European Economic Area: UK Membership

Mark Harper Excerpts

Monday 6th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock]

That is an excellent point. I think that the current EFTA members recognise the clout that they would potentially have through the addition of a 60-million-person consumer market to their current market, which is a great deal smaller. As we know, global trade negotiations are all about leverage and clout.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Stephen Kinnock]

I will make some progress.

It is clear that the issues we are debating today go to the very heart of what the Brexit process is about. This debate is about the future of the people whom we in the House were elected to represent. It is about their jobs, their livelihoods and their communities, and it is about the definition of our national interest and of our country’s place in the world. Yet the Government claim that a separate debate and decision on membership of the EEA are not necessary. Not necessary? How can it possibly be argued that matters of such deep political, economic and constitutional significance should not be the subject of proper deliberation? How can it possibly be argued that the House should be sidelined and neutered, simply because the Government are terrified of proper scrutiny? Is that really what people voted for when they voted to “take back control”?

While the political case for a separate debate and decision on our membership of the EEA is unanswerable, the legal position is hotly contested. The Government argue that on exiting the EU we will automatically exit the EEA, pointing to article 26 of the EEA agreement, which states that EEA members must be EU or EFTA members as well. However, it can equally be contended that the UK is an independent contracting party to the EEA agreement, being one of the founding sovereign state signatories to that agreement, and that exit from the EEA therefore requires the triggering of article 127. I am not alone in that view, which is shared by eminent academics such as Professor George Yarrow and QCs such as Charles Marquand.

It should also be noted that a conclusive decision in this House that UK membership of the EEA is not wholly contingent upon EU membership would greatly strengthen our negotiating hand, as the EU would be unable to force the UK out of the single market. Some will argue that this question should be settled in court, but a case in February of this year was dismissed as premature, as the Government had yet to state their position on the EEA membership, and it was still possible at that time for the triggering of article 127 to be wrapped up with the triggering of article 50.

On this issue, as with so much where the Government and Brexit are concerned, we now find ourselves in a hiatus—drifting, rudderless, floating around in a mist of ambiguity and indecision. It is therefore more important than ever that this House shows some leadership. It is on the Floor of this place, not in the courtroom, that we should be deciding these matters. It is we who are sovereign.

On 23 June 2016, the British people voted to leave the treaty on European Union; the EEA agreement was not on the ballot paper. There is no referendum mandate for leaving the EEA; and if it had been the intention of this House that leaving the EEA be bundled in with leaving the EU, why did this House not put that in the original statute, either in the European Union Referendum Act 2015 or the article 50 Act?

The people have not spoken, nor have they had the opportunity to speak on EEA membership. It is therefore the job of Parliament to speak, and to debate the matter on their behalf. Moreover, the Miller case established legal and political precedent for parliamentary authorisation of withdrawal from any international treaty that confers rights and obligations that have been transferred into UK law. The EEA agreement clearly confers such treaty rights into domestic law, so if we take the conclusions of the Miller case to their logical conclusion, Parliament must have the right to debate and decide.

I am truly proud of the fact that I campaigned passionately for remain, and I will believe until my dying day that the vote to leave the EU was the greatest act of national collective harm in modern political history. However, I am also a democrat, and fully accept and respect the result of the referendum. The question therefore is not whether we must leave the EU, but how we should leave. That, fundamentally, is what this debate is about.

As elected representatives of the people, and as patriots, our moral duty is twofold: we must act to ensure that the Government negotiate a deal that both protects jobs, livelihoods and the national interest, and that respects and enables greater sovereignty and control. Those who are driven by nationalism, separatism, dogma and ideology are not capable of securing such a deal, for their only goal is to burn every bridge they see and return to a bygone age of splendid isolation, and those who are driven by a desire to rerun the referendum are similarly incapable of moving to the centre ground, which is the only place where pragmatic solutions can be found. For we know that compromise is a sign of strength, not weakness. We know that a country can either have frictionless trade or independence, but it cannot have both. We know that “Rule Britannia” rhetoric provides the sugar rush of an easy soundbite, but it does not put bread on the table.

All of which means that we must have a Brexit deal that puts jobs first. We must have a Brexit deal that keeps our economy as close as possible to the 500 million consumers that are right on our doorstep. And we must have a Brexit deal that holds our deeply divided country together, by delivering to the greatest extent possible on the perfectly legitimate need to reform free movement of labour.

A transition deal that is based on EEA and EFTA membership will deliver a Brexit that protects jobs, livelihoods and the national interest. That is why it is vital that this House is given the opportunity to debate, and decide on, whether article 127 of the EEA agreement should be triggered.

I commend this motion to the House.