Mike Wood
Main Page: Mike Wood (Conservative - Kingswinford and South Staffordshire)Department Debates - View all Mike Wood's debates with the Cabinet Office
(1 week ago)
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Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Barker, and to respond on behalf of His Majesty’s official Opposition. I warmly congratulate the petitioner and the people who added their names to the e-petition. In our parliamentary democracy, petitioning the Crown and Parliament is a cherished right, whether campaigning to save a beloved community hospital, to crack down on illegal fly-tipping or, as in this case, to casually ask the House of Commons to overturn the largest democratic vote in British history on a Monday afternoon. It is entirely right that those arguments are heard and debated in Parliament.
Listening to the contributions today from the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National party and, indeed, some on the Government Benches, one might easily get the impression that rejoining the European Union is treated a bit like renewing an expired gym membership: we simply pop back down to reception, set up the direct debit and immediately pick up where we left off. Some hon. Members genuinely appear to believe that our European neighbours have spent the past decade sitting by the phone in the Berlaymont, tearfully gazing at an empty chair, desperate for the United Kingdom to saunter back in and instantly reclaim our rebate, opt-outs and front row seat at the summit table. I must gently break it to those hon. Members: Brussels does not accept refunds.
I may have disagreed with almost everything that the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) said, but she was right that the process of rejoining the European Union would not be simple, short or straightforward. We have to be brutally honest about what applying to rejoin under article 49 actually involves in the cold light of day. The petitioners do not merely ask for warm words or polite co-operation; they ask this Parliament to formally trigger accession negotiations. That does not mean stepping into a time machine back to 2015; it means starting the accession process as a brand-new candidate country alongside countries such as Albania and North Macedonia. The European Commission has made the house rules for new joiners crystal clear. Under chapter 17 of the accession acquis, there is no bespoke menu where we can pick the bits we like and leave the rest.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
I am listening to the shadow Minister’s speech with incredulity and watching the faces of the wonderful people in the Gallery who have come but are not able to speak. I wonder whether he has actually had those discussions. I think we are the only country to have ever left, and there have been significant comments from Ursula von der Leyen and others that we are not going to be treated exactly the same. Unless the shadow Minister has actually had those meetings, it would be very unwise to say that is fact.
Mike Wood
Yes I have, as a member of the Parliamentary Partnership Assembly and as someone who spent seven very happy years working in the European Parliament and still has many friends who work there and in the institutions. There is no question of there being a speed line route back to full membership reserved for the United Kingdom; we would have to go through the full accession process. Joining means a binding treaty obligation to scrap pound sterling and adopt the euro, and to abolish our national border controls and join the Schengen area.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
Could the shadow Minister clarify what he said to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade)? Is he saying that he has exclusive access to the terms on which we would be allowed to re-enter the EU? That is what he appears to be saying.
Mike Wood
The question was whether I had had the conversations, and I certainly have had them with MEPs and people in the European institutions. We can see what anyone who reads the publicly available opinion polls can see: if asked, “Would you be in favour of the United Kingdom rejoining the European Union?”, a majority in France and Germany may say that they would support it, but if asked, “Would you support the United Kingdom joining the European Union with the opt-outs that it previously enjoyed?”. support goes from about 50% to just over 30%. It is not politically viable in those countries.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the polls. When people are asked about whether particular areas of policy in the United Kingdom should be controlled by the EU, the result is always a negative. Farming, trade policy or financial services—whatever the question, it is a negative. When it comes to the money, if we rejoined, we would probably have to join without any of the rebates that Margaret Thatcher negotiated, so our gross contribution would be something like £30 billion a year—about 0.5% of GDP. The British people would never vote to rejoin the European Union if they thought they would have to prop up the EU budget and subsidise other EU countries.
Mike Wood
My hon. Friend is right. The same polls that show that citizens in France and Germany would support British membership only if it came without those previous opt-outs show that, among British voters, support for rejoining collapses if we do not have those previous opt-outs. If those previous opt-outs and derogations are removed, support again dips to barely 30%.
I wonder how many of the people who signed this petition did so in the eager anticipation of trading His Majesty the King on our banknotes for a fistful of euro cents. Did they sign up to surrender our borders or did they imagine that, if we asked very politely, the European Union would grant us all the privileges of membership while demanding none of the obligations? As the independent economist Julian Jessop recently pointed out, public enthusiasm for rejoining has a funny habit of evaporating the precise moment that voters are confronted with the small print. That is why I am confident that, if the Government were to take up the petitioners’ proposal, and if they had the courage to put that question to the British people, it would be comprehensively rejected.
Mike Wood
No, not at all. I am not somebody who questions people’s motives or intelligence just because of the way they have approached the question of Europe; I very much leave that to others. I will say that approaching 70% of my constituents voted to leave in 2016, and if there was a referendum on rejoining, I would expect a larger proportion than that to vote no.
When people realise that an accession bid means ditching our currency, tearing down our independent border controls and signing an annual membership cheque that independent analysts estimate would comfortably clear £25 billion a year, the rosy glow fades fast. We would be asking British taxpayers already feeling the squeeze from this Government’s domestic tax hikes to subsidise regional infrastructure funds across the continent while our own local roads are crying out for repair.
Paula Barker (in the Chair)
Order. If the hon. Gentleman does not wish to give way, then the hon. Gentleman does not wish to give way.
Mike Wood
Is that parliamentary language, Mrs Barker? I do not know how long it takes for the cogs to turn, but it has been a while.
What sort of economic club are the petitioners urging us to re-enter? Thirty years ago, the European Union accounted for more than a quarter of the global economy; today, that share has fallen to around 18%; within a generation, it is projected to drop below 10%. Applying to rejoin would mean surrendering our independent seat at the global top table. It would also mean being legally forced to tear up our membership of the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership dynamic trading pact—
Ms Creasy
I am pleased to hear the hon. Gentleman talk about the CPTPP, because that is the first time he has deigned to defend anything that has happened since we took this country out of the European Union, and I notice he has not defended the status quo. The Conservative Government’s own impact assessment found that the CPTPP added 0.08% to GDP. That is 50 times smaller than the impact of Brexit. What does he want to say to the 20,000 businesses that have given up trading with Europe altogether because of the Brexit that his Government negotiated? Does he really think that the CPTPP makes up for that?
Mike Wood
I think that having control of an independent trade policy where we can get those deals in the interests of the British economy—whether the CPTPP or the trade agreements with India or the Gulf Co-operation Council—is an advantage of being outside the customs union and having taken back that control. Tying ourselves to an economic bloc that is fast declining as a proportion of world trade and locking ourselves back behind the common tariff walls of the most sluggish economic continent on earth would come with a cost. Why on earth would a proud global maritime trading nation choose to jump off the international express train just to squeeze on to a continental stopping service that is running at least 40 minutes late? [Interruption.]
Paula Barker (in the Chair)
Order. I want to hear the Opposition spokesperson.
Mike Wood
We are constantly told by the doom-mongers that Brexit is somehow the sole author of our national economic woes, but the empirical evidence tells a vastly different story. Recent analysis by the Centre for Policy Studies shows that, while the initial realignment did involve transition friction, our private sector has shown remarkable dynamism, with productivity increasing by roughly 30% over the past decade. The real drag anchoring British growth is inside our own state apparatus. Public sector productivity has flatlined, an affliction that is manufactured right here in Westminster and Whitehall that has nothing at all to do with whether we sit within the European Union.
While the petitioners are at least refreshingly transparent about wanting full membership, the Government’s approach seems to depend on the audience. Ministers stand at the Dispatch Box with hands on hearts repeating their mantra that they respect the referendum, but that is not the message that we have heard from Labour Back Benchers today. Ministers promise us that there will be no membership of the single market and no freedom of movement, yet watch what they actually do. They tiptoe around European capitals, hoping that if they quietly sign us up to dynamic alignment across agriculture, energy and carbon standards, nobody on the street will notice that they have signed away our national autonomy. That is not a coherent foreign policy. It is surrender on an instalment plan.
Alongside the burdens and restrictions, being a full member of the EU did give us a vote, a voice and a veto. Being an independent sovereign state gives speed, regulatory agility and democratic accountability. But the Government’s strategy delivers the worst of all worlds: total regulatory submission with none of the say. It flips William Hague’s famous slogan; it is to be not in Europe but still run by Europe. It is the political equivalent of paying full price for an all-inclusive hotel and choosing to sleep on a bench in the car park.
Mike Wood
No, I am finishing.
The British people did not vote in 2016 for half measures, or to put their democracy into reverse gear. The fundamental principle at stake was entirely straightforward: the laws governing the people of this country should be made and unmade by representatives who the British public can elect—and, crucially, fire—at the ballot box. The duty of this House is not to resurrect the bitter constitutional gridlock of the past, or to indulge the fantasy of a cost-free return to Brussels. Our duty is to use our hard-won independence to cut unnecessary bureaucracy, to back British innovation and to trade freely with all corners of the globe. His Majesty’s official Opposition will not support the petition and will fiercely resist any attempt to pull this country back into the European Union, whether through the front door or the back.