European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

I will press on for a minute and then take interventions.

The amendments would also ensure that this House has the first say, not the last say, on the deal proposed at the end of the article 50 negotiations.

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

Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Keir Starmer]

I will give way in a minute, but I want to make some progress, if I may.

We also support amendments in relation to workplace rights and environmental rights, and we will be making the case that the legal status of EU nationals should be resolved before negotiations take place. I recognise the Government’s position on EU nationals and the work done to try to ensure that there is a reciprocal arrangement, but that has not worked, and now the Prime Minister should act unilaterally to give assurance to EU nationals living in this country. I am sure that all hon. Members will have had, in their surgeries, EU nationals in tears over the uncertainty of their situation. I have seen it at every public meeting I have attended on the topic and at every surgery. I understand the constraints, but we must now act unilaterally to secure their position.

Taken together, the amendments would put real grip and accountability into the process, and the Government should welcome them, not reject them out of hand.

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[Stephen Gethins]

The hon. Gentleman has made a good point. Does he know what the White Paper talked about? It talked about currency. Moreover, a Fiscal Commission Working Group was set up. So much more work was put into that.

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg]

rose—

[Stephen Gethins]

On the issue of modernity and progress for this country, I give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I seem to remember that the Scottish people blew a large raspberry at that White Paper.

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[Sir William Cash]

From the beginning, my main objection has been that decisions are often taken in that way. The hon. Gentleman sits on the European Scrutiny Committee, which I chair, and he knows perfectly well that I have complained vigorously, for ever, about the fact that decisions are taken behind closed doors within the EU. It was not about our sovereignty; it was about theirs. Their sovereignty has been imposed on us. That is why I objected to it, and that is why we are standing here today.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I wish to say that Eurosceptics in this House owe a great debt of gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), who has been our leader on this issue for many decades.

[Sir William Cash]

I am very touched by my good friend’s comment.

We fought for a referendum on Maastricht and afterwards. We fought to unshackle the United Kingdom from increasingly undemocratic European government. Those who vote against the Bill will be voting against the outcome of the referendum. The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), is absolutely right to say that we must trust the people. Those Members will be voting against the people and against their vote, as expressed in the referendum. If the House of Lords were to attempt to stand in the way of the vote by the British people, it would be committing political suicide. This Westminster Parliament is now the focus, where the instructions of the British people have to be carried out, and that is what we will do. I shall repeat the words of William Pitt in the Guildhall speech of 1805:

“England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe”—

and the United Kingdom—

by her example.”

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[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

It took the Supreme Court to remind us that we live in a parliamentary democracy. It is true that Parliament decided that we should have a referendum, and I find it difficult not to respect the outcome of the vote, but Parliament did not cut itself out of the issue altogether. It did not divest itself of involvement in determining what should happen when the UK withdraws from the EU, which is what the Bill enables. We are discussing the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union, not the Maastricht treaty—which, by the way, had 23 days of debate in Committee—or the Lisbon treaty, the Amsterdam treaty or the Single European Act. This Bill is more important than all those Bills wrapped together and multiplied by a large factor.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Leslie]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment.

That is why we should look carefully at what this Bill says. This Bill says, grudgingly, that Ministers will come and get permission from Parliament for the notification, but then they try to yank it right back to the Prime Minister, so that it is entirely, 100% back in the hands of Ministers alone to determine our fate outside the European Union. That is why I just cannot bring myself to vote in favour of this Bill: there are so many issues, so many ramifications and so many questions surrounding our withdrawal from the European Union that it is our duty—it is what the Supreme Court insisted we should do—to ensure due diligence and look at all the issues surrounding this question.

That is why I have decided to table a few, very judicious amendments to the Bill, to try to cover off a few corners of the questions that I think it needs to address. What will happen, for example, in our relationship with the single market? What are we doing for potentially tariff-free access or frictionless trade across the rest of Europe? Will we be able to have such advantages again? These are the questions that were not on the ballot paper, which simply asked whether we should remain in or leave the European Union. The ballot paper did not go into all those details, which are for Parliament to determine. It is for us as Members of Parliament to do our duty by performing scrutiny and ensuring that we give a steer to Ministers—that we give them their instructions on how we should be negotiating our withdrawal from the European Union.

I personally do not have faith in the Prime Minister’s vision for a hard Brexit—because it is a hard Brexit. We may currently be falling very gently through the air, like the skydiver who has jumped out of the aeroplane—“What seems to be the problem? We’re floating around”—but I worry about the impact. I worry about hitting the ground and the effect not just on our democracy, but on our constituents and their jobs and on the growth that we ought to be enjoying in the economy to keep pace with our competitors worldwide.

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

What a pleasure it is to follow the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney), who has reassured us once again that the Liberal Democrats do not believe in democracy. It is slightly incongruous that they should be in that position.

Today, in fact, we celebrate one of the days that will go down in the annals of British history. There are many years in British history that we can call to mind, such as 1066 or 1215—[Interruption.] How many do you want? Great and famous years include 1346, 1485, 1509, 1588 and 1649, but it is very rare that specific days are commemorated as I think 23 June 2016 will be. It is on a par with St Crispin’s day 1415 and with 18 June 1815, which were great days in our nation’s history. We are here debating the matter because our constitution has been put back on a proper footing by the wisdom of the British people, and also, as it happens, by the Supreme Court. I am particularly pleased by page 29 of the judgment, which says:

“For these reasons, we disagree with Lloyd LJ’s conclusion in Rees-Mogg in so far as he held that ministers could exercise prerogative powers to withdraw from the EU Treaties.”

The judges, though it has taken a year or two, finally agreed that in 1993 my father was right. So there is a virtue in this judicial process, slow and long-winded though it may be.

This is important constitutionally because Dicey’s constitution has been restored. The Queen in Parliament is the sovereign body of our nation. That is so important because, as Dicey argued, it is Parliament that is the defender of the liberties of the people, of our ancient constitution, and of our freedoms.

[Ian Blackford]

As a constitutional expert, the hon. Gentleman will be familiar with the judgment in the case of MacCormick vs. The Crown by Lord Cooper in Scotland that parliamentary sovereignty is a purely English concept that has no parallel in Scottish constitutional history. Does he agree, therefore, that the Scottish people can determine their own destiny if we are dragged out of Europe against our will?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman will know that following the Act of Union the Westminster Parliament was the inheritor Parliament of both Parliaments, and therefore the two traditions, to some extent, merged in 1707. He is very well aware of that point. The sovereignty of Parliament now applies to the United Kingdom as a whole.

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is, as ever, making a fantastic speech. Following on from the intervention by the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), is it not also the case that in the Supreme Court judgment the justices make it clear that we do not need a legislative consent motion, or indeed any consent from any devolved institution, because Dicey’s principle that power devolved is power retained means that this Parliament is always sovereign?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The judgment is completely clear that the Sewel convention is a political convention that it is not within the field of the judiciary to rule on. The judges say that they

“are neither the parents nor the guardians of”

the Sewel convention, but they also make it clear that by legislation this Parliament can do anything within the United Kingdom on behalf of the British people.

We need to go back to the beginning. Where does this parliamentary sovereignty come from? We are back to the debates of the 17th century. Parliamentary sovereignty in this country was thought to come either via the King from God or to Parliament via the people. That is where referendums so rightly come in, because the sovereignty we exercise is not sovereignty in a vacuum. It is not sovereignty that has descended on us from on high; it builds up from underneath. The people of the United Kingdom have an absolute right to determine how they are governed, and on 23 June—

[Patrick Grady]

rose—

[Dr Alasdair McDonnell]

rose—

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I cannot give way again because I do not get any more bonus points.

On 23 June, the people voted that parliamentary sovereignty would be restored to this House. The judges in the Supreme Court decision reinforced that, because they reversed the clawing of power from this House that has gone to the Executive since the European Communities Act 1972. This is where the shocking, outrageous and monstrous hypocrisy of the pro-Europeans clicks into place—none of them are Members of this place, of course, for no Members of this place are ever in any sense hypocritical, as we all know. The pro-Europeans cried parliamentary sovereignty to obstruct the will of the British people, as law after law cascaded down from the European Union to a Chamber that was empty and to Committee rooms where debates were over in 30 minutes. There was no interest in parliamentary sovereignty when the ratchet was clawing it away from the United Kingdom, but a great cry when the British people asked to have it back for themselves.

The Supreme Court has recognised that this House is where power must lie in the creating and repealing of laws. This will restore our proper constitutional balance, so that no more will we have talk of superior legislation. The courts had developed a theory from the 1972 Act that it was superior law, and that laws passed after it were bound by it. That is alien to the British constitution. This House has no ability to bind its successors, and that principle is being restored by leaving the European Union and repealing, ultimately, the 1972 Act. Once that is done, the thread on which the idea of superior law has been hung will be cut, and we will be back to a situation in which a Parliament of five years can pass any laws for this country but cannot bind its successors, and its laws can in no way be overruled by anybody outside the Queen in Parliament.

The great virtue of the constitution—this is where I agree with the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart)—is that it has provided prosperity, peace and security for our nation. The economy is not created out of nowhere; it depends on the existing constitutional structures that protect the rule of law, allow corruption to be exposed by freedom of speech, enable the democratic will to act as the protector of what is decided and ensure that property rights are respected.

We are returning to the happy constitutional system that was known in this country until 1972. In the glories of our constitution, and with the great wisdom of our parliamentary draftsmen, we are doing it in one of the shortest Bills ever to pass through this House. All that this Bill does—and this is why the amendments are all such flotsam and jetsam designed to obstruct the will of the British people—is to implement the noble, brave and glorious decision that the people made on that day of legend and song, the twenty-third of June in the year of our Lord 2016.