Article 50 Extension

Liz Kendall Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

Several hon. Members have rightly said that the Prime Minister’s letter requesting an extension to article 50 was not what this House was promised or what this House agreed. I want to make a slightly different argument, which is that a short extension will not solve the huge problems that we face in dealing with Brexit. It is clear that the Prime Minister has refused to change course. She simply wants to run down the clock and blackmail MPs into supporting her withdrawal agreement. If we have another vote on the agreement next week and she loses again, even the EU agreeing to an extension would not solve our problems, because we will simply be back here in two or three months’ time. A cliff edge will have been replaced by a brick wall, and no deal will be back on the agenda, so that will not work.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

At Prime Minister’s questions today, I was conscious of how thoroughly disrespectful the Prime Minister was to every Member of this House. She is just being stubborn, and as she carries on with her vanity project, it is our country that will go down. We are very, very concerned.

[Liz Kendall]

I completely agree. I will come back at the end of my speech to the Prime Minister’s way of dealing with Parliament.

Even if the Prime Minister succeeds in getting her withdrawal agreement through next week, Brexit will not be sorted, because the withdrawal agreement will not resolve any of the fundamental choices that we face about our future relationship with the EU. We will be leaving without knowing where we are going, which means that we will simply end up back here, time and again. We will be back here at the end of the transition period, and when that, too, is inevitably extended, we will be back here again, grappling with the same problems.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way very briefly on that point?

--- Later in debate ---

[Liz Kendall]

Probably not, because I really want to let others come in. I am so sorry.

Extension has to be for a purpose, so it is about facing up to the choices that Brexit inevitably brings. Either we remain as close to the EU as possible, to protect jobs and prevent a hard border in Northern Ireland, but give up our say over the rules—or we cut all ties, with all the risks and uncertainty that that brings. We have never been straight with the British public about those choices, but doing that will require time. It will take time for this House to agree, if it can, on which option we should look at. It will take time to negotiate any other alternative with the EU, whether that is a customs union, a common market or whatever else. My view is that this must be not simply about what this House decides about our future relationship, but about what the public think. That is the only way to get a sustainable solution.

One reason that many people are concerned about a longer extension is that they are worried that it would mean our having to take part in the European Parliament elections, but I do not think that that is a foregone conclusion. Eleanor Sharpston, an advocate-general of the Court of Justice of the European Union, has called that view

“an oversimplified and ultimately fallacious presentation of the situation.”

She says that, just as the article 49 rules have changed for countries acceding to the EU, the article 50 rules could change for the UK. For example, the mandates of UK MEPs who have already been democratically elected could be extended so that they remain in place for months to come. It is not a foregone conclusion; it is about the political will to find a way forward.

Just as I believe that the Prime Minister should change course, I think that the EU should, too. The EU has insisted that we cannot discuss our future relationship until we have agreed on the withdrawal agreement with respect to money, EU citizens and the border in Northern Ireland, but the truth is that we cannot solve the issue of the border in Northern Ireland unless we know where we are going in the long term. Our very failure to agree how close we will remain to the EU has inevitably led to the requirement for a backstop, so the EU has to change course if we are to solve this.

I conclude by echoing my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern). Let me give a warning to the Prime Minister and others about pitting this Parliament against the public and about criticising and castigating us for not bending to the will of the people—as if there were one single will of the people that is clear and always the same. We are representatives, not delegates; we are here to exercise our judgment. It is our job to question, to scrutinise and to stand up for what we believe in. It is dangerous to try to pit this Parliament against the people, instead of defending our parliamentary democracy—one long-term challenge among many others that the Prime Minister has simply failed to live up to.