EU Exit Negotiations

Jonathan Reynolds Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The point about the backstop is that it is an insurance policy for the people of Northern Ireland. I am clear that, first, it must be temporary and, secondly, we must be able to ensure that there is no way in which we can be left within that backstop as a result of a decision that the European Union takes in relation to this issue. There is a concern, I know, that somehow this will be an arrangement in which the EU does not negotiate the future economic partnership—the future relationship—and therefore we are left in limbo. That is why it is so important that we get a number of things, not least the linkage between the withdrawal agreement and the future relationship, and also reassurance in the withdrawal agreement about the temporary nature of the backstop.

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

There are many of us who genuinely accept the referendum result and want the Prime Minister to agree a good deal, but we are also realists and accept that there will be trade-offs in the different deals and options. The problem with the Prime Minister repeating today her belief that we will somehow agree the Chequers proposals is surely that the EU has clearly said it will never agree to them, that the Conservative party has said it would never vote for them, if they were agreed, and, crucially, that Chequers does not resolve the big issue of substance: the question of whether the ability to unilaterally agree free trade deals is really worth the loss to the UK of frictionless supply chains in manufacturing and of market access for financial services and, even more importantly, the risk to future stability and peace in Northern Ireland.

[The Prime Minister]

The proposals that have been put forward that form the basis on which we are having discussions with the European Union precisely address the issues the hon. Gentleman has raised in relation to frictionless trade, and ensuring that we maintain our commitments to the Belfast agreement and that there should be no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.