European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Ian Murray Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker—[Interruption.] As you can tell, there is huge strength of feeling on this issue across the House of Commons, and that is right, because what happens here has a significant impact outside this place. That is why SNP Members will continue to make the case for our constituents in this place. This matters. We have a clear and coherent position on such issues, unlike the two biggest parties in this place. We know that the customs union is important to trade, that the single market is important to jobs, as the UK Government’s own analysis has demonstrated, and that the fundamental rights that we enjoy as European citizens are critical to our constituents. People deserve their voices to be heard well outside this place.

I have heard from Government Members that this is just procedural, that we should just roll over and that we should not have a voice in this particular debate. Well, that is not what we are here for. Even if we just left this to the Government, they are not making much of a job of persuading even their own MPs.

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman and I share a friendship as members of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and I welcome him back to the Chamber. People watching these proceedings will have seen that the Minister took more than an hour to make the Government’s case.

We have to be here to represent our constituents, and the hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins) will be as disappointed as I am that the Scottish National party had five questions at Prime Minister’s questions today that, incidentally, went to Government Members, because SNP Members had walked out and were not here to ask them.

[Stephen Gethins]

I have great respect for the hon. Gentleman—[Interruption.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

The message the public sent to us at the ballot box in June 2016 was clear: we must leave the European Union. But a 52:48 vote was not a vote for an inadequate Canada-style trade deal that does nothing for the services industry or the Irish border, and it certainly was not a vote to send the country over a no-deal cliff edge, tumbling towards the anti-worker, anti-growth, economy-crippling hard Brexit of the Tory right. We cannot risk this Government turning us into a European version of the Cayman Islands.

That is why I have been arguing for over 18 months for an EEA-based Brexit, in which we would not only retain a very high degree of access to the single market but substantially increase our control over our laws and our borders. EEA countries are not subject to the supremacy of EU law, nor do they fall under the direct jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. EEA countries can shape legislation through consultation with the EU Commission and have the power to block new single market rules. Moreover, Michel Barnier has made it crystal clear that EEA plus customs union is a perfectly viable and realistic option.

The EEA agreement also offers the suspension and reform of the free movement of labour. Articles 112 and 113 of the agreement are safeguard clauses that would offer significantly greater control over our borders and labour market. We should compare and contrast that solid treaty-based mechanism with the more open-ended framing of the Labour Front-Bench amendment, which makes no mention at all of free movement. The fact is that when it comes to free movement, our Front-Bench amendment is less clear and less tangible than the EEA option.

The overarching purpose of the EEA is

“to promote a continuous and balanced strengthening of trade and economic relations”.

That is very different from the overarching purpose of the EU, which is to form an ever closer union. An EEA Brexit would therefore take us back to the origins of the European economic area, an agreement based on mutually beneficial trade rather than on political union.

If there is one lesson to learn from these Brexit negotiations, it is that the EU operates on the basis of rules, laws, models, treaties and legal precedents. By committing to the EEA, Britain would be joining a set of institutions that for 25 years has helped deliver frictionless trade between the EU and the EEA-EFTA countries, while also protecting those countries’ interests.

I therefore urge Members on both sides of the House to join me in showing their backing for an EEA-based Brexit that strikes the right balance between prosperity and sovereignty. It is the only form of Brexit that can have a hope of reuniting our deeply divided country.

[Ian Murray]

Never in the recent history of this Parliament has the next year been so important to the future of our country, for the simple reason that we are sent here to do two things: to represent our constituents, and 78% of my constituents voted to remain; and to look after the best interests of the country. There is going to be a lot of debate and argument over the next few months about the direction the country will go in, and much debate about the minutiae of the customs union and the single market, but this boils down to what is in the best interests of the country overall.

[Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Ian Murray]

I am sorry, I will not give way, because other colleagues want to get in.