European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Jonathan Lord Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

If the contents of this withdrawal agreement had been secured by the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, in 2016, it would have been heralded on both sides of the House as a great success. I think that it is a huge pity that people in Brussels did not take that opportunity more seriously.

As in any negotiation, Members of Parliament have to weigh up the merits of and concerns about every option before us. I voted remain and I fear the impact of leaving the EU not only for business reasons, but for issues of peace and security. However, we have to look for compromises and a way forward. What I have found most disturbing about the debate tonight is the lack of that compromise coming through in Members’ contributions.

Where should that compromise lie? It has to lie where we feel that people wanted us to act as a result of the referendum. What did people want us to do as a result of that vote to leave? Many people voted to remain, but most voted to leave. They voted for a return of control of our borders and an end to the freedom of movement. They voted to stop vast sums of money being sent to the EU. They voted for an end to the European Court of Justice’s jurisdiction in the UK. What nobody voted for is uncertainty in our businesses and threats to our jobs. The sort of threats the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr Godsiff) has outlined could well be realistic for people working in the manufacturing sector in his constituency.

[Mr Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

I think this is still there on the official Vote Leave website, but it mentioned being out of the customs union, out of the single market, a comprehensive free trade deal with the EU and free trade deals around the world. So it was there. That was the mandate and that is what the people want us to see through.

[Mrs Miller]

My hon. Friend has every right to say that. I am saying to him: should we not be looking for a way forward in reality, rather than in the theory of the words set out in a manifesto? We have to look at the reality of what we are dealing with in terms of negotiation. A negotiation cannot happen by one side alone; it has to happen with the second partner as well. I would agree with anybody who has spoken today to say that leaving the EU is inherently risky, but the option before us at least has the detail behind it for us to be able to consider more closely.

How do we move forward? We could take the view of my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), who sounded rather like Micawber in saying that something will turn up. I certainly will not be holding my breath. The people we represent would not expect us to enter into something as risky as hoping that the EU changes its mind.

We could embrace uncertainty; I am referring to some of the comments made by SNP and Liberal Democrat Members. They talked about no Brexit—remaining in the EU—and perhaps having a second referendum. I believe that that would do very little to enhance democracy in our country and I certainly would not support that. I was pleased to, I think, hear from Labour that it will not be supporting that either.

We could embrace the uncertainty of no deal. I think the catastrophic impact of that is recognised by many people in the House today. I do not believe that there would be a majority in this place for a situation where we have no transitional period in which to forge the trade deals with the EU or beyond, and indeed no protection for EU citizens or for UK citizens living in the EU as a result of having absolutely no deal in place in March.

What is the least risky option and the thing that we should be responsibly advocating? Surely it is what the Prime Minister called “an unprecedented economic relationship” with the EU—the withdrawal agreement that is before us. It is the option that we know most about. It is the option where we actually have details to debate today in the Chamber. As the Prime Minister has set out, it delivers far more than the Canada deal could do and far more than a Norway deal could do. It would mean an end to freedom of movement, an end to the EU Court’s jurisdiction in the UK, a single market and a framework for our future relationship.

I am not going to stand here and say that this is without risk. Of course, there is risk—that is the territory within which we are operating—but a trade deal with the EU has to be something that is of value to our EU neighbours as well as to ourselves. I simply do not buy the argument that we would fall into a backstop as a result of lack of negotiation or lack of technology. Many of our near European neighbours, such as Switzerland, already operate in a similar way to the way we will operate in Northern Ireland. The technology exists. It is therefore a faux argument, and we will not be prevented from being able to operate in future.

There is much talk of proposed amendments to the agreement. I want the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union to address that at the end of our immense debates. The Attorney General was extremely clear and helpful yesterday and I applaud him for the time he spent explaining things to Members. He referred to

“anything that is incompatible with our obligations under the withdrawal agreement.”

He went on:

“Any amendment to the meaningful vote that would introduce a qualification to our obligations under the agreement would be likely to be viewed by the European Union as a failure to ratify it”.—[Official Report, 3 December 2018; Vol. 650, c. 561.]

Does that mean that inserting an end date to the backstop could risk destabilising the only negotiated option on the table for us to view today, or indeed, throughout the five days of this debate? I will not support any amendment unless the Secretary of State can confirm that it would not destabilise the withdrawal agreement.

Leaving the EU is a huge risk for our nation. Everybody knew that when they voted in the referendum. To say that they did not belittles the thought that our constituents put into their vote. I speak as a Member of Parliament whose constituency reflected the national result: 52% voted to leave and 48% voted to remain. It is a democratic decision, but it is still a huge risk. That is why we have a duty to look at the facts. Our constituents expect us to weigh up the risks and act accordingly.

Above all, we have to deal with the situation as it is. Unlike other Members, Ministers are dealing with the hard reality of negotiating with Brussels and of the legal confines within which they have to operate.

Trade-offs are needed, but in going forward we must have a clear plan. That is far less risky than no plan, less risky than rerunning a referendum and far less risky than hoping against hope that the EU has a change of heart. In my four years as a Minister, I never encountered the EU having a change of heart, so I hope that the Secretary of State is not banking on that.

I will support the Government’s withdrawal agreement because I believe that it is in the best interests of not only my constituents in Basingstoke—a major trading part of the south-east of England—but the whole of our country. I hope that more Members, particularly those who were more on the Brexit side of the debate than me, realise that this is probably as good as it gets for them. I am surprised that they have not already woken up to that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Vaizey]

I have only got six minutes, but his biggest mistake was not to win the referendum, which I wished we had done on behalf of my constituents, who voted to remain. In the last few hours, I have had more than 200 emails calling for a second referendum from my constituents, and I shall disappoint them in not endorsing that call. Although I was trolled heavily by ultra-remainers a few weeks ago, all of whom seemed to be quoting Burke, I remain a representative and not a delegate. I know my own mind and what the way forward is for Brexit—the withdrawal agreement. Too many people do not seem to realise that this is a two-stage process. We have to leave the European Union before we negotiate our close trading relationship with it, of which the political declaration is a part.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) said that too many people think that Brexit is a disaster to be managed, but we are separating from a 45-year relationship. Of course it has to be managed: we cannot simply walk away. Sadly, it has fallen to the remainers to manage it. We had a Brexit Foreign Secretary who walked away, we had a Brexit Brexit Secretary who walked away, and we had another Brexit Brexit Secretary who walked away. The thing that annoys me most about those people who fled the scene is their continued claim that somehow they represent the purity of Brexit. Well, we have a Brexit Environment Secretary who is happy with the withdrawal agreement. We have a Brexit Leader of the House who is happy with the withdrawal agreement, and a Brexit International Trade Secretary, with whom I work as a trade envoy and who is doing a great job, who is happy with the withdrawal agreement.

The trouble for the pure Brexiteers—the wreckers, the people who ironically will bring down Brexit with their pathetic behaviour on the withdrawal agreement—is of course that no one had a specific view of Brexit and it has been left to the House to work it out and vote for what it thinks is right. I will support a withdrawal agreement that secures citizens’ rights, that does not leave us as a vassal state, that has a backstop that keeps Northern Ireland part of the United Kingdom, and that—unfortunately for me—restricts freedom of movement. I am a huge fan of freedom of movement, but if people think that that is what people voted for with Brexit, so be it.

[Mr Lord]

Will my right hon. Friend reflect on the fact that had the Prime Minister put a Brexiteer—as he calls them—fully in charge of Brexit, whatever deal came back would perhaps have more support in the country among the 17.4 million who voted leave and the leavers and Brexiteers in the Chamber as well? Brexiteers should have been made to own Brexit, because we think that we might have done a slightly better job of it.

[Mr Vaizey]

I do not think the Brexiteers would have done that. Too many Brexiteers fantasised about what Brexit would look like without confronting the cold reality. I slightly wish that the Prime Minister had done that, however. As it is, she has given the Brexiteers a get-out clause. They will all complain about the withdrawal agreement not being good enough, and if we crash out with no deal, they will all say that nobody prepared for that. Nothing is ever the Brexiteers’ fault and no solution is ever put forward by them. The Department for International Trade, the Foreign Office and the Brexit Department are three pretty big Departments, and I would have thought that they, along with the Prime Minister—whom the Brexiteers elected, by the way—would allow the Brexiteers to deliver the Brexit that they pretended they wanted.

Another thing that has annoyed me about this whole process is the sudden rising up of free trade deals that can be done overnight without any concern about how the public might react when we do deals with huge economies such as China, the US and India.

There is also the ridiculous confrontational language. I know I have been guilty of it in this speech, but I am worked up at the moment. The ex-Foreign Secretary was talking about the EU deciding to let us go, but the EU is now desperate for us to go. What people do not understand about the backstop is that we will now have to have our cake and eat it, to coin a phrase. We will have access to the European Union single market without paying in and we will have a restriction on freedom of movement. This is not part of a plot to turn us into a vassal state. The EU did not want us to leave, but now that we are doing so, it wants us to leave in as orderly a manner as possible. We should embrace that. It is appalling that we use such confrontational language.

Unfortunately, however, this does not mean that I support a people’s vote, which I think is a complete red herring. If we were to agree to one, people would be entitled to say, “If you’re asking us to vote again, can we have your salaries? We delivered our verdict in the referendum, and we asked Parliament to reach a conclusion and vote on it.” That is what this withdrawal agreement is about, and it would be a humiliation for this Parliament if we were to go back to the people. I also believe that those who think that a people’s vote will deliver a verdict that we should stay in the European Union would be sorely disappointed by the outcome of any such vote.

I said at the beginning of my remarks that I supported this withdrawal agreement because I had come to the conclusion that that was the right thing to do. I am not supporting it because I am a huge fan of the Prime Minister or of the way in which she has conducted herself over the past two years. I really have been angered and appalled by the “citizen of nowhere” and “jump the queue” language. Too often, the Prime Minister has spoken only for the 52%, although I was delighted when she said a bit about the 48% earlier today. There has been no attempt to heal the divisions after the referendum, which leaves me hugely disappointed, but I will still back her withdrawal agreement because I believe that that is the right way forward.

Do you know what disappoints me most, Mr Speaker? If we were to analyse my genetic make-up, I am sure that we would find a bit of Viking and a bit of Huguenot, but I am sure that we would also find a bit of Brexiteer. My hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) knows this only too well from when he tried and failed to select me for Bristol North West. I absolutely accept what was said earlier by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr Godsiff). He said that there was a European project, a ratchet and a will to create a European superstate. Part of me thinks that we could potentially thrive after Brexit if we do it properly. We could actually remake the European Union and the European continent. We could have what moderate Eurosceptics always wanted, until this debate turned toxic, which was an inner core, with a single currency, pressing forward towards an ever closer union, and an outer core, outside the single currency, with a looser relationship with Europe. That outer core could still have all the benefits of that relationship without the fear of being subsumed into a superstate. This withdrawal agreement is potentially a step forward, but after months of hard technical work and with the prize within our sights, what happens? Of course the hard Brexiteers come out and try to tear the whole thing down. Well, try—and see if you get your Brexit.