European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

George Freeman Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Commons Chamber

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

Last year, as Minister for Life Sciences, I voted for the EU referendum on the basis that I would be bound by the result. Despite watching over many years with a heaviness of heart the growing failure of the EU to create an entrepreneurial economy, on balance I felt that we were better off staying in to fight for a reformed, 21st-century EU. As Life Sciences Minister responsible for a £250 billion sector, I felt that I had to speak for its interests. So I campaigned, along with many colleagues, for remain, not in a bullying way but in an open way.

I actively offered my constituents a choice by inviting my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) and my friend the hon. Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell) to my constituency to put their side of the debate. We held the debate, and I lost it. Our constituents voted to leave the European Union. My constituents voted, and the country voted, in one of the biggest acts of democracy we have seen for centuries.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) said, we are not delegates. As Edmund Burke said, we are not sent here to be slaves to our constituents. I believe that the one thing that parliamentarians should never give away is the sovereignty vested in us by the people we serve. The truth is that successive Parliaments in recent decades have done that, not least in the Maastricht and the Lisbon treaties, fuelling public anger and disillusionment and the sense of unaccountable political elites giving away powers that were never theirs in the first place. That is why I believe we were right to give the people their say and we are right—all of us—to recognise the importance of that vote and the anger that was expressed.

[Mr Baker]

Since my hon. Friend mentions our debate, I hope that he will not mind my saying that he fought the fight with great nobility and grace, and he was eloquent at all times. If only both sides of the campaign—I do mean both sides—had conducted themselves as he did, the referendum campaign would have been far happier.

[George Freeman]

I thank my hon. Friend for that gracious intervention. Having won sovereignty back for this House, we must use it. We must show that the House is worthy of that sovereignty and capable of acting in the interests of all the people we serve. Churchill said once:

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”

In the referendum campaign, we all stood up and spoke passionately for our respective sides, but now is the time for us to do the other courageous thing and listen to the will of the British people.

We have to make Brexit work for the 48% as well as the 52%, for London as well as the north, for white-collar as well as blue-collar workers and for Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and England. We need to deliver not a soft or a hard Brexit but a British Brexit, which allows us to respect our European neighbours, to be a good neighbour and, as the Prime Minister made clear in her recent speech, to be an active European ally and collaborator—outside the political institutions of the EU, but members of a European community of nations and neighbours.

In my view, proper democrats cannot and must not say, “Oh, the Brexit vote was illegitimate. Brexit voters were ignorant. They weren’t qualified.” How condescending! Do we say that when they vote Labour, or when they vote UKIP? No. We all of us accept such results, and so we should now. Although the referendum was, in my opinion, a low point in British political discourse—let us remember that it included the appalling murder of one of our colleagues by a deranged neo-Nazi—the core underlying mandate of the British people was crystal clear. To the extent that it was not crystal clear, it is our job as elected democrats in our debates in this House to bring to the vote the crystal clarity that it needs.

All we are now doing is giving the Prime Minister and her Government the authority to start the negotiation of the terms on which we will leave the European Union. In many ways, the real debate will come not this afternoon, but when we discuss the terms of the negotiation in the House during the next two years and, ultimately, the package that she brings back to us.

[Alex Salmond]

Scotland is an equal partner in this “United Kingdom of nations”, to quote the former Prime Minister, so how does it come about that a massive vote in Scotland to remain and a narrow vote in England to leave results in Scotland leaving on England’s terms?

[George Freeman]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising that point. One of the most interesting aspects of the Supreme Court judgment—the media have not picked it up—is that Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales were and are bound by the vote of this sovereign House, which SNP Members participated in, to give the British people such a decision.

[Alex Salmond]

rose—

[George Freeman]

The truth is that the real challenge now falls to our new Prime Minister, who stepped in—

[Alex Salmond]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I must protect the hon. Gentleman.

[George Freeman]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Our Prime Minister stepped in to lead a Government committed to delivering Brexit, but who would tackle the domestic policy challenges that fuelled much of the wider disillusionment that the vote also signified. It is my privilege to work with her team on that. She now faces an extraordinary political challenge: to deliver Brexit, to negotiate the most important deal for this country in 100 years; to negotiate new trade deals with countries around the world; and to continue the great and urgent task of domestic social and economic reform, such as tackling our structural deficit, shaping our old-fashioned public services and tackling the urgent challenges of social and economic exclusion.

The truth is that the Brexit negotiations ahead of us are perhaps the greatest test of British peacetime diplomacy for a century, and the burden that falls on our Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary and Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union is heavy indeed. To succeed, we will have to put aside many of the differences that divide this House, and instead work together to make sure that we get the best deal for the country we all serve. Our interests are not served by requesting that the negotiation be carried out on Twitter.

At a time when trust in politics has never been so low, we have an opportunity to restore public trust in mainstream politics not to score easy points, but to show that we are worthy of the sovereignty vested in us and in the name of which the Brexiteers have campaigned. Our Brexit deal must be an ambitious Brexit deal for Britain. It must be a Brexit that means we can once again control our own laws, strengthen our Union, protect workers’ rights and strike ambitious new trade deals around the world. [Interruption.] Yes, for Scotland, too. To do this, however, we will have to continue to be engaged with the world, and to cherish our British values. [Interruption.] As the Prime Minister made clear in her recent electrifying speech—I encourage the right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond), who is chuntering from a sedentary position, to read it—the work of bridging the gap between Europe and the United States will remain one of the key tasks of international relations for many decades to come.

I believe our Prime Minister has set out to do for markets and the west what the great Lady Thatcher did for the defence of the west. Last week, she showed that she was more than up for leading such a mission. It may not always be easy, but it is necessary for this country, which is not something that the right hon. Gentleman who was chuntering understands. I welcome the fact that she has made such an encouraging start with President Trump—he, too, has been elected—because although he campaigned for “America first”, the foreign policy signals are that for the Americans it is now a case of “Britain first”, and we should welcome that.

[Alex Salmond]

When the Prime Minister this week refused three times to condemn an obvious breach of not just this country’s values but any liberal democracy’s values, what part of great British values was she standing up for?

[George Freeman]

I think the people of this country, in the way they have rewarded our Prime Minister with a huge lead in the opinion polls, know exactly the answer to that question.

We need a Brexit that works for the UK, the EU and the USA, because the west is facing a major test. It is in all our interests to make it work. This is not just a cultural debate; it is a hard-headed economic negotiation. The truth is that our diplomatic, military and political authority in the west is based on our economic growth and economic success. That is why I am passionately excited about the future for this country as a source of science for global sustainable growth in food, medicine and energy: Britain as a crucible of a deregulated, innovation economy leading the world in the challenges of the 21st century.