UK’s Withdrawal from the EU

Dominic Grieve Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

The backstop is, indeed, an insurance policy, and we cannot put a time limit on it, because it would not be an insurance policy if it is not there when it is needed. We cannot allow one side to withdraw unilaterally. The tragedy that the backstop illustrates is that we are spending all this time on something that is necessary because the Prime Minister created the problem in the first place when she casually announced that we are leaving the single market and the customs union, probably not thinking through the consequences that have brought her to this point.

We have these debates every two weeks, but we are spending barely any time focusing on the real problem. As the Father of the House pointed out in his wonderfully eloquent speech, we have no idea what Brexit actually, finally, means, because the Government have refused to make the choices that confront them and have failed genuinely to reach out across the House.

Nothing illustrates that more clearly than the example of a customs union. In her heart, the Prime Minister knows that, if we want to keep an open border in Northern Ireland and if we want to keep friction-free trade, we will have to remain in a customs union with the European Union, yet she cannot bring herself to confirm that fact, not because it would be economically damaging—it would be quite the opposite—but because it would be politically damaging to the party she leads.

[Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

I suspect the Prime Minister knows that the advice from the Law Officers is that to create a hard border, which follows axiomatically from the policy wanted by my colleagues in the ERG, would be a breach of our international legal obligations under the Good Friday agreement. As we are a rule of law state, we do not do that sort of thing, which is why it is a complete fantasy to try to pursue it.

[Hilary Benn]

I can only bow in admiration to the clarity with which the right hon. and learned Gentleman makes that point.

We know that is where we will have to end up, and humouring those who refuse to recognise it is where we will end up, while the national interest is being threatened, is not what I regard as the leadership that we have a right to expect from any Government in this country.

If the Prime Minister were genuinely to reach out, even at this late stage, I would welcome it, but we are careering towards a cliff. She is at the wheel and the Cabinet are sitting on the back seat. At some point, they will have to decide to lean over and take the steering wheel off her. If that does not happen, a no-deal Brexit might come to pass.

We know that today is not the day when we will take that decision, but in two weeks’ time we will. Two weeks’ time will be decision day on whether Parliament is going to take for itself the means to prevent a no-deal exit from the European Union, so long as the Government continue to stand at the Dispatch Box and refuse to give the House the assurance it is entitled to receive, especially given the amendment passed two weeks ago.

I am one of the proud sponsors of the Bill, in its new and improved form, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), and I will enthusiastically support it in the Division Lobby if the amendment is chosen. Whatever our different views about where we should go afterwards, I hope the one thing that will unite the House is that almost everyone—not everyone, but almost everyone—agrees that we cannot leave with no deal.

In most of my previous speeches I talked about where I would like to go, but the fundamental problem is that we have not debated what we want Brexit to look like. Future generations will look in puzzlement at the way in which the negotiations have been structured. One day I will see the Prime Minister stand at the Dispatch Box and say, “I am applying for an extension to article 50,” and at that moment the stranglehold of 29 March will be broken, the Members who have been humoured will discover that they were led a merry dance in their belief that we would, in fact, leave with no deal on 29 March and the question will then be asked: what do we use the extension for? At that moment, we will no longer be able to hide from the choices that need to be made, and I, for one, look forward to that happening.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey); I agreed entirely with the sentiments that he expressed about the depth of this crisis.

We still need to reflect a little to understand how we got here. After the referendum, I spent at least the first 12 months trying to persuade myself that there was some silver lining to the cloud, and that some of the arguments about us eventually finding a better destiny outside the EU, without so much interference, so much anger, and so much debate about our participation, might somehow prove right. Whereas a small minority in this House are absolutely fixated, and are persuaded that we can part company with our nearest neighbours entirely, the truth, not always uttered in this Chamber, but certainly spoken in the Tea Room, is that an overwhelming majority of Members of Parliament believe that Brexit, whatever form it takes, will be damaging to this country. Norway, the palliative that Norway plus may be seen as representing, a Canada-style agreement, or indeed the agreement negotiated in good faith by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister—all are inferior to participation.

The result is that we are tying ourselves up in knots, and that is why we are paralysed. We end up with people like my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) trying to have their cake and eat it; or—I say this gently—with those on the Labour Front Bench buying a plastic cake and pretending it is edible, rather than coming to the correct conclusion that we will have to go back to the public with the options and, pointing out the limitations of what happened in 2016, ask them whether some of the options can, in fact, be delivered—otherwise, we should not be doing it. That is where we will have to end up, but meanwhile, the crisis deepens.

We are in the extraordinary position of being told that we have to continue negotiating and threatening to leave, when frankly, threatening to leave is the behaviour of a three-year-old who says that they are going to hold their breath if they do not get the toy that they want. That is where we are, and we will have to do something about it ourselves if we are to get ourselves out of this mess. I agree so much with my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) that we cannot allow this to happen. That is why I have signed the Bill that he has presented, will work with him to get it through Parliament, and believe it is the only way out of the current crisis.

I will sit down in a moment, Mr Speaker, because I want to conclude quickly, but I will just say this. What troubles me is that my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench should be doing this themselves, in their own motion. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister talks about her sacred duty over Brexit. I do not think Brexit is a sacred duty at all; I think it is a pretty profane matter, and if it is going to plunge us into a national crisis, we have a sacred duty to prevent it. I am really alarmed that she does not appear to understand that. I have to say to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench that if that is the policy with which they will persist, we will obviously try to change it by implementing the necessary legislation, but that calls into question whether the Government—whom I do my best to support, despite the problems—are in fact acting in the national interest at all. I simply say to them that if they continue to behave in this absolutely crazy fashion, there will come a time when my ability to support this Government will run out completely. The national interest calls on us to face up to our responsibilities; that is what we have to do.

[Several hon. Members rose—]