Progress on EU Negotiations

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I thank the Prime Minister for the advance copy of her statement. These 26 pages are a testament to the failure of the Tory’s bungled negotiations: 19 extra pages, but nothing has changed. The only certainty contained within these pages is that the transition period will have to be extended or we will end up with a backstop and no exit. It represents the worst of all worlds: no say over the rules that will continue to apply and no certainty for the future. There is no change to the withdrawal agreement, no unilateral pull-out mechanism, no concessions on the backstop, which would create a new regulatory border down the Irish sea. Did the EU not receive the amendments and improvements promised by the Leader of the House?

A little over a year ago, we were confidently told by the Government that by the end of the article 50 period we would have a trade deal. The International Trade Secretary said it would the “easiest in human history”. Instead, we have 26 pages of waffle. This empty document could have been written two years ago. It is peppered with phrases such as “the parties will look at” and “the parties will explore”. What on earth have the Government been doing for the past two years? They have managed less than one page a month since the referendum.

The Prime Minister said that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. It is clear from this document that, indeed, nothing is agreed. This is the blindfold Brexit we all feared—a leap in the dark. It falls short of Labour’s six tests. [Interruption.] This Government could have negotiated a new comprehensive customs union, giving certainty to business and securing the manufacturing industry and manufacturing industry jobs. Instead, they are more interested in dog-whistling on immigration. I hope—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. When the Prime Minister delivered her statement, she delivered it to a largely attentive and courteous House. I could not care less what somebody, largely inaudibly and certainly irrelevantly, chunters from a sedentary position. The Prime Minister was heard in courtesy. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition will likewise be heard in courtesy. If it requires the process to take a bit longer, so be it. If it requires it to take a lot longer, so be it. If it takes several hours, so be it. So give up, be quiet, behave—on both sides—and let us hear people speak.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I hope the Prime Minister will abandon the poisonous and divisive rhetoric about EU nationals jumping the queue. European Union nationals have contributed massively to this country, across all industry and public services, while this Government and this Prime Minister as Home Secretary built a hostile environment for non-EU immigrants.

Chequers has been chucked. There is no common rulebook and no mention of frictionless trade. Our participation is downgraded in a number of European agencies, or we are out of them in their entirety. After more than two years of negotiations, there is no clarity over our status with a range of European-wide agencies—the Erasmus scheme, the Galileo project, Euratom, the European Medicines Agency, the European Chemicals Agency and the European Aviation Safety Agency. On none of these do we know our final status.

Take, for example, section 107 of the document. It says:

“The Parties should consider appropriate arrangements for cooperation on space.”

Well, what a remarkable negotiating achievement that is! After two years, they are going to consider “appropriate arrangements”. This is waffle—the blindfold Brexit of a Government that spent more time arguing with themselves than negotiating for Britain.

On fisheries, the Prime Minister and the Environment Secretary have been saying that Britain will leave the common fisheries policy and become an independent coastal nation, yet this agreement sets an aspiration to establish a new fisheries agreement on access to waters and quota shares by summer 2020. That sounds to me like we are replacing membership of the common fisheries policy with a new common fisheries policy. It is clear—absolutely clear—that during what will now inevitably be an extended transition period, there will be no control of our money, our laws and our borders, or indeed, of fishing stocks for a very long time to come.

The Prime Minister stood on the steps of Downing Street and said that a deal had been agreed between the UK and the European Commission and that it was now up to the EU27. Until this Parliament has debated and voted, there is no UK agreement. This half-baked deal is the product of two years of botched negotiations in which the Prime Minister’s red lines have been torn up, Cabinet resignations have been racked up and Chequers has been chucked. This is a vague menu of options, not a plan for the future and not capable of bringing our country together.

[The Prime Minister]

I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that in virtually everything he said in his response to my statement, he could not have been more wrong. Indeed, I did not believe that he had actually even read the political declaration that we have published today, as with the withdrawal agreement. He did quote one sentence, I think in an attempt to suggest that he had actually read the document. He said that it was an example of lack of detail. Perhaps if he had read some of the other aspects of the document, he would know that there is significant detail in it.

The declaration refers to

“no tariffs, fees, charges or quantitative restrictions across all sectors”.

No other major economy has that. It refers to

“liberalisation in trade in services well beyond the Parties’ …WTO…commitments and building on recent Union…FTAs”.

It refers to “equivalence decisions” on financial services. It refers to

“a Comprehensive Air Transport Agreement”,

and to

“reciprocal arrangements for timely, effective and efficient exchanges of Passenger Name Records…and of DNA, fingerprints and vehicle registration data”.

It refers to enabling

“the United Kingdom to participate on a case by case basis in”

common security and defence policy

“missions and operations”.

There is plenty more—I could go on—but I think the right hon. Gentleman is beginning to get the message about this.

The right hon. Gentleman also talked about where he thought that somehow we had not achieved any changes. Let me be clear about some of those changes. I referred to at least one of them in my statement. The EU said that the choice was binary: Norway or Canada. The political declaration concedes that there is a spectrum. It says that “the extent” of our

“commitments…would be taken into account”

in deciding the levels of “checks and controls”. The EU said that we could not share security capabilities as a non-member state outside free movement and outside the Schengen area. The political declaration grants us direct access to some, and promises to enable many others. Those are further commitments than the EU has made to any non-member state. The EU said that we could not preserve the invisible customs border between Northern Ireland and Ireland without splitting our customs territory. The withdrawal agreement maintains the integrity of the UK’s customs territory. Again, I could go through some further points.

The right hon. Gentleman talked about the common fisheries policy. This is where I began to think that maybe he had read the document but not understood it, or what lies behind it. If we are to ensure that we are able to continue to have access to the waters of other European Union member states, as we do at the moment, we will need to negotiate, as other non-EU member states do, an annual agreement on access to waters between the UK and the European Union. The point at the moment is that we are not able to do that as an independent coastal state, and in the future we will be able to do that as an independent coastal state.

I must also say to the right hon. Gentleman that what I have been doing throughout this process is looking at what are the best interests of the United Kingdom. Let us just go through his other challenge to this: the six Labour tests on Brexit.

“Does it ensure a strong and collaborative future relationship with the EU?”