Priorities for Government

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is only with an effort that I can master my feelings here, Mr Speaker. The right hon. Gentleman would not only put up taxes on inheritance, pensions and corporations; he would put up taxes on income to 50p in the pound. [Interruption.] There he is, the shadow Chancellor—the forger of the budget of 1984, Mr Speaker.

Give the Leader of the Opposition a chance and he would put up taxes not just on homes, but on gardens. He speaks about trust in our democracy. I have to say that a most extraordinary thing has just happened today. Did anybody notice? Did anybody notice the terrible metamorphosis that took place, like the final scene of “Invasion of the Bodysnatchers”? At last, this long-standing Eurosceptic, the right hon. Gentleman, has been captured. He has been jugulated—he has been reprogrammed by his hon. Friends. He has been turned now into a remainer! Of all the flip-flops that he has performed in his tergiversating career, that is the one for which I think he will pay the highest price.

It is this party now, this Government, who are clearly on the side of democracy in this country. It is this party that is on the side of the people who voted so overwhelmingly in 2016, and it is this party that will deliver the mandate that they gave to this Parliament—and which, by the way, this Parliament promised time and time and time again to deliver. Indeed, the right hon. Gentleman and all his colleagues promised to deliver it. The reality now is that we are the party of the people. We are the party of the many, and they are the party of the few. We will take this country forwards; they, Mr Speaker, would take it backwards.

[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I unreservedly welcome my right hon. Friend to his place. Today the EU will have listened and realised that the days of supplication are over and that we are intent on a policy to leave the European Union. I urge him in the course of his attempts at the Dispatch Box not to be too unkind to his opposite number. The right hon. Gentleman has not just become a remainer: over the last three and a half years, he has been trying to remain again and again and again, despite his own party’s determination.

In the process of my right hon. Friend’s preparation to leave without a deal, if that were necessary, could he now not allow us to do this in private? Could he instruct his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to do all this now in public—week by week, to tell the world, the European Union and our colleagues that we are nearly ready, and then finally that we are ready to leave, if necessary, without a deal?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend very much for that excellent question and the point that he makes. It is vital now that, as we prepare for a better deal, a new deal, we get ready, of course, for no deal—not that I think that that will be the outcome and not that I desire that outcome. But it is vital that we prepare business, industry and farming—every community in this country that needs the relevant advice. As my right hon. Friend has wisely suggested, there will be a very active and public campaign to do so.