Future Relationship Between the UK and the EU

Debate between Marcus Fysh and Keir Starmer

Wednesday 18th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

The referendum answered the question, “Do you want to stay in or leave the EU?” We are now grappling with the question of what the future arrangements should be. We have to safeguard the manufacturing sector and we have to keep to the solemn commitment that there will be no hard border in Northern Ireland. Anybody who has looked at the issue has accepted that the only way to keep to that solemn commitment on Northern Ireland is to have a customs union with the EU.

[Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)]

rose—

[Keir Starmer]

Let me complete my point.

The second half of the intervention by the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) implied that anybody who voted leave would not countenance a common rulebook on goods; well, that is in the White Paper, because we have all had to work through the practical consequences of the referendum. It is no good to take such an extreme interpretation of Brexit that we wreck the manufacturing sector, abandon the service sector and abandon the solemn commitment to Northern Ireland. We have all been grappling with those issues for two years and we have to stop this suggestion that to put forward any practical arrangement for moving forward and safeguarding our country is somehow to frustrate or betray the referendum.

I see that the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), has walked in. Earlier, there was a suggestion that in my discussions in Brussels or elsewhere in the European Union I had somehow been trying to undermine what he has done. He and I know that that has never been the case, so I invite him to intervene, if he would.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keir Starmer]

I invite the Secretary of State to intervene if he wants to quibble with that analysis. By that amendment, the Government have cut across their White Paper and inevitably made it more difficult for the Secretary of State to negotiate with the EU when he goes there tomorrow, because the EU has said, “This is not attractive to us and we don’t want to do this.” The White Paper says that we will not ask the EU to— presumably, as part of that discussion, that makes sense as the logical next move—but Monday’s new clause, which was a wrecking amendment, has now made it unlawful for a sensible way to be found through.

[Mr Fysh]

rose—

[Keir Starmer]

I shall make further progress, then give way.

This is not just a forensic challenge to the White Paper; it is fundamental. Absent a workable customs arrangement, the Government have no answer to the question of how they would protect the manufacturing sector. Absent a workable customs arrangement—