European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Dominic Grieve Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

Entertaining as it was to watch the theatricality of my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General, I have to say to the House that it filled me with a slight sense of gloom that the Government have got to such a pass that they had to rely on the skills of a criminal defence advocate to get them out of their difficulties.

We have had everything. We had the appeal to patriotism and the bright fields beyond. We had the analogy of the airlock, in which we were assured that if we placed ourselves for a period of time in an uncomfortable position, we would find that the door opened to the fields of ambrosia beyond. I am afraid that my own view is that we will either choke to death in the airlock as a nation or, when the door finally opens, find the landscape little to our liking.

At appropriate moments, we also had those delicious moments of confession and avoidance from the Attorney General. He gently pointed out that he thought the suggestion that we could have a negotiated deal without a transition had been overblown. Who overblew it? The truth is that for two and a half years, and during the period of the referendum, we have been living in a fool’s paradise in relation to expectations. When during the referendum was there mention of the backstop and its constitutional implications that worry so much Members representing Northern Ireland constituencies? Where was the 20-month transition, now potentially extended for two years, and where was the complete lack of concrete terms for a future relationship?

That is the reason why we now have the problem that only about 20% of the public appear to think that this is a good deal, and it should come as no surprise that so few Members of Parliament are also willing to support it. The difficulty—this is where I do agree with what the Attorney General said—is that we are where we are: we cannot turn the clock back. I know that some hon. Members talk of alternatives, and we can consider them, but I have to say that my view about where we are is that alternatives will be very hard to come by. In any case, I raise an anxiety about whether they can be justified.

One of the things I have found most curious in this debate is that I keep on being told that I must sign up to this deal because it would be a betrayal of the United Kingdom electorate not to do so. Yet there are hon. Members who are prepared to consider, for example, going for a Norway-style option. I have to say that that seems to me to be an example of the elites picking up the carpet and brushing the broken glass under it to try to avoid the difficulties that have been created.

That is why I am respectful of what the Prime Minister has tried to achieve. I accept that it is probably the only deal on offer, realistically, and might be willing to support it, if it had the support of the public. Yet we have spent months trying every possible device in this House to prevent Members from expressing any view saying that the public ought to be consulted. On that, I am afraid I will not budge.

It pains me to see how the discourse has developed. It pains me, Mr Speaker, to see you and me accused of being in a sinister conspiracy, all of which is utter and complete fantasy. It pained me to discover the No. 10 press office briefing against me last Friday for involvement in an initiative of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) in which I had not the slightest degree of involvement. Such is the level of madness that pervades us at present, and that makes me all the more determined—as the death threats come in and the rhetoric heats up—that we must stay sensible, be willing to have a dialogue across the House and try to resolve this. The question now is whether the Government are prepared to listen. For the present, I very much regret that I cannot support the Government this evening.