Leaving the EU

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will comment on a few of the points that the right hon. Gentleman has made. He talks about removing or lowering standards in a number of areas, including employment. As I said in my statement, we will

“commit to maintaining high regulatory standards for the environment, climate change and social and employment and consumer protection.”

He says that there is no plan in what I had said to ensure that there would be no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, but in fact the very opposite is the case. The plan delivers the commitment for no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. At the beginning of his response, he thanked me for giving him early sight of my statement. It is just a pity that he obviously did not bother to read it.

The right hon. Gentleman says that we are two years on. This is the right hon. Gentleman who, immediately after the referendum decision in 2016, said we should have triggered article 50 immediately with no preparation whatsoever. He talks about delivery. Well, I remind him that we delivered the joint report in December, we delivered the implementation plan in March, and now we stand ready to deliver on Brexit for the British people with the negotiations that we are about to enter into. He talks about resignations, but I remind him that he has had, I think, 103 resignations from his Front Bench, so I will take no lectures from him on that.

When it comes to delivering a strong economy and jobs for the future, the one party that would never deliver a strong economy is the Labour party, whose economic policies would lead to a run on the pound, capital flight and the loss of jobs for working people up and down this country.

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

Whatever one’s view might be on the plan that my right hon. Friend has been talking about, I urge her not to accept a single recommendation from the Leader of the Opposition, as nobody else in his party does so. May I urge her, however, to answer this question. As she lays this plan in front of the European Union Commission and proceeds with the negotiations, does she believe that there will be any concessions offered to them, or none?

[The Prime Minister]

This is the plan that we believe is going to deliver on Brexit for the British people, in a way that gives us a smooth and orderly Brexit and ensures that we can do all the things we want to do in terms of trade policies around the rest of the world and the commitments that we have made to Northern Ireland. When the White Paper is published on Thursday, my right hon. Friend will see that there are a number of areas, such as participation in certain agencies, where we are proposing a way forward, and of course there will need to be negotiations on that way forward, but this is the plan that I believe delivers on Brexit for the British people and does so in a way that protects jobs and ensures that we have a smooth and orderly Brexit.