European Union (Withdrawal) Act

John Hayes Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I want to speak about the exercise of political authority, the character of entitlement and the nature of expectations. Political power has one virtuous object: the defence and welfare of the people, and the advancement of their interests. For that to be true in practice, the exercise of power must be accountable. The European Union is esoteric, obtuse and obscure, so far as most of our constituents are concerned—they neither hold people to account nor understand how it works. I barely understand it myself, even after all those years in government. What I do know is that in every single Government Department in which I served, at some point a civil servant would come to me and say, “It’s bad news! There is a directive from Europe. How can we get round it? How can we get out of it? How can we dilute it?” Never did anyone come to me to say, “This has arrived from the European Union and it is good news for Britain.” Because the British people knew that, they voted to leave.

There are those in this place who have a deep sense of entitlement. They believe that they were born to rule. More than that, they believe that they are entitled to dictate the views of all those around them and to proscribe views that do not fit in with their globalist, liberal establishment preoccupations. They neither understand the British people nor truly care about them. They are determined to frustrate Brexit and to use every process to corrupt every possible method to do so. We must stand in their way: for the people against that liberal establishment.

I know that the Prime Minister has done her best. I am not one of those who thinks that she has failed, but she must do more. She has the national interest at heart, but the backstop cannot be sustainable, and the reason is straightforward—it could continue in perpetuity. It could create a contractual, treaty-based relationship with the European Union that we could not get out of even if this Parliament believed that it was in our national interest. The Attorney General told us so in December when he said:

“There is therefore no unilateral right for either party to terminate this arrangement. This means that if no superseding agreement can be reached within the implementation period, the protocol would be activated and in international law would subsist even if negotiations had broken down.”—[Official Report, 3 December 2018; Vol. 650, c. 547.]

That brings me to my third and final point. We now stand ready to deliver the expectations of the British people or to frustrate them. Our power in this place and power in government arise from the legitimacy conferred on us by those people who elect us and to whom we answer. If we frustrate them and let them down, I would be reminded of the words of Benjamin Disraeli, who said:

“Duty cannot exist without faith”,

and if we breach the faith of the British people in our integrity, we will do a disservice not only to this Parliament at this time, but to our very democratic system of government. I am not prepared to do that, and I know that Members across the Chamber are not prepared to do that, so I ask all my colleagues—wisdom does not reside on one side of the House or the other, by the way—to live up to what the people ask us to do. Do not support the deal tomorrow night, but back Brexit and ensure that we leave the EU lock, stock and barrel.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hammond]

The hon. Lady acknowledges something that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said in his contribution a couple of days ago. It is important for us to remember that any form of negotiated solution requires a withdrawal agreement, and that has to include provisions around the financial settlement, citizens’ rights and the Irish border. The EU has made it clear that it is not prepared to renegotiate the withdrawal agreement that has already been negotiated.

I am not suggesting that all those who recognise the need for a deal support the Prime Minister’s deal. I know that that is not true, but I want to make the case that this deal can provide a way forward for all those who support a deal. I want to explain why those who call for a deal, but not this deal, as a number of Members from all parts of the House have done—people who dream of a negotiated arrangement without the Irish backstop or of single market access without the entry fee and without free movement of people—are simply dreaming, because the deal that is on the table represents the high water mark. A withdrawal agreement is a necessary precondition to any negotiated deal with the EU and to any form of transition or implementation period. Without a withdrawal agreement, the EU will not negotiate any form of future relationship.

On citizens and money, we have reached good outcomes in the withdrawal agreement. On the Irish protocol, clearly none of us is comfortable with the temporary backstop arrangement, which is why all of us—the UK Government, the Irish Government and the EU—will be seeking to avoid its use under any circumstances and have committed to using our best endeavours to ensure that it will never be used and that in the unlikely event that it is, it is replaced by new arrangements as rapidly as possible. It is not a trivial point that the backstop fundamentally challenges the EU’s core principles.

We should be in no doubt, either, that the EU means what it says about the withdrawal agreement not being open for renegotiation. If we want a negotiated future relationship of any kind—I say this to the hon. Member for Manchester Central—it will be based on the withdrawal agreement that is before the House tonight.

[Sir John Hayes]

We have heard once again that the backstop is undesirable and no one wants it. We have heard that it is temporary and an insurance policy. Every insurance policy is time-limited. If neither side wants it and everyone acknowledges that it is temporary, why can we not put a date on it and end it at a particular time? Surely that is not unreasonable.

[Mr Hammond]

I do not know how much engagement my right hon. Friend has with the insurance industry, but it would baulk at the notion that an insurance policy is time-limited. If someone is covered by an insurance policy against the acquisition of some terrible disease, such as asbestosis, it may be 10 or 20 years later that they discover they are a sufferer. They would expect the insurance put in place to cover them. The European Union and the Irish Government are very clear that the withdrawal agreement is negotiated on the basis that the backstop provides an absolute reassurance that in every circumstance, the Irish border will remain open.

The Prime Minister said earlier this evening that her deal is a compromise, and she was clear in her Lancaster House speech at the outset of the process that achieving an agreement would require compromise. The political declaration that has been achieved has exceeded our expectations in the commitments that the EU has made: an agreement to construct the closest economic relationship between the EU and any advanced economy in the world; a free trade area for goods with no tariffs, no fees, no charges and no quantitative restrictions; a commitment to an ambitious relationship on services and investment, including financial services, building on the most ambitious achievements of EU trade deals; and agreement to further co-operation across a wide range of sectors, from transport to energy and data. It provides a strong basis on which to negotiate the legal text of our future partnership agreement, and the Prime Minister has made it clear that we expect Parliament to play a prominent role as we shape the political declaration into a legally binding text.