European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Maria Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)]

There is no ideal way forward now that will satisfy all. I will not be voting for the withdrawal agreement that the Prime Minister has negotiated. I am afraid it is a mess, and the way she has handled Brexit from the beginning of her premiership has been fundamentally flawed. If we go forward on the basis of her deal and the political declaration, I believe that terrible damage will be done to the jobs, life chances, finances and prospects of my constituents, and to many other people in the rest of the country.

Colleagues from across the House have talked today about compromise, but the Prime Minister and her Government have made no efforts to seek a consensus across this House, or across the country, on the best way forward. From the beginning of her negotiations two years ago, she has focused her efforts on keeping her warring party together, rather than looking to do what is best for the country. She has not sought to set out a range of Brexit options and lead a great national conversation about the best way forward amongst potential options or available choices; she has simply ruled out the ones that she does not think some in her party will support. She has not sought to heal the divisions exposed by the toxicity of the referendum campaign, and the fears and divisions it exploited, or to reconcile the differences between those who voted to leave and those who voted to remain that have been revealed as a consequence.

The Prime Minister has purposefully since run down the clock, to prevent anyone but a small group around her from having a say on the way forward. Her negotiating red lines were more about keeping her most uncompromising Brexit-supporting colleagues on board and preventing them from removing her from office, than about finding a consensus across our nation, but they have had the effect of ruling out sensible and less damaging Brexit options, and now we are being told that it is her deal or no deal.

In my view, the Secretary of State, the Prime Minister and the Government should rule out no deal straightaway. It would be the most irresponsible, self-harming stupidity, and should not be contemplated. Seeking compromise and finding agreement across the House has not been a focus of what the Government have tried to do, and we need to recall that when they now stand up and say they want compromise.

Let us recall that the Prime Minister did not want the House to have any meaningful say on Brexit at all. She wanted to trigger article 50 without allowing a vote in the House; only public-spirited citizens and the courts stopped her. She wanted to negotiate a deal and implement it without a meaningful vote in this House; only parliamentarians across parties have stopped her. She wants the Executive to take back control of our laws, with its full panoply of Henry VIII powers, not Parliament. Now, with her deal in deep trouble, she talks about compromise, but she has been trying to run down the clock and threaten us with catastrophe if we do not do her bidding, pulling the meaningful vote to waste another month—all to give the impression that it is her deal or no deal.

What are the consequences of the Prime Minister’s deal? The National Institute of Economic and Social Research said that the White Paper version of her deal would cost the UK up to £100 billion by 2030 and cut GDP by 4% compared with the status quo. No deal, which she threatens the nation with, would be even worse, seeing a fall of up to 9% of GDP, on the Government’s own forecasts, over the next 15 years. GDP would be cut in the north-west by 12% in the next 15 years, hitting manufacturing particularly hard.

My constituents are already reeling from the seemingly never-ending austerity imposed by the coalition and Tory Governments. Poverty is rocketing upwards. Food bank use is becoming institutionalised. The services towards which my constituents used to turn to get help and support at Liverpool City Council and Knowsley Borough Council are severely compromised; both had two thirds of their money removed by the Government. My constituents cannot afford the economic dislocation of the Prime Minister’s Brexit, much less a no-deal Brexit.

My constituents did not vote for this. They voted, like me, to remain. Research shows that, since that time, sentiment has moved further towards remain, currently standing at about 64-36, and that accords with my own sense of what is happening in the constituency. My own survey shows an 80-20 split for remain. I accept, of course, that it is not as scientific as opinion polls and research; it is a self-selecting set of people who reply, but they are my constituents. When I asked about the PM’s deal, 73% said that Brexit should be stopped altogether, with only 2% supporting her deal. A further 7% said that it was a bad deal but the only one available, so only a tenth were willing to back her deal. Some 80% told me that they expected leaving the EU to be bad for their families and an even higher number said it would be bad for the country, yet that is what the PM now expects me to vote for. I will not do it; I cannot do it.

I will not vote to make my constituents poorer just to get the PM off the hook on which she has ineptly but willingly put herself. The UK faces the biggest political crisis we have had in my lifetime—precipitated by the 2016 referendum, the subsequent general election, when the PM lost her majority, and the botched negotiations. The Government have no majority in this House, yet persist in acting as though they do.

Enough is enough: Parliament must take back control. It is showing welcome signs of doing so. There must be no more delaying tactics from the Government. If the deal goes down next week, Britain must find a new way forward. If we cannot have a general election because of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011—although the possibility has yet to be tested—we should extend or revoke article 50, to enable a people’s vote on the deal, with the option of remaining in the EU.