European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

It is a privilege to follow the right hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab). Let me say at the outset that we have had very good discussions with the Government and, indeed, with Back Benchers in both parties in recent days, and that, for the reasons that he gave, we agree that the right approach is to vote for amendment (n) in order to give the Prime Minister the backing that will indicate to the European Union that there is a way through this which can command support in the House.

The Prime Minister’s agreement to bring back any final deal for a meaningful vote, the fact that she will seek legally binding changes, what she has said about reopening the withdrawal agreement, and the fact that serious consideration will be given to options that can bring together those on the Brexiteer and remain sides of the argument are all powerful reasons for supporting the amendment. I believe that there is a way through the current difficulties and deadlock, but some of the options presented in other amendments do not, in my view, command a majority. We must be realistic about that.

We, certainly on these Benches, want a deal: we do not want a no-deal outcome. However, the idea of taking no deal off the table is more likely to lead to a no-deal outcome than anything else, because that is exactly what will ensure that the EU holds out and gives absolutely nothing in any future negotiations. I have dealt with the Irish Government—Irish Governments of different hues—over many years, and that is exactly the approach that they have told us they will take, so it should not come as any surprise.

The Prime Minister has focused on the issue of the backstop. We have some other issues with the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration, but the backstop is the main issue, and if it is dealt with, that will mean that we can get a withdrawal agreement through the House. I do not need to rehearse all the reasons why the backstop was so difficult for us as Unionists. However, the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) described it as damaging to the Union, the Father of the House, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) described it as a ridiculous proposition, and the Prime Minister herself has criticised it in strong terms as something that no one wants and everyone detests. Yet it remains at the heart of our debate. We must address the fact that with it in place, we cannot support the withdrawal agreement.

People say that the position cannot possibly be revised. However, as the right hon. Member for Esher and Walton has just said, Michel Barnier himself, when he had to deal this week with the criticism that came the way of the European Commission’s spokesperson who had said that there would have to be a hard border in the event of no deal, said “No, no, there does not have to be one.” I will not repeat the quotation that the right hon. Gentleman has just given, but the fact is that if we can have no hard border in a no-deal situation, that will certainly be possible in the event of a withdrawal agreement and a deal.

The position in the Irish Republic is not as homogeneous as people think. Its Prime Minister, Leo Varadkar, said the other day that in the event of no deal we would have to send troops to the Irish border. The Irish Government swiftly retreated from that. The Prime Minister was out in Davos. He may have been mixing with all sorts of characters—I do not know who those could possibly be—and he obviously got carried away with the rhetoric. Some wild stuff is being said.

One of the most damaging arguments, which is of concern to many Unionists—and we in the House speak for the vast bulk of Unionists who are concerned about the implications of the backstop—is that this is designed to protect the backstop and the Good Friday agreement, as amended by the St Andrews agreement. It does nothing of the sort. Lord Bew, one of the architects of, or the people behind, the Good Friday agreement, said in a recent article for Policy Exchange that it drives a coach and horses through the agreement. We need to be realistic about this.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I believe that Lord Bew went even further in the other place last week, when he said:

“there is one great problem with the backstop: it does not protect the Good Friday agreement.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 5 December 2018; Vol. 794, c. 1012.]

He has made that point repeatedly. Surely that is the issue: as he has said, the backstop drives a coach and horses through the agreement.

[Nigel Dodds]

That is absolutely right, and I urge Members on both sides to read what Lord Bew has said. He voted to remain; he is a supporter of the Good Friday agreement; read what he said about this, instead of listening to some of the myths that are about. For instance there is the myth that the open border is part of the Good Friday agreement—the Belfast agreement. The Belfast agreement does not mention anything to do with an open border; this is a complete myth. What we want in Northern Ireland—on all sides—is no hard border on the island of Ireland; we in our party are absolutely committed to no hard border on the island of Ireland, but not at the expense of creating borders down the Irish sea with our biggest market and affecting the integrity of the United Kingdom.

That has got to be the sensible position, and I believe now that if we get behind the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady) and send the Prime Minister out to Brussels with that strong support behind her, we can achieve something that people have said is not possible: we can get this deal sorted out for the good of all our country.

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[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

With two months to go until 29 March, it is hardly surprising that we are once again debating our withdrawal from the European Union. It is pretty obvious that we should be much further ahead in the process. Of course, the warning signs have been there for months, as all Members have said: from the minute the backstop went down to the Chequers agreement and the withdrawal agreement, which were of course not right for our country. I voted against the withdrawal agreement.

At this crucial time, we need leadership, which is why I welcome the Prime Minister’s very clear statement today. She should be commended for the way she handled strong questioning and rightly addressed many of the challenges relating to the withdrawal agreement. She should be particularly commended for reopening the negotiations on the withdrawal agreement. I would like to hear more from the Government about whether they have engaged in discussions and are preparing to hear from the European Commission whether it is prepared, willing and able to reopen the negotiations and get that legally binding change to the withdrawal agreement.

It is right that we now concentrate all efforts on delivering the referendum mandate. We cannot have more statements or glorified letters of assurances; we must get that clear, legally binding change to the text of the withdrawal agreement. When the negotiations are reopened, we need to ensure that the right people are engaged and involved in the process.

[Ian Paisley]

Does the right hon. Lady agree that yes, obviously, a legal textual change is now being sought, but that should not come as any surprise because the words of amendment (n) are already in paragraph 27 of the political agreement, of which Europe has been aware since November last year?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, which is why there is now an opportunity for us to land a clear commitment on the future relationship and on every aspect of the trading relationship and to remove some of the ambiguity in the political declaration.

It is important to recognise—as I think all Members do—that Parliament must deliver on the referendum mandate, and we have the opportunity to do so. The Prime Minister was right to refer to Conservative colleagues who were on either side of the referendum argument but have put forward new proposals that seek to provide certainty and clarity. They seek to unite the country in getting that compromise, including by extending the key issues around implementation, replacing the backstop and supporting the future UK-EU free trade arrangement, as well as by seeking co-operation in security matters and guaranteeing citizens’ rights going forward.

I was reassured by the Prime Minister’s remarks today, which is why her hand should be strengthened when she goes back to Brussels. I have called for the Government to go back to Brussels again and again since I voted against the withdrawal agreement. We must leave on 29 March so that we can position ourselves as an outward-looking, global, free-trading country, and as a nation that is on that mission of economic and democratic renewal. I will support amendment (n). We have to find the right degree of unity and compromise to strengthen the Government and the Prime Minister to go, as she herself stated today, back to Brussels to deliver for Britain.

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[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

We have 59 days to go, or, as James Melville said on Twitter a little earlier, 28 parliamentary sitting days to go.

Last time I spoke on this, as you probably remember, Mr Speaker, I mentioned Fintan O’Toole’s book, “Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain”, and the pain we are all feeling at the moment. The quote I used then was the Turkish proverb,

“An Englishman will burn his bed to catch a flea.”

It is worth reflecting a bit more on what Brexit has done. The methodology of Brexit, Fintan O’Toole points out in the book, is this:

“It will triumph by teaching the English to take trivial things—the petty annoyances of regulation—very seriously indeed, and to regard the serious things—jobs, communities, lives—with sincere and studied triviality.”

That is what we are seeing in the middle of this Brexit nonsense. All options of Brexit are bad. The Prime Minister knows this. In a sleight of hand today, she alluded to it by talking of the balance between the referendum and the economics. But of course, if we look at the economics alone, this is a bad deal.

The Government have got themselves into the invidious position of making promises to Ireland and making promises to other people that they would be outside the customs union and the single market and still have frictionless trade. I am talking of unicorns and made-up fantasies. They then had an opponent at a negotiation saying, “This is nonsense. Give us some assurance, have a backstop,” and the backstop came along. Now this House is saying, “See that backstop, that assurance we gave on the fantasies we were talking about—we now want you to negotiate away our assurance and our fantasies.” Westminster has got to take a step back and see the nonsense it is finding itself in.

Amendment (q) was not selected today, but I would encourage people in future to join the queue. It is an amendment to revoke article 50, tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). This is something the UK has control of until 29 March. The UK can get itself out of the hole it has dug for itself through the fantasies that Mr O’Toole expanded on greatly in his book. A lot could be done to prevent the damage that is coming down the road. If we leave on 29 March or in December 2020, MPs here, particularly whoever is in the governing party, will have to face that. Maybe this is one of the reasons Labour does not want a general election. Who wants to be the Government on 29 March or in December 2020 when you leave and you have queues in Dover, you are damaging the economy and you have empty shelves? Whoever is holding the parcel when that music stops is going to find themselves in great trouble.

[Ian Paisley]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the genius in any negotiation is to achieve an agreement and that agreement implies that two sides have come to a common cause? Is not the fatal flaw of what Europe has done that it has not accepted that Britain cannot agree with this?

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

No. The agreement was reached. This is the funny thing. The agreement was reached, and now the Prime Minister, having not talked to the House of Commons, comes back to the House of Commons and finds that it thinks that her agreement is a dud agreement. She has now been sent to scurry back to Europe to beg the Europeans because the shire Tories want something different. They had an agreement but then they were scared of the agreement and sent the Prime Minister to go and get another one. In the beginning, we did not want any parliamentary involvement at all. Conservative parliamentarians, in particular, were abdicating their responsibility as MPs and hiving this off to the Government. Then when the Government came back, it was not good enough, deepening the mess of Brexit. This is exactly the problem we have here today.

We should take a further step and consider this idea that going out of the customs union and the single market is bad for you. There are about 12 customs unions across the world between about 100 countries. The exceptionalism about the UK is utterly baffling, and it is so baffling because these people are trying to damage their communities and their businesses. It does not matter how often we say it, but this is the point of Brexit. This is what Brexit is going to end up with—damage to jobs and damage to business. Airbus and other companies are dismissed because, as Fintan O’Toole said, the serious things are regarded with “studied triviality”. I am at the end of my tether trying to talk to these guys. This is why Scotland is moving on. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) said, we are moving towards independence—we have to. This is a mess.