European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

It may be a bit of cliché now, but I say to the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) that the best way to prevent no deal is to vote for a deal. [Interruption.] Well, I am afraid it is pretty obvious.

We have heard so much in this debate about compromise, and we have all had to compromise. This is where I agree with my right hon. Friends the Members for Ashford (Damian Green) and for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin). We come to this debate from different directions— I voted to leave in the referendum, and we only won by 52% to 48%—and we cannot get a deal for ourselves that gives us 100% of what we want, so we have to settle for most of what we want.

Frankly, what the Prime Minister has provided us with is leaving the EU, getting control of migration and, after a process of perhaps two or three years, getting out of the customs union. I am not a hard Brexiteer or a soft Brexiteer, but a measured Brexiteer, and that is what the Prime Minister is trying to do. We cannot of course have government by a sub-committee of the 1922 committee. We cannot keep kicking this can down the lane, as we have been told again and again. We have to come to a decision, and probably within the next two weeks we will have to make that final decision.

I say to the Government that I, like so many of my colleagues, will be supporting amendment (n). We want to give the Government some negotiating push to try to resolve this, but we have heard again and again that the EU will not contemplate any amendment to the withdrawal agreement. I say—and I repeat—that there is a solution to this, and we may have to do this in the end if we are going to get this deal through Parliament and reassure in particular our colleagues from Northern Ireland: we may have to issue a letter of reservation, under the Vienna convention, to the treaty. It would say that as both parties agree that the backstop is temporary, if it proves not to be temporary but subsists after 2021, we reserve the right under the Vienna convention to end the backstop and get out of it.

The EU could of course refuse to ratify the treaty, but we do not have to issue the letter of reservation at the time. I believe, however, that if we make absolutely clear our intention that the backstop should be temporary—that is what we have all agreed: the EU has agreed, the DUP has agreed, the Conservative party has agreed, the Labour party has agreed—and we are all agreed, this problem is surmountable. However, the Government must now take action.

I just make one final plea. We talk so much about compromise. At the end of the day, although the Prime Minister is accused of running down the clock, she is doing her level best to deliver what the British people want. So let us finally support her, and let us push this deal over the line.