UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Not at this stage.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Michael Gove]

Yes, to the Father of the House, of course.

[Mr Clarke]

On the point that was concerning the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), can the Secretary of State confirm that it is the Government’s position that we are ruling out leaving on 29 March with absolutely no arrangements at all—that we are ruling out the complete collapse of all our legal and trading arrangements with the continent that we have built up over the last 50 years?

[Michael Gove]

Yes, I would not use exactly the same language as the Father of the House, but his point is correct. The motion commits the Government not to leave on 29 March without a withdrawal agreement; I hope that is clear and unambiguous. But the motion also makes clear that the default position in law is that we do leave the EU unless we can secure assent to a withdrawal agreement, which is why, as I mentioned earlier, it was so disappointing that we did not secure a mandate last night.

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[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman taxes me about stupidity. I will return to his comments in just a second. The key thing is that the proposition was different, but of course we did not secure support for it and the House now has to decide. I respect the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) very much, as he knows, but it was the official position of his Front-Bench team not to endorse a second referendum and they have done what might inelegantly be called a flip-flop or U-turn. I was merely pointing out to the House the nature of that flip-flop and U-turn.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

My right hon. Friend keeps saying that when we reach 29 March, we will not leave unless we have a deal, and he has been considering the alternatives, because currently doing nothing means that, by law, we will leave with no deal. He keeps suggesting revoking article 50. Is that because we could seek an extension, if by then the House has some idea of what it is seeking an extension for, but the EU might then refuse it? Is he prepared to contemplate and is it the Government’s position that if the EU refuses an extension, we will revoke article 50, no doubt with the intention of invoking it later, once Parliament and the Government have decided what it is we are seeking for our future?

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[Mr Kenneth Clarke (Rushcliffe) (Con)]

It is almost three years since we had the referendum, and we have reached this extraordinary moment. Effectively, we are back to square one. There is absolutely no consensus within the Government, within the main Opposition party, within this Parliament or among the public on exactly what leave means. We are having to have a debate today on the question whether, after three years of futility, in 16 days’ time we just give up and leave and see what happens, although many of us know and fear the combination of things that are likely to happen if we do so.

This is bizarre because it is also still not totally clear how, if the House votes as I think it will by a large majority to rule out no deal tonight, we propose to guarantee that we deliver that conclusion. It sounds as though more attempts will be made to reach an agreement. I have voted for it twice, but the Government’s withdrawal agreement is dead in the water. Any kind of agreement must now find alternative routes.

We will get there somehow in 16 days. Tomorrow, we will probably vote for an extension, but we have to be clear: extension for how long, and extension what for? The whole thing is dependent on 27 other Governments, all of whom are fed up to the back teeth with the state of British politics, and with trying to negotiate with a British Government who cannot say what they want because they cannot even agree internally on what they want. We depend on the approval of those 27 countries to avoid this disaster, so as we debate no deal, we must consider further things.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The Father of the House signed amendment (b) with me. Is not the reality of the situation that the only two choices in the hands of this Parliament are no deal—walking over the cliff—or revocation, a luxury that exists for only another 16 days because after 29 March it is gone too? The only certain choices are those two choices.

[Mr Clarke]

We have 16 days left. The hon. Gentleman and I have tabled an amendment that faces up to something that I think very few Members are facing up to. I have discovered in a fortnight that things change very rapidly—I did not anticipate 16 days ago that we would be in this debate—and anybody who forecasts with confidence the state of British politics in 14 or 16 days is being a little reckless. Unless somebody has an alternative, the only way of guaranteeing not leaving with no deal is to revoke article 50, as our amendment suggests.

We will have no other method to follow. I will not go back into the legalisms. I had this discussion with the Attorney General, who kindly sent me his opinion. He is a much superior lawyer to me—I am a very out-of-date criminal lawyer—but I do not altogether agree with him. It is the advocate-general who has expressed doubt about whether we could be said to be acting in good faith if we revoked and then invoked again. I think that is very arguable. I think we would be acting in extremely good faith if we made it clear that we were in no state to leave and would invoke again if and when we decided what we were pursuing.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Clarke]

I really should get on. I am not a Front-Bench spokesman, and lots of people want to speak. I am tempted to give way and debate—I would like to— but, knowing myself, I know I would take too long if I did.

I do not wish to intrude on tomorrow’s debate, but we need to agree as quickly as possible what we are now seeking and the reason for the delay that I think the majority of the House is going to seek. It is important that we do that. Not only is opinion polarised here—lots of factions are pursuing their own preferred ways—but the public are even more polarised than at the time of the referendum. They hold the House in near contempt for the confusion they see, and the sooner we decide what the majority here wish to pursue as an alternative to leaving without a deal, the better, and to do that we may need some time. I have been calling for indicative votes for a very long time, and the Government have been resisting and avoiding them. The only way to proceed now is to explore and demonstrate the view of the House.

I have a suggestion for what might placate the public, satisfy a lot of leavers and remainers and command majority support across the House. If I was outside speaking on a public platform to a less well-informed audience, I would suggest reverting to leaving the political European Union and staying in the common market, which nowadays means the customs union and the single market, or something very much like it. I think that quite a lot of the public thought that that was what they were voting for when they voted leave. If we put that proposition to the public now, it certainly would not be as polarising as some of the arguments we are having inside and outside this House, which are having such a dramatic and catastrophic effect on the nation’s political dialogue.

[Chris Philp]

The Father of the House is making the case for membership of the customs union and single market while being outside the EU. Isn’t the problem with that approach that we would have no decision-making rights over any trade deals that the customs union might agree or over single market regulations to which we might be subject?

[Mr Clarke]

I am being drawn outside this debate. The best deals with other countries are achieved through the EU—that is the basis on which British Government have proceeded for years—and it is a disaster that we are in danger in 16 days of falling out of some of the most favourable trade deals, which the British Government have played a part in negotiating. I think that if we insist on that proviso, and if we insist on tackling the problem of our no longer being directly part of a regulation-making power, we are powerful enough to be allowed more consultation than countries that are outside the EU and are part of, say, the European Free Trade Association or European economic area arrangements. We have to tackle the problems that arise from the fact that we are giving in to the idea of leaving the European Union politically, and leaving its institutions.

I think that these problems are grossly exaggerated. I have never heard anyone argue against the EU trade deals that we have with other countries. The Japanese deal was a tremendous stride forward. It is the biggest free trade agreement in the world, and we are about to fall out of it after only a month or so. We talk about losing our powers, and about the threat posed to our sovereignty by the fact that we are not allowed to pass our own different laws on product quality, consumer protection, health and safety, animal welfare and the licensing of products, but I have yet to hear a Brexiteer advocate the reversal of any European regulation that we have passed so far. Members of the public tend to demand higher regulatory standards, and I am lobbied for new regulation more than I ever am for sweeping away what we have.

If the virtue of no deal is meant to be leaving to have a trade agreement with, say, the United States, I can tell the House that I have been involved in trade negotiations with the United States under President Obama, and it is protectionist. The Americans are not dying to open up any of their market to us; they will want us to open up our food market to them. We will not be making regulations here. The Americans will not let the House of Commons decide on animal welfare or food standards. Those are nothing to do with us. We made an agreement. The House of Representatives and the Senate, along with the powerful American food lobby, will decide what the welfare standards for animals and the standards for food should be. We will not get a trade deal with the United States unless we agree to that.

I am being drawn into the merits of the basic argument, but I think it should be underlined that we must look at realistic alternatives to no deal. No deal was not being advocated by anyone at the time of the referendum. I do not think that it was being advocated by more than a handful of people until a month or two ago. Most Brexiteers were not in favour of it. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is nodding. Even those who campaigned for us to leave were not campaigning for us to leave with no trade arrangement with our greatest partner. This is just an accident that has loomed because the House of Commons is not able, and the Government are not able, to solve problems in a way that we can agree with the other 27. We are drifting into it, which will be a catastrophe.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Mr Clarke]

I am going to be very brief—as brief as I can be. I have already taken longer than I intended.

The argument is that these matters were settled by the referendum, but one of the problems is that the debate at the time of the referendum does not resemble the debates that we keep having, with ever more frequency, in the House. That is not because we are out of touch with the real world. It is because the referendum was conducted in the most bizarre, broad-brush terms, with the leading figures on both sides using ridiculous or dishonest arguments in order to make their case, which had nothing whatever to do with the merits or otherwise of being in the European Union.

Remainers, I am afraid—the key remainers, David Cameron and George Osborne—decided to raise all those fears of immediate catastrophe, which did not actually materialise. That has led people now to say that every future warning from every major business lobby in the country, from the Treasury, from the Government and from everyone else is to be ignored. That is a classic case of crying wolf: one day the wolf actually arrives, and we cannot conduct the government of this country on the basis that we ignore every expert piece of opinion we have, which most of us in fact agree with because we think their warnings are correct.

The referendum gets invoked in all our other debates, too. When I ask my constituents who are leavers—most of them, I am glad to say, voted remain—it is clear that the idea that they were expressing a view on the Irish border and the problems of the Good Friday agreement when they voted to leave, or that most of them were expressing any opinion on the single market or the customs union, is absolute nonsense. Indeed when I talk to members of the public now—who are all expressing anger about the state of affairs we are in—they are still not lobbying me about the Irish border and the single market and all the rest of it. We are having to be engaged in this because our duty is governance; our duty is the medium and longer term better governance of this country, and we have to address the real world of a globalised economy and today’s systems of regulation and the international order in which we have to earn our living against a background of bewildering technological change.

All the arguments about the damage to business and the threat to Ireland, including its constitutional position, and so on have already been addressed by others and I have agreed with every word that has been said. However, I want briefly to give my reaction to that handful—I think it is no more—of Members who seem to think now that no deal is positively desirable and that it is an objective we should have sought from the first. They make it sound very respectable by describing it as “WTO rules”, but I strongly suspect that many who argue that point had scarcely heard of the WTO at the time of the referendum, and I do not think most of them understand what WTO rules actually comprise. I will not go into too much detail, not least because I have not refreshed my own memory too greatly, but there is no developed country in the world that seeks to trade in today’s globalised economy only on WTO rules. They are a fall-back that cover all that international trade that is not governed by recognised free trade agreements. They are designed to ensure that there is no discrimination among countries with which we do not have an agreement. That is why they require a schedule of tariffs, to be accepted by the WTO, and then those tariffs to be imposed on all those countries with which there is no agreement. That means the EU is obliged by WTO rules, now much loved by Brexiteers, to impose the same tariffs on us that it imposes on other third party countries, and we are obliged to impose the same schedule of tariffs on the EU and all other countries with which we do not have a deal.

There are WTO rules that do not allow countries to abdicate a thing like the Irish border. We cannot say we are not going to put any border posts in, so we are going to have organised smuggling become the major industry of the island because we have no idea how we are going to enforce it all. Not only would the Republic be under great pressure from the rest of the EU, but WTO rules would require us to co-operate with policing our border, collecting tariffs, regulatory checks, customs checks and all the rest.

My main worry, however, is not entirely about these short-term consequences, catastrophic though they would be for some sections of our economy including agriculture and the motor industry. My main worry is that, whatever happens in the global economy, the effect of leaving with no deal in the medium and long term and on the comparative economic strength of this country will be that we and the next generation will be made poorer than we would otherwise be. That will be the result if we cannot move away from this no deal nonsense, and I hope a big majority settles that tonight.

Finally, I just want to be totally clear what the Government’s intentions and motives now are. I hope I have been reassured that, if we pass this motion tonight, the Government will in all circumstances take whatever steps it is eventually necessary to take in 16 days’ time to avoid our leaving with no deal. I do not want them to come back in a fortnight’s time saying to the House, “It’s your fault, because you will not vote for the Prime Minister’s withdrawal agreement, so sadly we are going to have to leave with no deal.” We are ruling this out. That really means having indicative votes to give us some idea of what the British are going to negotiate over the next two or three years. Failing that, it means revoking article 50. Speaking as someone who is a diehard European—

[Mr Grieve]

rose—

[Mr Clarke]

My right hon. and learned Friend and I do not agree on referendums, but we agree on practically everything else. As he is a close political ally and a good friend of mine, I shall give way to him.

[Mr Grieve]

In the spirit of trying to encourage the Government to be clear with the House, does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the difficulty with the Government’s motion is that the revocation route is not acknowledged? The Government may not want it, and of course there are different ways of reaching it—one is through a referendum; another is through a revocation by this House alone—but the difficulty with the Government’s motion as tabled is that it pretends that that route does not exist. It seems to emphasise a binary choice. Does he therefore agree that getting clarity on that, and possibly a correction, would be immeasurably helpful? Otherwise, it gives the impression that the Government are trying to pull the wool over our eyes.

[Mr Clarke]

I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend entirely. I have no idea why the Government thought it necessary to put the second half of the motion on the Order Paper. I have been reassured, however, so let me try to reassure him on this. When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State opened the debate, he referred several times to revocation as the alternative—he is now nodding in the affirmative—and I think that if forced to do so, he would revoke. I take comfort from remembering the Prime Minister occasionally saying—normally to the right-wing nationalist members of my party—that if they were not careful, the alternative to her deal would be no Brexit, which amounts to the same thing. I would prefer the wording on the Order Paper to make it perfectly clear that we are ruling out no deal, but I take it that we have been given a guarantee that if no one can think of any better and more sensible way of resolving things, we are going to revoke article 50 and start all over again, because as I said when I began, we have got absolutely nowhere after three years of effort since the vote was announced.

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[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

When this House voted overwhelmingly to invoke article 50, we knew that the default position was that we would the leave European Union on 29 March with no deal. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs opened this debate with his usual enthusiastic and energetic manner, but his words will have struck horror into the hearts of the 17.4 million people who voted to leave and Conservative activists and members across the country. Our manifesto said that no deal is better than a bad deal, and the Prime Minister has said at the Dispatch Box on over 100 occasions that we are leaving the European Union on 29 March with or without a deal. Where does that leave our democracy or belief in politics?

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) spoke at length, as he is wont to do as Father of the House, and I respect him for his consistent opinion on the European Union. He mentioned that the referendum was three years ago, which seems a long time, but he led the remain campaign in the east midlands while I led the leave campaign. I remember well that we debated, we were on television, we were on the radio and we went out to hustings, but when the votes came in at the end of the day the result was 59% to 41% in favour of leaving the European Union. He is right that his seat voted to remain, but it was one of few in the east midlands to do so, and I am disappointed, as will be the people of the east midlands, that he is treating that democratic decision so badly that he would invite us to revoke article 50 and go against the will of the British people, to whom this House decided we would give the decision in a referendum.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

As my hon. Friend knows, I never said that I would change my lifelong opinions on the strength of one opinion poll. If I fight an election and urge the case for a Conservative Government, but the Labour party wins and takes office, does my hon. Friend think that I should then attend this House as an Opposition Member supporting the Government’s policies because they had just won a democratic mandate for them? That is not how we do politics in this country. It would be an absurd way to proceed.

[Andrew Bridgen]

My right hon. and learned Friend makes his points in favour of the European Union, as he has done consistently throughout his career, but the answer is that the people of the east midlands voted to leave the European Union, and I would have hoped that he respected that.

We have heard nothing about the Government’s preparations for no deal, which have been played down. Some 9,000 civil servants are working on no-deal preparations, and the Treasury has allocated £4.2 billion of taxpayers’ money to prepare for no deal. The preparations are moving forward. Business has been told that we are leaving and to prepare for no deal on 29 March. We have seen on the news that the Government have reserved warehouse space for extra stock. All that cost has been incurred by our country.

If we leave on 29 March—business does not like uncertainty, we know that—we end the uncertainty if we leave with no deal. We have already heard that is not no deal—it is a managed no deal. We have a huge trade deficit with the European Union—£67 billion. We can offer it GATT 24, with tariff-free and quota-free trade the moment we leave, which it would be advised to accept, given that it trades with us so much.

The European Union is on the verge of a recession. Germany has no growth and has only stopped quantitative easing for three months, since November, and it has slipped into recession. The European Union has started printing money again to support the euro. Now is the time, when we still have economic growth—it needs our markets—to push for more concessions. It is not the time to take no deal off the table; it is the time to keep it there as a threat to bring the European Union to heel. When we get to the compression point, it cannot be this Parliament or this country that blinks first. I urge all colleagues to keep no deal on the table. It is our only insurance for getting out of the European Union.

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[Dr Fox]

Mr Speaker, I have made it clear that in the nine minutes available to me, which I accepted in order to allow more Members time to speak, I will not be giving way.

For much of this debate I did not recognise the country being described as the country I live in—a country that many seem to be describing as isolated, inept and intimidated by its own future. I believe in the future of this country. We are not passengers in our own destiny; we are able to control our own future. This is a country with exports at record levels; a country where last year, when global foreign direct investment fell by 40%, foreign direct investment went up by 20%; a country with employment at an all-time high; a country that has had more consecutive quarters of growth than any other G7 country; and a country that is producing these results under good Conservative management.

Neither did I understand the picture painted of the preparations already made for no deal, because we and the civil service have spent a great deal of time on the mitigations.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

rose—

[Dr Fox]

Pharmaceutical companies are ensuring—[Interruption.] I am not taking interventions. Pharmaceutical companies are ensuring adequate stocks and increased air freight capacity. We have set out our new tariff policies for day one, liberalising our economy so that 87% of imports will be tariff-free, and setting up a trade remedies authority to protect our steel and ceramics industries. The EU has also made its own preparations.

[Mr Clarke]

rose—

[Dr Fox]

We need to keep some balance in this debate. [Interruption.] I am not giving way—

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[Mr Speaker]

Let me say to the hon. Lady, who was attempting, I thought, to raise a point of order, that we will have to wait for the business statement by the Leader of the House. But unless I have a problem with my short-term memory—and I do not think I do—my clear recollection is that the Government indicated that if the House voted to demonstrate its opposition to exit from the European Union without a deal in the vote, or votes, today, there would be an opportunity on Thursday for there to be a vote, or possibly a number of votes, on an idea, or ideas, of article 50 extension. So I keenly anticipate that the hon. Lady will be in her place not just for the business statement but tomorrow for such important proceedings as we can expect to take place.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. When the arrangements for this week were announced, my understanding was that the Government were saying that if they lost the vote on their preferred deal, there would then be two days in which the House would be given the opportunity to express its clear opinion on no deal, and if that was clear, another day to say whether an extension was desired by the House, with the plain implication that the Government were going to accept the decision of the House and act on it. Indeed, we understand that a free vote was extended to Ministers so that the proper expression of opinion could be given.

As soon as the House expressed its opinion on no deal, the Government attempted to quash it and voted against it, putting a three-line Whip on the people they had previously given a free vote to, with a complete lack of success—the majority soared. If this evening the Prime Minister or another Minister will not accept that this is not just another motion, as if it was a women’s institute debate that expressed an opinion—[Interruption.] I have higher regard for women’s institutes’ opinions than the Government have for the opinions of this House.

Can we have an assurance from somebody that tomorrow’s debate is actually intended to set policy and is not a mere expression of opinion? That is my serious point, but no doubt I will be deluged with protests from women’s institutes around the country about the unfortunate example I chose. I repeat my complete respect for the opinion of all women’s institutes.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for his point of order. My understanding, for what it is worth, is the same as his. That was the clear commitment. I am sure that that is what was intended. That was what was promised. That was what was understood. I have every expectation that the Leader of the House will reiterate today what has been said in recent days. It would be very strange if that were not the case. I have no reason to believe that the Government have suddenly shifted from the position they have taken in recent days. We will have to wait to see, but I have no reason to believe that at all.