European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Chuka Umunna Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

I will give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), but first I need to make some progress.

Orderly exit from the European Union would always require a withdrawal agreement along these lines. No alternative option now being canvassed in the House would not require the withdrawal agreement and now the backstop. Let us be clear: whatever solution may be fashioned if this motion and deal are defeated, this withdrawal agreement will have to return in much the same form and with much the same content. Therefore, there is no serious or credible objection that has been advanced by any party to the withdrawal agreement.

It was said last week by the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) that we should have negotiated a full customs union with a say within the political declaration and then there would have been no need for a backstop, because the agreement could then have been concluded within the transition period. However, he knows, and it is clear, that the European Union is unwilling to and regards itself as bound by its own law not to enter into detailed negotiations on the permanent relationship treaties. The EU was never going to do it, and its own negotiating guidelines said it would not, so there was always going to be this withdrawal agreement, a political declaration setting out a framework and months, if not years, thereafter of detailed negotiation on any final resting place that any political declaration might have.

[Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

Will the Attorney General give way?

[The Attorney General]

I will come to the hon. Gentleman in time. Let us examine the point. The question is what is the basis for the objection to the withdrawal agreement?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chuka Umunna]

The Attorney General talks about the danger of setting unrealistic expectations, but it was the Prime Minister sitting next to him who promised in her Lancaster House speech that we would have agreed the future relationship before exit day. Secondly, he makes great play of this implementation period, but it is of no use in some respects if we do not know to what we are transitioning. He knows that we will have a different European Parliament, a different European Council and a different European President, and two other presidents, who will all have changed by the time that the future relationship is due to be settled.

[The Attorney General]

We must start from where we are now. It is easy to say, “We shouldn’t have started from here.” The political declaration sets out clear parameters about the future treaty. First, written into the DNA of the political declaration are two cardinal principles—

[Chuka Umunna]

But it is not a legal document.

[The Attorney General]

It is not a legal document, but no political declaration would ever be a legal document, by definition. Under EU law, we cannot have a finally negotiated text with all the legal detail.

Let me come to the two clear conditions in the political declaration—[Interruption.] I will complete in a few minutes. First, no free movement—