Future Relationship Between the UK and the EU

John Baron Excerpts

Wednesday 18th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I want to address my remarks to the two core tenets of the EU: the customs union and the single market. I think there is a danger in this place, and perhaps in certain sections of the community outside, of taking the view that people did not know what they voted for when they voted to leave. Not only is that incorrect, but it can come across as very patronising and condescending.

I think we know what people voted for. The twin tenets of the EU are the single market and the customs union. If that point needs to be reinforced, we have only to look at the two manifestos of the two main political parties at the last general election. They confirmed that we would be leaving the customs union and the single market, and 80% of the electorate voted knowing that to be the case. I take exception to the view that somehow the British electorate did not know what they were voting for. It is particularly important to say that, because I believe that if this Parliament does not accept the will of the British people, we risk pushing the mainstream to the edges of the political spectrum. That would not be a healthy development for democracy in this country.

[Peter Grant]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the information that the Government sent out before the referendum was that even in the event of a leave vote, their intention was to remain in the single market? Is it not also the case that the Government won a majority on a manifesto that said they would stay in the single market, and then lost that majority on a manifesto that said they would leave it?

[Mr Baron]

I think it is quite straightforward. We had a referendum on the question of whether people wanted to stay or leave. The decision was to leave, and the political parties woke up to that fact and put that decision at the heart of their manifestos, on which we then went to the country. I remind the House that it is there in black and white in both manifestos: we will leave the customs union, and we will leave the single market. My concern about the Chequers agreement is that having gone to the country on that basis, there seems to be a bit of a fudge that needs explaining by the Government.

Let us take the common rulebook and the customs union. It is no accident that the EU has had a problem negotiating free trade deals with countries outside the EU. It does not have a free trade deal with the US, with Australia or with New Zealand. It struggles on emerging markets—big economies like Brazil, India and China. The reason for that, in large part, is that it has protectionist non-tariff barriers that a lot of countries cannot abide. If we incorporate those protectionist non-tariff barriers into our own regulations, that will make our task of negotiating trade deals that much more difficult. It will therefore take away from us one of the key upsides of Brexit, which is to negotiate our own trade deals.

We all have our own views of President Trump, but one thing that he was very direct about, stating the blindingly obvious, was that if one incorporates protectionist non-tariff barriers as part of one’s own regulations, it will—surprise, surprise—be more difficult to negotiate trade deals. That is why there is concern among Conservative Members about the common rulebook. If we incorporate those rules, it makes trade deals more difficult.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Is that not exactly what President Trump is currently doing—building trade barriers, because he is putting up tariffs?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Baron]

There are pluses and minuses with President Trump, perhaps, but I think he is trying to be a very good friend of the UK. Unlike President Obama, who said that the UK would be at the back of the queue, it is quite clear that President Trump does want to do some form of trade deal with the UK. He is stating the obvious when he says that incorporating protectionist non-tariff barriers is going to make trade deals much more difficult.

Let me move on to freedom of movement. The SNP spokesman said that racism is on the rise in this country. There is a sort of implication that if somebody voted to leave, they were somehow anti-immigration. That is completely wrong. Under the current immigration policy, because we are members of the EU we discriminate against people wishing to come to this country from outside the EU. We cannot say no to immigrants from Europe or from the EU, but we have to say no to immigrants coming in from outside the EU. That, in any language, is discriminatory. One of the main benefits of Brexit will be that we will be able to forge an immigration policy that will be not only controlled but fair—it will not discriminate on the basis of nationality as the current policy does.

On the second big idea, we are being told that with a mobility framework, freedom of movement will end. However, I worry slightly that it is not being clearly explained how a mobility framework will be any different from freedom of movement. That needs fleshing out by the Government. If I know anything about my constituents and constituents across the country who voted for Brexit, we want a controlled but fair immigration system, and the Government need to better explain how the mobility framework is going to deliver that. Without that explanation, I think they are going to struggle in selling this package to the country, because we no longer want an immigration system that discriminates against the rest of the world.

I want to make a final point about leaving on WTO terms. There has been a little bit of nonsense spoken about this issue. There have been too many lawyers in this debate and not enough businesspeople. Whoever has been exposed to business will know that one can have frictionless supply chains crossing customs arrangements. It happens right across the globe, particularly in the far east.

[Wera Hobhouse]

rose—

[Mr Baron]

No, I have taken one intervention from the hon. Lady and I am not going to take another. I have taken my two.

There are these arrangements right across the globe, and they are not a hindrance to trade. We trade profitably with many countries outside the EU on such terms, and that trade is prospering. Those countries are often faster growing than the EU.

The idea that we must protect the supply chains and that leaving on WTO terms would disrupt them is utter nonsense. Look around the world and at the far east in particular, where a number of complex supply chains cross customs arrangements without any friction. A particular example of that is Japan, which has outsourced much of its manufacturing capability to countries such as China because of the strength of its yen. The bottom line is that that has made for good trade and actually it has helped to lower costs.

If we ignore the wishes of the British electorate as expressed at the referendum, I really do worry that we will push the mainstream in this country towards the extremes of the political spectrum, because people will have lost faith in this place to deliver what they clearly believe they voted for, which is to leave the EU, and that meant leaving the customs union and the single market. Anything less than that will be seen as a betrayal by the British electorate.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I welcome the Secretary of State to his new role—we wish him the best of British. He will know that my views and his diverge as much as is possible on this subject. Although I could point out that my views are closer to those of his constituents than his are, perhaps he can point out that his views are slightly closer to those of my constituents than mine are—such is the way things are working on Brexit.

I am confused by the contribution of the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron). There are clearly constituencies where every single person who spoke to him was raising the single market and customs union in the run-up to the EU referendum, whereas in my constituency every single person talking to me was speaking about immigration. I cannot recall someone saying during the referendum campaign, “I want to be out of the single market and customs union.” May I point out that if the European Union does not currently have a trade deal with India, that is because of our then Home Secretary—now our Prime Minister—rejecting the trade deal because it would have required issuing visas to Indians? He needs to look more carefully at some of the reasons why such things have not happened.

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the number of migrants to the UK went up in 2017 compared with 2016 because there was growth in non-EU migration, which is something he omitted to point out in his comments.

[Mr Baron]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the practical effect of the immigration policy we are pursuing is to discriminate against countries outside the EU?

[Tom Brake]

I agree that there is clearly a difference between the treatment of EU citizens and migrants from outside the European Union, but the number of non-EU migrants has gone up, which has more than compensated for the numbers of EU citizens coming to the United Kingdom. I assume he welcomes that.

I see the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) is back in his place. The Conservative party was a pragmatic party, but I am afraid to say it is clearly no longer such. It is now very much a party driven by ideology. I suspect that is why he is as uncomfortable with it as he is.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

After the last couple of days, today’s debate has something of the feel of the morning after the night before. Indeed, it has been a sobering debate, reflecting the depth of the crisis that we are in. Two years on from the referendum, the Government are still unable to speak on behalf of the British people. The most important negotiations the country has faced since the second world war are being led by the most dysfunctional Government in living memory.

It does not have to be like this. The Prime Minister was right at Mansion House to say we had to face up to hard facts, but that meant facing down those in her party who put their ideological hostility to the EU before the interests of the country. If she had faced up to the facts two years ago—if she had said then that the country had voted to leave the EU but by a painfully close margin, and that it was a decision to depart but not to destroy our economy, and if she had said that we would leave the EU but remain in a customs union and close to the single market and the members of the agencies and partnerships we had built together—she could have secured a clear majority in this House and built a consensus in the country, which had been so bitterly divided by the referendum.

But she did not. Instead, she handed a veto to the European Research Group—the people who have sought to undermine not just herself at every step but every one of her predecessors. They are, as John Major commented recently, even more hard-line than those he faced. They are less than 10% of this House but are calling the shots. The tail is wagging the dog. They are demanding the red lines that have held us back—no single market, no customs union, no European Court of Justice, no agencies. To be fair to the Prime Minister, she put that proposition to the British people in last June’s general election. She sought a mandate for an extreme Brexit, but she did not get it. She went into that election with a majority and came out without one.

I remind the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), who sought to misquote our manifesto, as others have done, that at that election we said:

“We will scrap the Conservatives’ Brexit White Paper”—

as we would this one—

“and replace it with fresh negotiating priorities that have a strong emphasis on retaining the benefits of the Single Market and the Customs Union – which are essential for maintaining industries, jobs and businesses”.

[Mr Baron]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Paul Blomfield]

I will not, because I have answered the hon. Gentleman’s points and we cannot get into a detailed exchange.

The result of the Prime Minister’s approach has been paralysis, not simply on Brexit but on the other crises facing our country. The Government have neither the authority to deal with Brexit nor the ability to tackle the issues that led to it. There has been a dawning realisation from the Prime Minister that those early red lines were a mistake, but each time she tries to step over them, she has been hauled back by the extremists within her party.

At Chequers, it did seem that the Prime Minister was beginning to face up to the hard facts—to break free from the icy grip of the European Research Group. Not far enough, not soon enough, but tentative steps towards reality, towards a customs settlement and a regulatory alignment demanded by business—a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden)—and also necessary to resolve the issue of the Northern Ireland border.

Of course, the former Brexit Secretary was right when he endorsed Donald Trump's view that the plan would “kill” the prospect of a US-UK deal; and of course, it was just a starting point, not the end point of negotiations. It would inevitably involve further movement by the Government. Knowing that, the ERG tore it to shreds, and Monday night’s debacle was the last nail in the coffin. Rather than defeat the amendments—as they could have, overwhelmingly—the Government rolled over and accepted wrecking amendments that left their White Paper dead in the water. The Minister shakes his head, but if there was any doubt about its death, the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) laid it to rest today in what was, frankly, a chilling contribution.

While the Prime Minister turns on those in her own party who would welcome the Chequers plan, threatening them, she embraces those who would destroy her, and she continues to bring them into the Government. Having resigned, the hon. Member for Wycombe was succeeded as a Brexit Minister by his predecessor as chair of the ERG, the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) —who, of course, joins another former chair, the hon. Member for Fareham (Suella Braverman). It is beginning to look as if there is a secondment scheme going on between the ERG and the Brexit ministerial team.