The Government's Plan for Brexit

Kwasi Kwarteng Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

I am grateful to follow the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake). I rise to give the Government my complete support.

[Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)]

First time.

[Mr Baker]

No, it is not the first time—I am grateful to my hon. Friend.

I want to pick up on what the Secretary of State said—that there are none so deaf as those who will not hear. I will go on to talk about what else might be said, but, first, what has the Prime Minister said? In particular, she has said:

“Our laws made not in Brussels but in Westminster.

Our judges sitting not in Luxembourg but in courts across the land.

The authority of EU law in this country ended forever.”

Of the deal, she has said:

“I want it to include cooperation on law enforcement and counter-terrorism work.

I want it to involve free trade, in goods and services.

I want it to give British companies the maximum freedom to trade with and operate within the Single Market—and let European businesses do the same here.

But let’s state one thing loud and clear: we are not leaving the European Union only to give up control of immigration all over again. And we are not leaving only to return to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. That’s not going to happen.”

So the Prime Minister has said a great deal, and it has been supplemented elsewhere.

One thing I particularly welcome is my right hon. Friend’s work to secure reciprocal rights for those EU citizens currently resident in the UK and for those British citizens currently resident in the EU. What we have learned through the press is that 20 member states seem to have agreed to her framework arrangements, but that the Chancellor of Germany and EU officials at the most senior levels are obstructing that—indifferently and intransigently—when they could actually put people’s minds at ease by agreeing with our Prime Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Durkan]

I am not one of the British people; I am here as an Irish person, proudly carrying an Irish passport. However, I fully respect the terms on which other hon. Members come to this House. I come to the debate in circumstances in which the people of Northern Ireland voted by 56% to remain, while the people of my constituency voted by 78% to remain, as I said. The people of Northern Ireland, moreover, previously voted for the Good Friday agreement in a unique dual referendum process involving the north and south of Ireland—that was the high watermark of Irish constitutional democracy. I am pledged to adhere to that and I make no apology to anybody for it. I do not seek to indict the terms on which anyone else comes to this House to speak in this or any other debate.

The principle of consent is meant to be the core of the Good Friday agreement. It is not only housed in that agreement, but it was the principle of consent that was used to endorse the agreement. A week after the 23 June referendum, the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs Villiers), tabled a written statement on the security situation in Northern Ireland. The words she used about republican dissidents on 30 June were interesting.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Mark Durkan]

She said—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. A point of order has been raised by Mr Kwarteng.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I have just realised, Madam Deputy Speaker, that my intended point of order has been attended to by the Clerks. It involved the clock.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Thank you. The clock was stuck, and it is now working again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill).

I respect the vote in principle of the people to leave the EU, but they made that vote on three grounds: more money, market access and lower migration. What we are seeing, however, is that instead of getting £350 million to the NHS, it is going to cost us £300 million a week; instead of higher living standards, we have 5% inflation because of depreciation eating away at people’s incomes; and borrowing is going up, so everyone will be in debt with another £1,000 to pay back.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Is the hon. Gentleman essentially saying the people got it wrong on 23 June?

[Geraint Davies]

I am saying that people were misled, so basically now we are going to have another year of austerity.

On market access, everyone is talking about a hard Brexit. It is all very well Nissan, Tata and others being paid billions of pounds under the table to bribe them, to compensate for the tariffs they will inevitably face, but we will have to pay for that in the end, and we do not have proper market access.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)]

I am very grateful to you, Mr Speaker—you have managed our debate—for allowing me to speak, because we have had lots of interventions.

I want to say a few things about this debate. First, nothing could have been clearer than the vote on 23 June. It was the largest vote that has ever taken place in the history of our country, and 17.4 million people—a larger mandate than any ever given to any Prime Minister on any issue—voted to leave the EU. We all know that the one way we can leave the EU—in fact, the only way we can effect the will of the people—is by triggering article 50. It therefore stands to reason that any attempt to delay, frustrate or obstruct the triggering of article 50 is simply to delay and obstruct the will of the people as expressed on 23 June 2016. That is self-evident to any person who cares to think about these things.

The second point is about having a plan. To me, nothing could be clearer than the Government’s position. We have said this many times. [Interruption.] Labour Members find that very amusing. I am glad to see that they find clarity amusing, because they would benefit from some clarity. The Government’s position is very simple: we want to have some restriction on freedom of movement—we want a change in the arrangements—while having the widest possible access to the single market. Those are two very simple principles. [Interruption.] Various Labour Front Benchers are chuntering from their places, but even they should be able to understand that basic position.

The third point is that our friends in the Labour party have got themselves into an awful mess on this particular issue. On the one hand, the people for whom the Labour party was created in the north and the midlands voted overwhelmingly for out, yet the current leaders of the party—the intellectual establishment and many of the Front Benchers—are based in London, and we all know that London’s view on the outcome of the referendum was very different from the view in the traditional heartlands. The two ends of the pantomime cow are pulling apart now, and—to change my metaphors—it is very difficult to see how Humpty Dumpty can be put back together again. This is obviously causing them massive pain, but I hope that they will support the Government amendment and I look forward to seeing many of them in the Lobby in a few minutes’ time.

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is a distinguished historian. Is there any precedent for the fact that the Conservative party is now a more effective representative of the views of working-class Britain than the Labour party?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

There is no precedent for this. One Labour resident of Islington—a friend of mine—said to me, “The one way for the Labour party to commit suicide would be to oppose the triggering of article 50.” That is palpable, and it would be a much shorter version of Labour’s suicide note in the 1983 general election.

We must very clearly say that a lot of the words we have heard are game playing. Labour Members say they respect the will of the people, but we know that they have no intention of doing so. We know that many of them want to frustrate the will of the people as expressed in June. We know that all this obfuscation, all this delay, all the smokescreen and the dust in the eyes—all that sort of thing—is for one end and one end only: they want to stay in the EU at all costs. I say to them very plainly that the horse has bolted and that the ship has left. We are not going back into the EU, and the sooner they accept that very basic proposition, the better it will be for their constituents and for the country as a whole.