set that out—but those are the figures that it provided, and I am sure its poll was decent and well researched. The main argument deployed against having a vote on the deal is that the will of the people was expressed on 23 June 2016, so job done; we proceed. Well, people around the world are considering with increasing concern whether there was, for instance, significant Russian interference in the US elections. Will they be happy and confident in future years simply to go along with the result, knowing that the Russians might have played a significant role in perverting the outcome of the election?

The hon. Member for Newport West referred to the debate that will take place next Wednesday, on 20 December, about Russian interference in UK politics and society. There is evidence of organised Twitter activity by the Russians, seeking to influence the outcome of the EU referendum. Why did they do that? Because it is in their interests to split up the European Union, and they know that the UK played a significant role in ensuring that sanctions were applied to Russia. There is evidence. I ask Conservative leave supporters what level of interference from abroad or lies peddled at home—I will not cover the ground about the £350 million a week for the NHS, as it has been mentioned frequently in this debate—would make them feel that maybe the result was not quite so convincing after all. It was only 52% to 48%.

I have before me a selection of leaflets—I will not go through them, because I know that we need to get to the Front-Bench speeches—containing what the leave campaign said during the EU referendum period. They say that we will get lots of money back after leaving the European Union, but they do not mention all the additional costs, including duplicating agencies and the settlement bill, which we now know is a down payment, not the final payment. We might have to pay for access to the single market and the customs union, when we know that we will have a smaller economy. Again, the Minister shook his head when the figure of £65 billion in shrinkage was mentioned; that was actually the Chancellor’s figure, so I am not sure what he was disagreeing with.

We know that the NHS is spending more money on visas for nurses, because nurses are not coming from Spain, Portugal and Italy anymore. In fact, I have been told that the recruitment fairs that the NHS used to hold have stopped, and nurses are coming instead from Thailand and India. The difference is that the Government—the hospital trust—must pay £1,000 per visa to secure those nurses, whereas when they came from Spain, Portugal and Italy, it cost NHS trusts nothing at all.

I do not have time to go through all the things that were said by the leave campaign in its leaflets, none of which, I argue, has been delivered. Another Member referred to the Citizens’ Assembly on Brexit, which I certainly recommend. It is an example of the will of the people being expressed through a deliberative and constructive process that takes people through the arguments. It is the debate that we should have had before the EU referendum, but did not. The outcome, hon. Members will be interested to know, was that on migration, people wanted to

“retain free movement of labour, but with the UK Government exercising all available controls to prevent abuse”

of the system. Incidentally, the UK Government could have done that, but chose not to.

[Catherine West]

I will be extremely brief, because I know that there are other speeches to be made. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that instead, we have had a bitter debate that has been xenophobic in tone, has lacked a lot of facts, and has led to an increase in hate crime since the beginning in earnest of the referendum period?

[Tom Brake]

Yes, and I suspect that every Member who is a remain supporter will have experienced that on stalls. People have come up to me and accused me of being a traitor. When papers talk about people being saboteurs, it clearly feeds that section of the population who might respond aggressively. It has fed that, and I regret it.

I will finish on a point about the strongest reason why Conservative Members should support the idea of a vote on the deal. First, even the most hard-line Brexiter must recognise that this is bad news for the UK—for UK jobs and UK families. It is also bad news for the Conservative party, because this is Tory Brexit. The Conservative party is delivering Brexit, and if it turns out as badly as some economic analysts predict, I expect that it will hang around the neck of the Conservative party for the next 20 or 30 years; I hope so. The Conservatives have an opportunity to engage the public and give them their say. If the public endorse and want to proceed with a deal that causes us more and more damage as each day goes by, they can say so in a referendum, but if they do not, that will give the Government the let-out that they need to stop them embarking on a course that Members of Parliament overwhelmingly knew would cause us damage, as we have heard it from some here today, and still know will cause us damage—but that they intend to proceed with anyway.