The Government's Plan for Brexit

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

As I was about to say—I was in the middle of a sentence—it is inconceivable to me that if the European Parliament has a vote, this House does not. It is as simple as that.

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend clarify the point that any vote in this House at the end of the process would merely be on the deal and could not reverse the fact that we had left the European Union.

[Mr Davis]

That is entirely correct.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Grieve]

It depends on whether we were seeking to limit the mandate in carrying out amendments. As I have not seen what the Government are proposing by way of primary legislation, I have no idea to what extent it might or might not be amendable, but it certainly would not have crossed my mind that one of the sorts of amendments I should produce would involve creating justiciable targets. I think my right hon. Friend knows me well enough from my time as a Law Officer to know that my views about declaratory legislation and targets are probably fairly unprintable—and certainly unutterable in this Chamber—and I do not recommend it to anybody.

On the question of where we are going after that and considering the issues around Brexit, I simply point out that some of the things said, even today by Government Members who I respect, seem to me to be rather fanciful. We have heard a lot about the sovereignty issue requiring us to withdraw from the European Court of Justice. I have to gently point out that if we are going to stay within the mechanisms of justice and security, which the Secretary of State said he believed was in the national interest, although our withdrawal from the EU will mean we will no longer be subject to the direct effect of the ECJ, decisions of the ECJ on interpreting the treaty will continue potentially to have force on us in this country. That is not surprising because we are signed up to over 800 international treaties which have arbitral mechanisms for resolving disputes.

So unless we start getting out of this fantasy element about Europe as a pariah entity, we are not going to start getting down to a realistic assessment of what it is in our national interest to remain adherent to and what it is in our national interest to withdraw from, even though we will be outside the EU and therefore not subject, for example, to direct effect at all.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My right hon. and learned Friend’s last point is exactly the point: if we have left the EU, judgments of the ECJ will have the same effect as judgments of the WTO arbitration court. They will not be automatically law of this land and will be subject to Parliament, which is a fundamental change.

[Mr Grieve]

It is indeed a fundamental change, and I am delighted my hon. Friend is pleased and that appeals to him, but I have to say this from listening to some of the things said this afternoon: the logic of what my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) in particular was saying was that we would have to withdraw from all the 800 treaties that were subject to any arbitral mechanism because they undermined our sovereignty. This is the kind of issue in debate we have got to start to sort out, because the public out there expect us at least to have some degree of expertise about what we are actually trying to do, and to go and explain it against the background, as I said earlier, of vitriolic abuse against anybody who is prepared to raise their voice to put forward any argument that appears to be counter to the fantastical vision some have created out of our leaving the EU.

Another example is the situation with regard to the WTO. I may be wrong but I think joining, or rejoining, the WTO requires a negotiation with 163 countries, including an agreement with the EU.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), who is a near constituency neighbour of mine, although I cannot say I am in agreement either with her or with most of her constituents.

This is a very interesting debate. As one listened to the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), one discovered that Labour Members really had nothing to debate at all. They have accepted the assurances of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that he would keep the House up to date. They have accepted that there would be no disclosure of material that was in any way damaging to the negotiations. Just to add a cherry to the top of the cake that we are all looking forward to eating in due course, they have accepted a date for the implementation of article 50. Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition have reached the point of such loyalty that they are having an Opposition day debate to back the policy of Her Majesty’s Government.

I think this is a very interesting way of spending our time, and perhaps having the Opposition supporting Government policy will be a new means of forming consensus across Parliament, but one does wonder why they decided to have a day’s debate on this—purely to support the Government—rather than on the other things they could have debated. The answer one comes to is that, when the Government tabled their amendment last night, they cooked the Opposition’s goose. This debate is not really about the form of words used—or even the split infinitive—in Her Majesty’s Opposition’s motion, but about seeking to reject the decision that was made by the British people on 23 June.

That is what underlies every bit of this process. One minute, it is about delay, with hon. Gentlemen and hon. Ladies on the Labour Benches—some even on the Government side—saying, “We are doing it too fast. We should slow down and be a bit more cautious, because it would be so dangerous to do what the British people asked us to do at the pace at which they expected us to do it. Surely that is not wise.” Such people have delayed Brexit through applications to the Court.

Labour Members have also come to Parliament. Oh, how wonderful—what joy that, suddenly, so many of them are in favour of parliamentary scrutiny. When I sat in the Chamber discussing issues sent for debate by the European Scrutiny Committee, were the Benches heaving? Time after time, Labour Members were represented only by their Front-Bench spokesman. In debates in Committee put forward by the European Scrutiny Committee, in which every Member has an entitlement to turn up and be heard, do debates run for the full two and a half hours that they are allotted, or do people try to get through them in about 10 minutes and then go back to signing their Christmas cards? Parliamentary scrutiny has become the watchword of people who held Parliament in contempt. Why do they bring it up? Because they are condescending to the British people: they think the British people got it wrong.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am honoured to give way to the hon. Lady.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

The hon. Gentleman and I debated this very issue many times during the referendum campaign—and, I must say, very courteously—but does he not remember what he said so many times, which is that Parliament should be sovereign? If Parliament is sovereign, surely we have to scrutinise and vote on the deal.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Parliament is indeed sovereign, and Parliament, in its wisdom, passed a referendum Bill; and my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council said that it was advisory. Just think about that. Who was it supposed to advise? Did Parliament pass a Bill to advise itself? Surely not. If it had been to advise Parliament, Parliament would have made the Bill automatically effective, because we do not need to advise ourselves on the Bills that we should pass. It was clearly an exercise of parliamentary sovereignty to advise the Crown in the exercise of the prerogative. Parliamentary sovereignty has already been expressed and ought to be fulfilled.

Those who are appealing now to parliamentary scrutiny are in fact rejecting an Act passed through this House, and worse, they are rejecting our employers—our bosses, our liege lords—the British people, who decided this matter for us. They use a glorious language, of which Lewis Carroll would have been proud—a Humpty-Dumpty-esque approach to saying what they really mean. Even in this motion—when it was first brought forward, before the Government had managed to corral it into, in effect, a Government motion—they say how much they respect the decision. Respect! The word has been changed by the lexicographers. It used to mean that one held something in high esteem and high regard and believed it should be implemented; now it means “condescend to, think ridiculous, think unwise”. The word “respect” has been utterly devalued by those on the Opposition Benches, as they feel the British people got it wrong. Let us not use the word “respect” of the electorate any more; let us say, “Obey,” for we will obey the British electorate.

And yes indeed, we have a plan. There is a plan set out clearly, and that is that we will leave. Everything else flows from that—everything else is leather or prunella. Leaving means, as the Prime Minister said, that there is no more superiority of EU law; the European Court of Justice may advise and witter on but no more will it outrank this House, and any contribution we make to the European Union will be from our overseas aid budget, because it will be supporting poor countries.

[Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Of course I will give way.

[Adam Afriyie]

Pray may my hon. Friend continue.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am extremely grateful for the extra minute.

Leaving is everything. That is the point. The rest of it is subsidiary. It is the ordinary activity of government, which the Government do as long as they command a majority in this House. The ultimate parliamentary scrutiny, which all Governments have suffered from going back at least to the 19th century and probably before, is the ability to command a majority in this House. If a Government can do that, it is then quite right that they are able to exercise the royal prerogative in the details of negotiation. As my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) so rightly put it, if we were to tie down every jot and tittle of what the Government were negotiating, we would spend our whole time in the law courts. That makes government impossible.

It is not a man, a plan, a canal: Panama—a wonderful palindrome. It is a lady, a plan, freedom: Brexit.

[Several hon. Members rose—]