Leaving the European Union

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Andrea Jenkyns]

I will not.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Tulip Siddiq]

I agree that that is absolutely ridiculous. It also goes against all our British values of welcoming people.

In the Prime Minister’s CBI speech, EU migrants were told that they would lose their place in the queue for employment opportunities. We are at a pivotal point in our history. Do we want to become a Trumpian society in which we demonise migrants and do not make them feel welcome? Or do we want to go back to the British values of welcoming people to this country, as refugees or migrants, because of the contribution that they make to our country? Does what the Prime Minister has outlined sound like the protection of existing rights? My residents in Hampstead and Kilburn do not think so. I will illustrate my point with the example of two of the 22,000 EU nationals living there.

Sarit from Hampstead town is an EU doctor. In a year, he does 2,000 NHS surgeries. He said that Brexit is a threat to his work in the UK. I went through a very difficult childbirth two years ago on the NHS, and every single doctor, nurse and midwife who treated me was from the EU. There has been a 96% drop in the number of EU nurses applying to work in our NHS. Georgia, a Cypriot constituent, has lived in my constituency since 2003. She wrote to me of her fears about the new reticence of firms in Canary Wharf to hire EEA citizens.

The official Vote Leave statement said on 1 June 2016:

“There will be no change for EU citizens already lawfully resident”.

They

“will be treated no less favourably than they are at present”.

With that clearly no longer the case, we can add the betrayal of EU citizens’ rights to the long list of betrayals that have led to an undeniable shift in public opinion.

Hon. Friends have mentioned the people’s vote. A Sky News poll on 15 November asked whether voters would support or oppose a referendum to choose between the draft Brexit deal, no deal, or remain, and 55% were in support of a people’s vote. In a YouGov poll, 59% of respondents said that they now support a people’s vote. The change in opinion is clear, and as parliamentarians we have a duty to act on that change, and on the failure to achieve a deal.

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Lady referred to the withdrawal agreement. Does she accept the opinion of Unionists that no Unionist can support a plan that gives Brussels more say than the UK Parliament over trade and rules in Northern Ireland? How can anyone in this House support a plan that draws a regulatory border down the Irish sea, and support the withdrawal agreement? Does she feel our angst and our annoyance at what is happening?

[Tulip Siddiq]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Perhaps the Minister can answer that question, as well as my long list of questions. Have the promises of Vote Leave materialised? If not, should not the public be given another say on the deal that is reached? Does the draft deal stand a chance of passing through the Commons, in the light of dissent from across the House? If not, should not the public be given another say on the deal that is reached?

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Brake]

The idea that there will be a general election is one of the obstacles that the Labour party has put in the way of supporting a people’s vote. The only circumstances in which a general election would happen would be, first, if the Prime Minister said, “I want a general election.” We all remember what happened the last time she decided to call one—it did not go very well, so it is unlikely that she will do that.

The other circumstance would be if there were a vote of no confidence, which would probably require the Government’s friends from the Democratic Unionist party to support it. The DUP would be looking at the Leader of the Labour party potentially becoming the Prime Minister. I suspect that the DUP would not want to facilitate that. If the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) wants to intervene and confirm that they would support a vote of no confidence, this is his moment. He is sitting on his backside, and clearly does not want to confirm that this afternoon.

Clearly there are almost as many Tory party policies on where the Government should be going as there are Back Benchers. I do not know whether Tory Back Benchers have an official position on whether they would seek to revoke article 50 if we reached 29 March without a deal, or whether they are happy for us to go over the cliff. I guess we will have to wait and see. One clear element of Tory policy is to blame everyone but them for the debacle unravelling in front of us.

A procession of very senior ex-Ministers has appeared on television in the last couple of months. One such ex-Minister said, “I’m our man in Washington and I’ll be able to secure a free trade deal with the US in three months.” The same person spent two years trying to negotiate the deal with the European Union and had to walk away. The outgoing Secretary of State for the Department for Exiting the European Union is also seeking to blame the Europeans for bullying the Government. I recall that he was one of a number who said that Brexit would be simple and straightforward, that the EU would give us everything that we wanted, and that it would all be done almost overnight. The reality is that he has failed. There was never any chance that the sort of Brexit that he and some other prominent Brexiters claimed was deliverable would be delivered for the United Kingdom.

[Jim Shannon]

The right hon. Gentleman always gives way, even though we hold practically opposite opinions. What has made the difference is the backstop down the Irish sea, which is why the former Brexit Secretary took the principled decision to resign his position, as others have done. It makes the whole withdrawal agreement more unacceptable. Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that from where we stand as Unionists, things have moved beyond the pale, so we will have to make our decisions accordingly whenever a withdrawal agreement comes before the House?

[Tom Brake]

Clearly, and rightly, the hon. Gentleman will take the decision that his party feels is appropriate, although I am sure he will also want to bear it in mind that Northern Ireland voted to stay in the European Union. I hope he will factor that into his considerations.

[Jim Shannon]

Northern Ireland is only part of the whole United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, along with Scotland, Wales and the rest. The decision was made collectively. For the record, my constituency voted by 56% to 44% to leave. I understand that across Northern Ireland the majority opinion was different, but throughout the whole United Kingdom the vote was clear. We all want to leave and we will leave it together, not in parts.

[Tom Brake]

I was not suggesting that the hon. Gentleman’s constituency had voted to remain, but I am pleased that he acknowledges that the overall picture in Northern Ireland is that people voted to remain in the European Union. What he says confirms something that some people realised at the outset, two and a half years ago, which is that frankly there was no solution to the Northern Ireland border problem. Some of those who claimed wrongly that there was a solution were former Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland, who should have understood the import of it and known better. I do not think that there is any mileage in the technical solutions that are being proposed. Yes, technical solutions can be part of the answer, but it is not clear to me how we can find a technical solution to any checks that will have to happen, particularly occasional checks of the contents of vehicles.

[Jim Shannon]

Last week, the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs heard expert opinions from representatives from Holland and Switzerland about how the technological method would work. May I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman reads the transcript of the evidence from those two experts, which will give him an indication of exactly how it will work?

[Tom Brake]

I am sure that the credentials of the hon. Gentleman’s experts are sound, but at an event yesterday I sat next to a businessman who trades all over the European Union. He pointed out how much more difficult it is to trade with Switzerland: it required HMRC to come into his business to check the validity of the paperwork for a £1,400 order. Differences clearly exist between the trading models that apply around the European Union, so it is not enough simply to say we should adopt the approach or the technology of Switzerland, where I understand that checks are still conducted not at the border, but some distance away.

I really should conclude my speech. If we get to 29 March without a deal, I think our stopgap should be to revoke article 50. I hope that the European Court of Justice will confirm that that can be done. If we do not revoke article 50, every single Member of Parliament who advocated that no deal was manageable will have to face their constituents on 30 March and every single day afterwards to explain why there is a shortage of medicines in the NHS and of food on the shelves at Sainsbury’s, and why a process that it was claimed would be simple, straightforward and manageable was nothing of the sort.