Legislating for the Withdrawal Agreement

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Monday 10th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Suella Braverman]

I will make some progress and then come back to hon. Members.

If Parliament votes in favour of the deal, we will introduce the withdrawal agreement Bill to give the withdrawal agreement domestic legal effect. Any parliamentarian who is truly committed to delivering the people’s decision to leave the EU will, I believe, find cause to vote in favour of the Bill. The final content of the Bill will, of course, be subject to the outcome of the ongoing negotiations. We intend to introduce it as soon as possible after the negotiations have concluded and the deal has been approved by Parliament.

The Bill will need to be given Royal Assent before exit day if it is to give effect to the withdrawal agreement. It is precisely because this window of passage is constrained that we have published the White Paper. We want to maximise Parliament’s ability to express its views on the Bill, and that includes the period before its introduction.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

Would the Bill need to be passed completely unamended? If an amendment were passed, would the British Government have to go back and renegotiate with the European Union?

[Suella Braverman]

The Bill will be introduced after Parliament has approved the terms of the final deal with the “meaningful vote”. In that context, the Bill will have a normal passage, like all other legislation. Of course, the views of parliamentarians will be welcome. The Bill can be amended, voted on and scrutinised in the normal way, but it will always be set in the context of Parliament’s approval of the final deal, which includes approval of the withdrawal agreement. Members will, I know, have taken the time over the summer recess to review this substantial document at greater length. Views and questions will have matured and crystallised, and I am therefore delighted to return to the topic today and listen to those views.

The Government’s objective in publishing the White Paper was to set out how we intend to legislate for the parts of the withdrawal agreement that have already been settled in negotiations: those relating to citizens’ rights, the implementation period and the financial settlement.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Redwood]

In the model that I am describing, we would get much more power back and we would keep it, and that would then be shared with the devolved Administrations, so they too would be winners. That settlement will be sorted out in the usual democratic way in a unitary country that has recently had a very important democratic event. The Scottish people decided by a decent margin in a referendum that they wished to stay in the United Kingdom, so their way of influencing the trade deals will be through this Parliament. Had they chosen to leave the United Kingdom, they would be having their own trade deals—or more likely they would be having the EU’s trade deals, because the Scottish National party does not seem to want an independent Scotland; they want a Scotland that is dependent on the EU, rather than a very important partner in the United Kingdom enterprise.

My other worry about the two prospective treaties that the Government are mulling over is conditionality. The Government have told us that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, and I fully approve of that. They also seem to understand that, unless they are prepared to say to the European Union, “We will leave without signing the withdrawal agreement,” they have no negotiating position. We now know that the Government are quickly preparing to be able to leave without signing a withdrawal agreement. I think that that would be a very attractive option for many leave voters because the withdrawal agreement itself is mainly about the United Kingdom paying an extremely large bill. The Government are saying, “Yes, but you need to look at the whole package. You need to see what is in the future partnership”—the association agreement treaty to come, because they think that might persuade Parliament and people to accept the rather unpalatable withdrawal proposal. The Government’s problem, as we have just heard from the Opposition, is that there will not be a majority in this House to put through the current kind of withdrawal proposals the Government have without a very clear, bold and good-looking association agreement/future partnership and we might be looking only at rather vague heads of terms. I suggest that the Government need to introduce rather stronger conditionality than they have done so far in their negotiations. They need to make it crystal clear that there is no £39 billion unless something really impressive is available.

I do not know about the Government—I sometimes worry about how they might go shopping—but when I go shopping I do not go into a shop, put £39 down on the counter and say, very politely, “By the way, I have £39 there for you, which I thought you might like. Do you have something that I might like so that I do not leave the shop as a loser?” It seems to me that that is what the Government did. They put down £39 billion—they have rather more money than I have, lucky them; some of it is money that they took from me, actually—on the counter and said, “By the way, EU, we have these dreadful Eurosceptics back home who want value for money, so it would be quite nice if you could offer us something that might be suitable for us.”

When I look at what the EU has in its shop, I am afraid, oh Government, that I do not see anything that I would pay £39 billion for. Yes, I would like a free trade deal, which I think would be a perfectly good answer in the current situation, but I do not remember Canada paying anything for its free trade deal. A Canada deal would be just fine, with a few extra knobs and whistles—we start from complete compliance with the EU, so it will be easy to have a few extra knobs and whistles—but I do not think that is the kind of thing I would pay £39 billion for. Indeed, the tariff saving would be a small fraction of £39 billion, so it would not make a lot of sense financially. The Government, therefore, have a bit of work to do to persuade friendly, reasonable people like me that the two treaties they have in mind represent a good deal for the British people.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

I am listening to the right hon. Gentleman’s point about the divorce payment. Is he making the case that Nigel Farage should be deprived of his pension pot?

[John Redwood]

I am not suggesting that at all. That gentleman’s pension pot is a liability of the European Union. They entered into it, so I think it is something that they need to sort out. I do not think that the European Union should be the kind of body that stops people getting their pensions. I do not remember when we joined the European Union being given a big pot of money to reflect all the liabilities we inherited, so it is a bit difficult to understand why the reverse has to happen when we leave and we have to pay for the others. We simply were not given a whole load of money at the beginning to reflect the fact that we were going to have to pick up some of the pensions of civil servants who had been working in the EU before we arrived.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

It is especially apt that we are having this general debate today as undoubtedly Brexit will be the major issue facing us as Members of Parliament over the coming weeks and months. We are about to enter a huge parliamentary moment when it comes to the withdrawal agreement meaningful vote, and today is an opportunity for Members to outline the way ahead as we see it. Having pondered the current state of play over the summer recess, I can honestly stand here before the House and say anything could happen over the next few months. I will therefore refrain from making arguments on the type of deal required and will instead concentrate on my interpretation and how I see matters at the moment.

Future historians will not be kind to this generation of politicians for getting us to where we are now. Former Prime Minister Cameron will be judged for holding the referendum in the first place as a means of easing party management. The current Prime Minister will be judged for wasting the first two years of the leaving process by basing her policy on extreme red lines only to change her major strategic objective late in the day, as I will explain later. And the Labour Opposition will be judged for a lack of coherence in policy and playing political games with the biggest political issue of our time. Labour knows that its six Brexit tests can only be met by staying within the single market and the customs union, specifically test 2 of ensuring the exact same benefits of our current membership, yet its policy is to leave both frameworks. It is a completely cynical position to take, with its only goal being to try to use Brexit to force another general election.

I for one saw the Prime Minister’s Chequers statement of July as a significant moment. Leaving aside the near collapse of her Government due to the resignations of the Brexit and Foreign Secretaries, it outlined for the first time that the driving force of policy would be protecting the economy, not dealing with immigration. The natural development of that policy would be to come to the same conclusion as Plaid Cymru, the SNP, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats: the objective of the British state should be to stay within key European economic frameworks. Unfortunately, of course, the British Government continue to be wedded to a “have your cake and eat it” scenario, which obviously the European Union will not entertain. The French European Minister Nathalie Loiseau clearly told in the Evening Standard last Wednesday:

“We will not redefine our basic principles because the UK doesn’t want to belong to the European Union anymore.”

Much of the media attention over the summer recess has surrounded the potential for no deal as we approach the October, or what now seems to be the November, deadline in Brussels. However, while it may come to pass that talks collapse, I believe that some fudge will be agreed and that it will then come to this House for approval to trigger the necessary withdrawal legislation. At that stage, as I put it to the Brexit Secretary during his statement of 24 July, I find it difficult to see how the Prime Minister will be able to get a majority of the House to support her position.

As I said earlier in this speech, Labour’s policy is basically to use Brexit as a means of forcing a general election, and it will therefore oppose the fudge, although how that will solve the problem I do not know, because essentially Labour’s policy is not that far removed from that of the Conservative Government. The Brexit buccaneers in the Prime Minister’s party whose objective is no deal will also vote down the fudge as that would make a no deal more likely, unless they make the more nuanced calculation that the only thing that is more important for them is getting to the 29 March deadline, because after that date and once we are outside the EU anything negotiated beforehand is not worth the paper it is written on. Considering that two Secretaries of State resigned on the basis of the Chequers announcement, however, it is difficult to see how they and their supporters can back the Prime Minister.

Those of us who believe that staying within European frameworks is the only way to safeguard jobs and wages will also vote against. I am sure that the British Government will say their aim is to stay within regulatory alignment—the adoption of the so-called common rulebook—thereby easing our economic concerns. The Minister might want to correct me when summing up, but my understanding of the situation is that currently the rules governing the single market are made in Brussels and then every member state, and in some states sub-regional Governments such as Wallonia, have to endorse those changes before they become part of the European single market regulations. What the British Government are proposing is that Europe would come up with new regulations for the single market and then we would have to adopt them via statutory instrument in this place—no mention of the devolved Governments of course, but that is a separate issue. The question then arises: what happens perhaps three or four years down the line if this Parliament decides not to adopt one of those SIs? Does the whole thing collapse at that moment? I do not see how the plan currently envisaged by the British Government can be sustainable in the long term.

I will also vote against because, essentially, supporting the fudge that I envisage would mean supporting what is now being termed as a blind Brexit, which means the fine detail of the future economic relations between the British state and the European Union determined being only after the British state has left the EU. How could responsible Members of Parliament with concerns about the economic impact of Brexit make that leap of faith? I should add that the previous argument of the British Government was that the transition and the final deal would have to be negotiated together, because it was impossible to transition unless we knew what we were transitioning to, but that argument has now been long forgotten.

My final reason for voting against the expected fudge is that, by leaving the detail until after the British state is no longer a member of the EU, the balance of power in the negotiations will move even further in favour of Brussels. The current pathway to Brexit by the Prime Minister seems completely naive. The future economic partnership with the European Union will be by far the most important trade deal the British state will ever make—it will dwarf any other the British state ever makes. It is therefore beyond my comprehension why the British Government want to give further leverage away in those negotiations. Furthermore, leverage within the Conservative party at this stage will swing decisively towards the European Research Group of Brexit extremists after 29 March next year.

If my analysis is correct and the meaningful vote does not gain the approval of the House, as I said during the Brexit Secretary’s statement on 24 July, the British Government will face four choices. First, they could seek to extend article 50 to renegotiate with the European Union. That would seem sensible to me as leaving the business end of the negotiations to after the British state is outside the EU seems completely bizarre. Secondly, the British Government could call a new referendum, possibly a multi-choice one, including the Prime Minister’s proposal and, vitally, the option of staying in the EU. Thirdly, if the meaningful vote does not gain the approval of the House the Labour party will move a motion of no confidence in order to force a general election but, as I have already said, this will not offer a solution to the Brexit paralysis unless Labour drastically changes its position. Equally, the Government might move one against themselves, resigning the Conservative party to defeat and leaving the Labour party to deal with the resulting pandemonium. In fact, an option for the Government might be to include a motion of no confidence in the meaningful vote, as that would be a manner for them to deal with the challenge set by the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), who is no longer in his place. He said that he would not vote for the final fudge that comes back from Brussels, but he also said that he would never vote against the Government on a motion of no confidence, so that would be a way of placing him and his political followers in political difficulty.

At that stage, the likelihood is that a motion of no confidence would be carried, resulting in another election, unless an alternative Government of sensible MPs were to come together within the 14-day deadline under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 and steer the British state on to a more sensible course. In the past, I have floated that idea as a pragmatic solution, and I put it on record that I do so again today.

The last likely scenario is that no deal would become inevitable by default, as opposed to by design. Over the summer, writing for The Times, I called on the British Government to remove no deal from the political theatre. As a negotiating tactic with the European Union, it has failed miserably. It has also failed to bribe this House into supporting the Prime Minister’s position. All it has done is to embolden the kamikaze side of the Conservative party. Far be it from me to offer political advice to the Prime Minister, but if she were acting rationally, she would disempower the European Research Group wing of her party by taking no deal off the table.

Politics is not a game, and our actions as Members of this House over the next few weeks and months will have far-reaching consequences. The position taken by me and my colleagues has been consistent from the day after the referendum—namely, that the economic wellbeing of our constituents has to come first and last. The British Government are eventually moving in the right direction, but they will have to move far further and far more quickly if they are to avoid the approaching slow-motion train crash.