European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Mark Francois Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

Following the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves), I feel that we are having a debate about the glass being half full or half empty. It is worth reminding ourselves that we will be able to do things such as abolishing the tampon tax, which many hon. Ladies on the Opposition Benches railed against, because we are leaving the EU and getting out of its jurisdiction.

This extraordinary recall of Parliament, the day before new year’s eve, in the midst of a raging pandemic, is a pivotal moment in our history. Since 31 January, we have been in limbo, outside the EU, but subject to its laws and institutions. Tomorrow marks the real departure, when we take back control of our destiny. Denial by some of the importance of sovereignty is based on confusion. Sovereignty is not the same as power. Sovereignty is the ultimate source of authority to exercise power. EU member states have given that ultimate authority to the EU. Demanding its return was a revolutionary act by the majority who voted leave in the referendum, which they then confirmed in the 2019 general election.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

Briefly, is my hon. Friend aware that in a national opinion poll that was undertaken yesterday, 55% of the British public wanted MPs to vote for the deal, whereas only 15% did not?

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

That revolution continues. It recalls our Glorious Revolution of 1688, when the nation broke with an attempt to align the then three kingdoms of the British Isles under James II with an existing European hegemon to create a new arrangement with the modern, free-trading Dutch, when Parliament reasserted the right of the people through the Bill of Rights to consent to its system of government. It is that right that was increasingly compromised in the EU, which attaches more importance to integration and central control than to democratic choice.

Some said that the EU would never allow the UK to leave EU control and to prosper. What the EU negotiators called “governance” became the fundamental difference of principle in the EU negotiations. The agreement may be less than many would have liked in many respects—let us remind ourselves that many of those extra barriers and checks have been imposed by the EU through its choice, not because we chose to accept them—but I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, who held absolutely firm on governance, insisting that the EU could only have free trade with the UK if it gave up its control over the UK. As the ERG legal advisory committee has confirmed, the agreement treats the EU and the UK as sovereign equals. I have no doubt that the EU will continue to do everything it can to assert what it intends the provisions of the agreement should mean. This is the new challenge. For two generations, our system became institutionalised by the EU, but we now have the reciprocal right to insist on our view of fair interpretation with equal vigour. We must do that, because only then can we seize the great opportunities that exist for our reborn nation.

I have a final word about Scotland. It is striking that although the Government have agreed an institutional framework for relations between Whitehall and Brussels, and even between this Parliament and the European Parliament, no such formal frameworks exist in our own country between the four Parliaments and the four Governments. Those who want to strengthen the Union, and to strengthen trust within our own Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, must address that issue with urgency. I hope, as Chair of the Liaison Committee, to help the Government do precisely that.

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[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to participate in this historic debate today. Thanks to this agreement, we will finally be leaving the European Union forever on new year’s eve, so perhaps Big Ben will bong for Brexit after all. Nigel Farage memorably said last week that “the war is over”. Well, sometimes, as you will well remember, Madam Deputy Speaker, it has felt like a war in this place. Perhaps we should now take on board the advice of the Prophet Isaiah who said:

“They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”

In that case, I and my spartan friends should now lower our spears too, but perhaps keep them to hand just in case one day, someone—perhaps the Leader of the Opposition—should try and take us back in.

My colleagues in the European Research Group have fought long and hard for this day and we have sometimes been lampooned or even vilified by the remain-dominated electronic media for our trouble, when all we have ever wanted is one thing: to live in a free country that elects its own Government and makes its own laws here in Parliament, and then lives under them in peace. Now, thanks to the Prime Minister, who kept his word to the country and got Brexit done, who did exactly what it said on the tin, as our star chamber has verified, we can do that. What I call the battle for Brexit is now over. We won, but I suspect the battle for the Union is now about to begin.

We are about to write a new chapter in what Sir Winston Churchill called our “island story”, but now, after a truly epic struggle, we will do it as a free people. Despite all the brickbats we have endured for years—I think particularly of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash)—it was always worth the fight. Mel Gibson once made a very entertaining film but this is cry freedom for real, and now, finally, it is true.