European Union (Withdrawal) Acts

Debate between Clive Efford and Keir Starmer

Saturday 19th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The Conservatives have luxuriated in telling us that the Benn Act undermined their negotiations by forcing them into preventing no deal from being on the table if we left on 31 October, but the Prime Minister has said that he has negotiated a “great deal” with that restriction in place, so what possible argument can they have for not agreeing that we cannot leave at the end of the next phase of negotiations with no deal, at the end of 2020? Why would they not accept that restriction, given that they negotiated what the Prime Minister calls a great deal?

[Keir Starmer]

I have never accepted the proposition that insuring the country against no deal undermines the negotiations. I remind Members that at no point in the two years of the negotiating window that closed on 29 March did the House take no deal off the table. The entire negotiations were carried out with the risk of no deal. The previous Prime Minister brought back a deal, and half her own side would not vote for it.

UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union

Debate between Clive Efford and Keir Starmer

Thursday 14th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

What I am trying to say is this: with the meaningful vote having been put once and lost heavily, and having been put again and lost heavily, I think the yearning across the House, the majority view, is that what we really need to do now, and what we are trying to do this week, is simply decide that no deal on 29 March should be ruled out. A simple proposition would have done that without all the fallout. A simple proposition today to extend article 50 would have allowed us then to press on in some form that we could agree to find a purpose and a majority.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?

[Keir Starmer]

Not just at the moment, but I will in a minute.

Across the House, precisely what that model is and how we do it is secondary to the fact that we have to find a way to find a majority, otherwise the whole discussion about lengths of extension is an argument in a vacuum. If you do not know what you are doing then you do not know how long you need.

--- Later in debate ---

[Clive Efford]

I think the moment has passed, Mr Speaker. [Laughter.] I am going to dispense with the gambling theme.

My right hon. and learned Friend will have heard the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office try to answer the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) on facilitating discussions across the House. Did my right hon. and learned Friend, like me, expect the Government to come here this morning, following their defeats last night, to talk about how they can facilitate those discussions, rather than come up with technical points to defeat an amendment that is trying to achieve that aim?

[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful for that intervention, because it follows up on a theme I was trying to advance yesterday: how we go forward from here depends on the attitude of the Prime Minister and of the Government. At this stage, what I think a majority in the House want is a Prime Minister who says, “I now recognise that my deal has been heavily defeated twice, and in the spirit of finding a way forward I will drop my red lines and come up with a process by which the House can express views as to an alternative way forward.” If we cannot do that—this is the point I was trying to make yesterday—and if the Prime Minister does not facilitate that and put that process forward, the only thing that the House can do is try to force it on her, and that has constitutional ramifications.

I am not saying that that cannot be done, and I am not saying that it should not be done. It may have to be done, but—and this is a serious point for the Government —I think it would be better if the Prime Minister were to say today that she would in fact play her part in whatever the process needs to be to find a majority. I think that would be the first step forward. I said yesterday and I say it again: I actually think that should have happened two years ago, but that is as may be. Otherwise, we risk simply setting another clock ticking that then dictates in exactly the same way what happens—whether it is months or weeks, or however long it is. If we just do this all by a clock and without a purpose, we will not get anywhere.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Debate between Clive Efford and Keir Starmer

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

There is the customs union point and the single market deal point, and there are other issues relating to rights and protections, whether they are workplace rights or environmental rights and so on. Obviously, at some stage, if we are to leave other than without a deal, there has to be a consensus in this House for something. That is why the wasting of the past 30 days has been so regrettable, because that is where we need to get to. At no point have the Government reached out across the House at all, even after the snap election. I actually personally thought that at some stage somebody might give me a ring and ask what would be the main features that we could at least begin to discuss, or whether it was worth even having a discussion about them.

The second point gives meat to this. Time and again we have tabled amendments along the lines I have been talking about, and time and again the Government have just blindly whipped against them, without any regard to whether they were good, bad or indifferent; they were just Opposition amendments, so they were going down.

[Clive Efford]

We know from the author of article 50 that it was drafted with the intention that it should never be used, so 29 March is an arbitrary date. It is only now that the Government have started to reach out and indicate that they might be willing to discuss Brexit with other parties in this House in order to get consensus, but we have run out of time. Surely the Government now have to listen and consider the fact that we may have to suspend article 50, or even to seek its revocation.

[Keir Starmer]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I do accuse the Government of running down the clock, and it is a serious allegation. The article 50 window is two years—it is very short. The Government started the two years by having a snap general election, and lost two or three months. They then went through to the end of the phase 1 agreement, but it was not until June last year that we even had a Chequers plan, so the two-year window has in effect been run down. There is a question of the extension of article 50, which may well be inevitable now, given the position that we are in, but of course we can only seek it, because the other 27 have to agree.

The other serious question with which I have been engaging is about the appetite of the EU, after the negotiations have gone the way they have, to start again and to fundamentally change what is on the table. I have to say, with regret, that I genuinely think that the way the Government have gone about the negotiations, particularly in respect of the red lines that the Prime Minister laid down in the first place, has undermined a lot of the good will that would otherwise have been there.