European Union (Withdrawal) Acts

Debate between Keir Starmer and Simon Hoare

Saturday 19th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Keir Starmer]

I will make one more point and then I will give way. I just want to reinforce my point and then I will pause.

Not only have the aspiration for “as close as possible” and the references to alignment been taken out, but the new text removes the backstop as the basis of the future relationship—not the backstop in its own right, but as the basis for the future relationship. That is very important because it means that the starting point for the next stage is a baseline FTA with no safety net for workplace rights, consumer rights and environmental standards. They have gone from the binding legal withdrawal agreement altogether. They are found—I will come back to them—in the political declaration. They have gone out of the binding agreement and into the political declaration.

[Simon Hoare]

While we listen to the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s confession entitled, “Why I wish I voted for the previous deal,” could he actually share with the House his honest assessment? Unless a deal says, “We will remain in the European Union and there will be no changes,” he will find false tests and artificially high hurdles that preclude him from voting for anything that does not ignore the referendum result.

[Keir Starmer]

That is just utter nonsense. Let me answer that directly: I have stood at this Dispatch Box and pressed amendments on the customs union time and again, and Government Members have voted against them. We have put forward the basis for a deal and we voted for it on the Opposition side of the House, so that intervention is just nonsense.

It is obvious where this ends: either with an FTA that significantly weakens rights, standards and protections, or in no deal and WTO terms at the end of the transition.

European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill

Debate between Keir Starmer and Simon Hoare

2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 4th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Keir Starmer]

I will make some progress and then I will give way.

In circumstances in which there is no progress in the negotiations, we are hurtling towards no deal and the Prime Minister is closing down this place, we have no alternative but to pursue this Bill. We have to act with urgency and to pass binding legislation to rule out no deal by the time this House prorogues. That is what this Bill will achieve today.

I want to put on record my thanks to the right hon. and hon. Members who have worked over many weeks on this Bill, in particular the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) and the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), as well as the leaders of the Scottish National party, the Lib Dems, the Greens, Plaid and Change UK, because this has genuinely been a cross-party Bill. On behalf of all my colleagues, I acknowledge the courage of the 21 former Conservative MPs who voted as a matter of principle in the Standing Order No. 24 debate last night, putting their country before their career. We acknowledge their courage and what they did as a matter of principle.

Why has there been such concerted effort? It is not usual to find an alliance of all Opposition parties and cross-party MPs. The answer is that we all appreciate the appalling damage no deal would cause to jobs, to industry, to our NHS, to security, and to peace and prosperity in Northern Ireland. Therefore, we were all shocked, if not surprised, at the warnings contained in the leaked Yellowhammer documents: food and fuel shortages, delay to medicines, and chaos at ports and channel crossings, all affecting the poorest communities. What leapt out to me from the Yellowhammer documents was the honest advice to the Government that, try as they might, the civil servants could not find a way of avoiding the conclusion that if we leave without a deal there will have to be infrastructure in Northern Ireland.

Privilege (Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Advice)

Debate between Keir Starmer and Simon Hoare

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

Let us be clear that contempt is not disobeying an order. In fact, a tweet put out on the UK House of Commons Twitter account defines contempt as:

“Any act or omission which obstructs the House of Commons in carrying out its duties”.

That can be seen as a contempt of Parliament. That is an incredibly high bar and I do not believe that the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) has made his case before the House this afternoon.

Mr Speaker, you and I love this place, but there is nothing more humorous than the synthetic confection of outrage, umbrage and humbug—that sounds like a rather dodgy firm of solicitors—that comes from this place when it thinks that its honour has been offended. It draws up its skirts like a slightly shocked maiden aunt at a risqué joke. The Opposition have, I am afraid, turned this into a parlour game—a parlour game called parliamentary politicking or parliamentary process. Let me pray in aid one or two thoughts that substantiate that viewpoint. So great is the umbrage of the Opposition that they ran out of speakers about 50 minutes ago. It strikes me that they are not exactly as hot under the collar as the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras tried to portray them as being.

Yesterday, when the Attorney General invited any question from any Member on any topic, about 75% of the stuff was to do with process and nothing to do with questions. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman was serious in his, I have to say, entirely synthetic sincerity about being more in sorrow than in anger, why was he trailing his letter around last Thursday and having it signed and sealed by close of play last Thursday? I thought that a former Director of Public Prosecutions would believe in honesty in the courts and in listening to somebody give their case before deciding what the next step would be, but he went around this place like a political costermonger selling his wares.

[Keir Starmer]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way.

[Simon Hoare]

I will not. [Hon. Members: “Oh!”] Oh, go on then.

[Keir Starmer]

The hon. Gentleman is talking nonsense; that letter was not signed on Thursday.

Future Relationship Between the UK and the EU

Debate between Keir Starmer and Simon Hoare

Wednesday 18th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

I will give way in a moment. People are aghast at the threat that that approach poses to jobs, the economy, peace in Northern Ireland and our place in the world. So I have a simple message to the Prime Minister and to the Government: this has got to stop. The Tory party has no right to risk the wellbeing of our country in this way or to plunge our politics, our Parliament and the wider country into the kind of chaos we have seen in recent weeks.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I am listening with great attention to what the right hon. and learned Gentleman has to say. I take the point that we are talking about the future of our nation. Is it not time, therefore, to build on this issue, as this House sculpts how this country looks as and when we leave the EU, and time for us to pull together, at the pragmatic centre ground of this House, to shape and sculpt the sort of Brexit that we want to see—one that works for our country and our economy, both now and in the future? We should not play party politics, but instead work together with common sense and pragmatism.

[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful for that intervention. Anybody who has looked in on the past two days and seen the infighting on the Conservative Benches would question whether that process cannot start with the Tory party. I have laid out the history because this is a deep divide, which has been at the heart of the Conservative party for decades. It has been waiting to break out since the referendum result. It has been contained time and again, but now it has broken out. Now it more than risks the Conservative party; it risks the future of our country, and that is why it has got to stop.