UK-EU Summit

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 20th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The principles are: bills down and jobs up, and that is exactly what this deal delivers.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

The Prime Minister has spent the past hour and a half indicating the benefits that he sees from the deal. Does he recognise that a potentially toxic side effect of the deal is that some on the left of UK politics will see this as the first step towards rowing back on what the people voted for nine years ago, while those on the right of UK politics will see a determination to stop them? Rather than the deal bringing people together, it could therefore cause toxic division.

[The Prime Minister]

We have taken a pragmatic, common-sense approach, with an absolute focus on reducing bills—that is hugely important to people, particularly in a cost of living crisis—and driving up jobs in our economy. Those are the principles that have driven this. I recognise that those at the extremes, on whichever side people want to say that they are on, will never be satisfied, but the country is fed up with nine years-worth of continued discussion, debate and toxic divide. It is time to move on from that and to look forward, not backward, and this deal will help us do that.