Customs and Borders

Christine Jardine Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

It is quite daunting to speak in a debate in which there have been so many knowledgeable and learned speeches, not least from my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who has been fighting this fight since I was a child. Indeed, I think he was the Paymaster General when I was born. I, like him and like the majority of my constituents, voted to remain in the European Union, so I must admit that, if someone had told me a couple of years ago that I would be standing here setting out why I think it is in Britain’s best interests to leave the customs union, I simply would not have believed them.

However, when we make decisions as a nation, we should stick to them. As the then Prime Minister said in 2016, the vote on 23 June was to be a referendum, not a neverendum—something that the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) would do well to remember. Both campaigns in the referendum were very clear that leaving the European Union would mean leaving both the single market and the customs union. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire), I find the argument that people did not know what they were voting for on 23 June deeply condescending.

Staying in the customs union would prevent us from negotiating trade deals with third countries, which would mean missing out on one of the biggest benefits of Brexit. It is a well-rehearsed argument that 90% of growth is set to take place outside the EU in the near future. The trajectory is clear: in 1980, the EU accounted for 30% of world GDP; by 2023, according to the IMF, that will have fallen to 15%. It would be madness to tie the hands of our country by locking ourselves into a customs union that would mean, in effect, becoming a silent partner in trade deals, such as that with Turkey.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that outside the customs unions we are a small market, but that inside the customs union we are a large market, and that his constituents benefit from being inside that large market?

[Andrew Bowie]

I disagree. We are the fifth-largest economy in the world and, unlike the hon. Lady, I passionately believe in a global Britain. And we will not be cutting ourselves off from the EU either. It will remain a vital trading partner for the UK, and vice versa, which is why the Government are working so hard to maintain tariff-free and frictionless trade across borders. That is in all our interests—those of the remaining 27 members and those of the UK. Clearly, unlike many Members here today and many Members of the other place, I am an optimist. As a Scottish Conservative of many years, I have had to be.

One cannot speak about this issue, however, without touching on the Irish border. I am sure I speak for many in this House and beyond when I express my frustration at the intransigence of some on the EU side of the table when it comes to finding solutions to this issue. If solutions can be found for the border between Sweden and Norway and along the Swiss border, surely it is not beyond the wit of us and the EU to find a solution to the border in Ireland while respecting the vital Good Friday agreement.

As I said, I am an optimist, and I am confident of our future outside the EU and the customs union, for I truly believe that this country really does have its best days ahead of it. It is incumbent on all of us in the House—it would be really good if we could do this—to get behind the Government and say with one voice, yes to an unbreakable relationship deeply rooted in bonds of friendship and respect, yes to untrammelled free trade between partners, but no, I am afraid, to a customs union.