UK/EU Future Economic Partnership

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Ah yes, a very well-behaved fellow—I call Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg.

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

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for that compliment.

Does my right hon. Friend, having made such a generous offer to the European Union, expect more generosity than it has shown so far? I think particularly of the aggression in the draft legal text of suggesting a solution to the Irish problem that would have been in contradiction to the confidence and supply agreement with the Democratic Unionist party, threatening the existence of the Government. Does my right hon. Friend think that it is right for the European Commission to behave in such a high-handed fashion?

[The Prime Minister]

We are in a negotiation. Both sides put their positions at various stages. Just as the European Commission chose to put that position forward, so it was absolutely right for this Government to be clear—I repeated it last week in Prime Minister’s questions and I am happy to do so again—that the suggestion that there should be a border down the Irish sea separating Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom is completely unacceptable to this Government and, I believe, to any Government in the United Kingdom.