EU: Withdrawal and Future Relationship (Motions)

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) for his great work in making today’s proceedings possible. I rise to speak in support of motion (D) in my name and those of the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) and other hon. Members.

This really is five minutes to midnight—for this Parliament, for this Government and for our country—and we desperately need to find a way out of this mess. Our country has spent two years tied up in knots by the Prime Minister’s incompatible red lines, which offered such a narrow interpretation of the referendum result. A 52% to 48% vote was certainly not an instruction for a disastrous no deal or for a hard, Canada-style, job-destroying Brexit. It was an instruction to move house, but to stay in the same neighbourhood.

The European Free Trade Association/European economic area model offers just such a possibility. It respects the referendum result without wrecking the British economy. Not convinced? Well, it is worth remembering what Nigel Farage told a “Question Time” audience in 2016:

“I hear people say ‘Wouldn’t it be terrible if we were like Norway and Switzerland?’ Really? They are rich, they’re happy and they’re self-governing countries.”

The right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), a passionate Brexiteer, told us in 2015 that

“only a madman would leave the market”,

and the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) has also been supportive of the single market in the past. The point I am making is that, in 2016, Euroscepticism meant something that it apparently no longer means today.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Paterson]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way, as he did name me?

[Stephen Kinnock]

I am sorry, but Mr Speaker has said that we do not have time for interventions.

[Mr Paterson]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The hon. Gentleman named me and I think it is a convention that the named Member can answer back. He used a quote from a television programme—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am sorry, but the right hon. Gentleman cannot make his point via a point of order. What he describes is customary, but not obligatory. It is not for me to say that people can or cannot intervene and I am not seeking to do so. I am just reminding the House of the time constraints under which we operate.