Exiting the European Union: Meaningful Vote

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Tuesday 11th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Prime Minister’s unprecedented decision not to proceed with the final two days of debate and the meaningful vote, despite the House’s Order of Tuesday 4 December 2018, and her failure to allow this House to express its view on the Government’s deal or her proposed negotiating objectives, without the agreement of this House.

I have had the privilege of serving this House for 35 years, and I have had strong disagreements with every Prime Minister who has served in that time—it is all there on the record—but I have never, in all those years, witnessed such an abject mess as this Prime Minister is making of these crucial Brexit negotiations and in presenting her deal to the House. Most Prime Ministers lose votes and get things wrong, but yesterday she demeaned her office by unilaterally taking her discredited deal off the table and running away, rather than facing the verdict of this House. We should have been voting on it today. There is nothing wrong with standing by your principles, but this deal is not one of principle—or apparently not one that she is prepared to stand by, anyway. Yesterday the Government did not even have the decency to allow a vote on withdrawing the business. The Prime Minister let down all MPs and the people we represent, on both sides of this House, the overwhelming majority of whom know that this deal is dead and want to get on with putting a realistic solution in place.

I want to thank my colleagues in the Labour party who supported the application for the debate yesterday, and colleagues in all the other opposition parties who supported it, and indeed Conservative Members, on both sides of the debate, in order to ensure that a vote could take place.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the frequency with which the Government hold this Parliament in contempt, and the ease with which they mislead the British public, is frankly appalling and pathetic? [Interruption.] It is true. It is now alleged on BuzzFeed that the Prime Minister told top EU officials that she intended to pull the Brexit vote 24 hours before she told senior Cabinet members. Does my right hon. Friend agree—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I had wanted the hon. Gentleman to complete his intervention. I remind the House that interventions should be brief, not mini speeches, because there is a lot to get through and 32 Members want to contribute after the principal speakers.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

That news is very disturbing indeed. The House should be told first—not the media, not anybody else.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is not just BuzzFeed that reported that, but the Daily Mirror. I myself have been told that the Prime Minister spoke to a number of EU member states and officials before she spoke to the Cabinet and the House to say that the vote would be cancelled. Does my right hon. Friend agree that what I have been told is shocking: that apparently the addendum the Prime Minister is now seeking was drafted weeks ago, before we even started the debate in this House?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The whole process gets curiouser and curiouser, Mr Speaker. This is no longer a functioning Government and the Prime Minister must admit her deal is dead. Her shambolic negotiations have ended in failure and she no longer has the authority to negotiate for this country when she does not even have the authority of her own party.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

Does the Leader of the Opposition not accept that it is rather strange for the Opposition to criticise the Prime Minister for not seeking clarity on the backstop but then, when she does go to Brussels to do just that, criticise her for that very action?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am absolutely full of admiration for the hon. Member’s ability to keep a straight face while she asked that question.

Parliament may not have had the chance to vote down the Prime Minister’s deal, but if she had put it before the House I think we all know it would have been defeated by a very significant margin indeed.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is not just that the Prime Minister let down the House and our constituents? Taxpayers have been paying the price, with reports that £100,000 was spent in the past week on Facebook advertisements supporting her deal. Her Ministers were sent around the country, and all of us have spent time and resources consulting our constituents. We have all been let down. We have not been able to express our view and their view in a vote in this House.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The Prime Minister has indeed wasted £100,000 of public money in just seven days on Facebook adverts trying, and failing, to sell this dog’s dinner of a Brexit deal. There were days when both the Prime Minister and I served as local councillors. Had we spent public money in that way, we would have been surcharged for a waste of public money without proper approval.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

The right hon. Gentleman is of course right: the Government are an absolute shambles. They have failed the country and they are in contempt of Parliament. Will he not do the right thing now and table a motion of no confidence in the Government, so that we can be shot of them?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I have tabled this motion today, which the hon. Gentleman supported. We have no confidence in the Government. We need to do the appropriate thing at the appropriate time—have a motion of no confidence to get rid of this Government.

The Prime Minister not only failed to convince the public; she now seems unable to convince the European Union to accept any meaningful changes to her proposals.

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

If the right hon. Gentleman followed the debate, he will have noticed that he had complaints about the backstop, as did most of the 164 speakers. Is it therefore not right for the Prime Minister to go and see if she can mend it? If he disagrees with that, why?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I thought that was a really valiant attempt to defend the indefensible. It is utterly ludicrous. Everyone knew the date the vote was going to be put. The whole world knew about it. We now hear that apparently the Prime Minister was trying to arrange some backroom deal ahead of it and then pulled the vote, but she did not bother to tell an awful lot of other people that she was doing so. I do admire the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s attempts at defending what is completely indefensible.

[Karen Lee (Lincoln) (Lab)]

Last week the Government were found to be in contempt of Parliament. Does my right hon. Friend agree that if the media were briefed before this House, that is further contempt for this Parliament?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The Prime Minister cancelled the Cabinet meeting this morning—presumably she is worried about whether she has a majority there or not—and apparently many of her Ministers are very upset. I cannot say I blame them. At least a dozen were sent into TV and radio stations yesterday morning to deny the Prime Minister would pull the vote, before somebody helpfully phoned from Downing Street to pull them out of the studios to say the line had changed. That is an extraordinary way of not running a Government. The Northern Ireland Secretary was quoted as saying that the UK must move on with Brexit or risk being riven with division, shortly before the Prime Minister decided not to move on with Brexit. This is the same Prime Minister who said hers was the best deal and the only deal. If that is the case, what is she doing today in Europe?

This runaway Prime Minister is not even seeking to negotiate. She confirmed that she is only seeking reassurances. Our Prime Minister is traipsing around the continent in pursuit and search of warm words—when she can get out of the car to hear them. It really is, if I may say so, Mr Speaker, the unspeakable in pursuit of the unwritten—a waste of time and a waste of public money. Because of her own unworkable red lines, the European Commission says it will not renegotiate with her. The Prime Minister also concedes that she is not negotiating either, so what on earth is she doing travelling from capital to capital in Europe? I am sure it cannot be Christmas shopping, so what on earth is she doing in Europe? Worse than that, it shows that once again she is simply not listening.

[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

In ensuring the integrity of our Union, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the only way we can deal with the backstop is to amend the legally binding text of an international agreement?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The red lines the Prime Minister set out on the backstop became impossible. Because of her bungled negotiations, there is a greater chance of entering into an indefinite backstop. That is one of the reasons why we would vote against it, as I believe the hon. Gentleman would.

[Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

There are legitimate concerns about the Northern Ireland backstop, but does my right hon. Friend agree that it is not only the backstop that is a problem with this deal? Can he remember a time in British history when the Prime Minister and the Chancellor recommended a course of action that, like their deal, would make people worse off according to their own analysis?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I cannot recall a time when any Government have come to the House to promise something that will make people worse off and then blindly continue to go ahead with it. It is not only the backstop that is a problem. Many will not vote for a blindfold Brexit on the basis of a 26-page wish list attached to it. It fails to guarantee the frictionless trade that the Prime Minister promised. It fails to maintain our membership of vital agencies and programmes. It fails to ensure that our rights and protections will be kept in place. It fails to provide a comprehensive customs union with a UK say. On the latter point, I welcome the endorsement of a permanent customs union by former Brexit Minister Lord Bridges, who said that it could be the basis for a parliamentary consensus.

Yesterday, following her statement, the Prime Minister failed to answer a single one of my questions, so last night I wrote to her, together with the leaders of the Scottish National party, Plaid Cymru, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens. We set out five questions to the Prime Minister. Sadly, she is not here to answer them. Therefore, Mr Speaker, when she returns from her strange stage-managed foray to Europe, I hope she will reply promptly to the five Opposition parties who wrote to her.

While the Prime Minister sends our country into Brexit-induced paralysis, the coming winter threatens the deepest crisis in our NHS. Homelessness and rough sleeping continue their unrelenting rise. The local government funding settlement is delayed yet again, meaning our very hard-hit councils cannot start budgeting for next year and neither can the police—facing rising violent crime because their funding settlement is delayed, too. Another Government contractor, we learn, is at risk, and thousands of jobs, too, as Interserve teeters on the brink of collapse; and all the while, the economy is slowing—high streets in crisis, shares tumbling, the pound plummeting. This is not strong and stable government—it is weak leadership from a weak Prime Minister.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Some people say that talk of poverty and food banks is a distraction from Brexit. Given the impact on food prices, does not my right hon. Friend think that actually, it is the central issue?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Poverty is the central issue in this country. As the UN report pointed out, 14 million of our fellow citizens are living in poverty. More will be rough sleepers than for many, many years over this Christmas, and we have hundreds of thousands of children living in insecure, temporary accommodation, many of them very hungry over this Christmas. That is not a good look and we should be having a Government who are concentrated on reducing the levels of poverty in this country.

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the £100,000 given to Facebook—spent on Brexit advertising—by the Government could have been given to all our constituencies to alleviate food poverty?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Indeed; £100,000 would help a lot of food banks get more food in order that the hungry can get something to eat.

If the Prime Minister comes back with nothing more than warm words, then she must immediately put her deal to the House—no more delays, no more tricks; let Parliament take control. If not, then frankly she must go. We cannot tolerate delay any longer. With a legally enshrined exit date of 29 March 2019, just over 100 days away, we cannot allow this shambles to endure, and neither can we risk falling into a no deal.

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

In addition to the farce that was facing the country yesterday, one of the biggest consequences will be the impact that this has on the 22,000 EU nationals living in my constituency. The settled scheme status is still being developed. The Home Office app for registration has been branded absolutely “useless” by academics. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the limbo facing this House will have great, distressing consequences for our EU nationals in our constituencies?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention and compliment her on the work that she does on behalf of her constituents. All of us represent EU nationals, some in greater numbers than others. We all know the horror and stress that they have been through over the past two and a half years—the stress where one partner comes from one part of Europe and the other from Britain, and the stress on those children is huge—which is why, straight after the referendum, on our behalf, Andy Burnham moved from this Dispatch Box a motion guaranteeing permanent rights of residence for all EU nationals. That was agreed on a non-binding motion. Two and a half years later, we still have not had the absolute legal certainty from this Government on the protection of those EU nationals. They deserve it, and we also need to recognise that they have made a massive contribution to our economy, to our way of life, to our health service and to all our public services. We should thank them for it and assure them that they have a permanent place in this country, whatever the outcome of these particular rounds of talks.

We will work across this House to prevent any further damage to our economy, to our international standing and to our democracy, so I say to the limited number of Government Back Benchers opposite: let Parliament have a say on this shabby deal. Let Parliament take back control of it, because this Government have lost the ability to lead, the ability to negotiate and the ability to speak for this House in those negotiations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I called this debate because we should be having the proper vote this evening at 7 o’clock. Instead, the Prime Minister has disappeared, allegedly looking for assurances somewhere, and all of her Ministers here are incapable of telling us when the actual vote will be. Is it to be next week? Is it to be 21 January? When will it be?

What we have had over the past two and a half years is a Government exercising their contempt for Parliament by the legislation that they have brought forward, with its proliferation of Henry VIII clauses, culminating, historically, in a vote by this House finding them to be in contempt of Parliament itself.

The purpose of this motion today was to allow this House to express its anger at the way in which the Government have treated it. It has also provided a way for many Members on both sides of the House to express their concerns. There is not much support for the Government’s strategy here, not much support for the way that the Prime Minister has run away from this particular issue. Parliament needs to assert itself. This Government are in contempt of Parliament. They are not taking Parliament seriously and are in danger of leading us into a no-deal cliff-edge Brexit, which will be incredibly damaging for the whole country. Today Parliament needs to assert itself. Tomorrow the Government need either to bring a vote here, or to get out of the way and let somebody else take this issue seriously and negotiate properly on behalf of this country.

Question put.