European Economic Area: UK Membership

Chuka Umunna Excerpts

Monday 6th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) on securing this excellent debate. I preface my remarks by saying that I will use the terms “EEA” and “single market” interchangeably, although I appreciate there are slight differences, because we are basically talking about the single market.

I will first talk about the mandate, which the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) mentioned, then I will comment on the difference between access to and membership of the single market, and then I will talk about social justice.

On the will of the people and the mandate, I remind the hon. Gentleman that, when his Prime Minister went before the electorate in June, she did so on a manifesto that advocated taking us out of the EEA and the customs union and, essentially, pursuing what has been referred to as a “hard Brexit.” She did not get a mandate to withdraw us from the European Union in that way because she lost her majority in this House. The hon. Gentleman talks about mandate, but just look at the general election result. Of course, a lot of people who campaigned on his side of the argument in the 2016 referendum, including the Foreign Secretary, were very clear that our leaving the European Union did not necessitate our leaving the single market. We will hear no more lectures about what the mandate is or is not, because what I know from the election result is that the Prime Minister lost her majority on a manifesto that advocated taking us out of the EEA.

Secondly, there is no doubt that the primary reason for staying in the single market through the EEA is that, frankly, it is the principal way that we can retain the economic benefits of our membership of the European Union while being outside. Some suggest that we could do that through a free trade agreement, like the agreement the EU has negotiated with Canada, but that would take years to negotiate and, of course, it would essentially cover goods, whereas 80% of the British economy is made up of—

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Services.

[Chuka Umunna]

As my hon. Friend says, 80% of the British economy is made up of services. That is why staying in the EEA offers such benefits, and we do not just want access; we want to be a member of this thing because access is inferior to membership.

Above all, in my remaining time I make it clear to our movement as a whole that the single market, through the EEA, is about much more than a market; it is an engine for promoting social justice. For people who believe in social democracy, promoting social justice is the primary reason for wanting to support the motion of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon. The EEA helps to make us part of a framework of rules that essentially protects the British people from unfettered capitalism and the excesses of globalisation, which in many respects were what drove the Brexit vote in the first place. We benefit from the rights we get at work, the protections we get as consumers and the protection offered to our natural environment through being part of the single market.

There are three principal reasons why people on my side of the political spectrum argue against the EEA. First, they say that it would act as an impediment to having a social democratic manifesto that advocates public ownership. Well, look at Spain, the Netherlands and Austria, which have publicly owned rail, energy and water, et cetera. They say that we would not be able to stop zero-hours contracts, for example, but Luxembourg and Belgium, which are part of the single market, already have. Of course, Germany has regional banks and a national investment bank, which we would advocate in a social democratic manifesto. The EEA is no impediment to that.

Secondly, they say that being in the EEA would act as an impediment to achieving our goals because we could not control immigration, or control it better than we currently do. My hon. Friend has already outlined how we could do that, and the TUC has done the same.

Finally, they say that we cannot stay in the EEA because it offends national sovereignty. I would argue that one of the biggest threats to national sovereignty is the power of multinational companies that operate across borders. Frankly, the best way of countering that power is to operate across borders with others.

I just ask people to look at the actions of EU institutions in the past couple of years. They should look at the €13 billion that Apple has been ordered to pay the Irish Government because it wishes to avoid tax, at the fine Google has sustained and at what Amazon has just been forced to repay, and then ask themselves: are those the actions of some capitalist club? No, they are not, which is why so many Conservative Members have advocated leaving and why we should advocate at least staying in the EEA.