UK’s Withdrawal from the EU

Debate between Keir Starmer and Stephen Gethins

Thursday 14th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful for that intervention: I think the hon. Gentleman has missed the point. The Prime Minister has spent weeks—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman wants an answer and then interrupts while I am trying to speak. The Prime Minister has spent weeks and weeks trying to negotiate changes to the backstop—it started way before the vote was pulled on 10 December, and it has gone on ever since—and she has got absolutely nowhere.

[Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Keir Starmer]

I will just make the next point and then I will give way.

The idea that the vote on 29 January for the Brady amendment gave clarity is for the birds. The Government united around a proposition that they want an alternative to the backstop, but uniting around an alternative that means different things to different people does not get anybody anywhere, and that is the central problem.

[Keir Starmer]

I will in just one minute.

On Tuesday, in another non-update from the Prime Minister, she said what she wanted on the backstop and listed three things: a time-limited backstop; an ability unilaterally to end the backstop; or alternative arrangements. That is how she put it. The first two of those have been repeatedly ruled out by the EU for months, and there is no sign of any movement. The Secretary of State, from his discussions in Brussels in recent days, knows that very well—there is no room for a move on those two fronts.

[Stephen Gethins]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Keir Starmer]

I will in just a second.

The third option—alternative arrangements—remains undefined, and when the Prime Minister is pressed, either here or in Brussels, about exactly what she means, she does not say. The Malthouse compromise and the answer the Secretary of State gave about it give the game away. If that was a serious proposition and the Government were engaging with it, they would adopt it as policy and put resource into it, but they are not doing so. What signal does that send to Brussels about what the Government really think about the Malthouse compromise?

--- Later in debate ---

[Keir Starmer]

I will just make a bit of progress on this point.

So it goes on, and so it will go on. The simple and painful truth is this: if there had been a viable alternative to the backstop, there would never have been a backstop. The negotiating parties, as everybody knows, searched for months for that elusive alternative. If there had been an alternative, the Prime Minister would never have signed up to the backstop and neither would the EU. They searched and they searched, and they did not find it, and everybody who has observed the negotiations knows that. The chances of a breakthrough now, in 43 days, seem to me to be slim.

[Stephen Gethins]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is making a powerful point, as always, about the ineptitude of this Government. We know that there is not a whole lot of love, even on St Valentine’s Day, for the Government’s deal—we know that—and we know that we are in danger of crashing off the cliff edge, with the damage that that will cause, and he is right to highlight it. Will he back our amendment (i), which very simply asks for an extension of no less than three months to ensure that we can avoid such a no-deal Brexit?

[Keir Starmer]

I have sympathy with the point that we will need an extension to article 50 sooner or later, whether a deal goes through or not, and that the question is what is the right binding mechanism for doing that. We will support measures proposed by others on that issue in due course, and I will return to that point.