Section 1 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2019

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Commons Chamber

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

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and to follow the shadow spokesman, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), some of whose points I actually agreed with. I will be brief because I know a large number of Members want to speak.

In simple terms, to get the message across, this is a bad motion spawned from a bad Bill. Going right back, I have said this many times, and Members of the House yawn and look tired at the fact—I am looking at the Chairman of the Exiting the European Union Committee, the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn)—but 17.4 million voted. This is a constitutional first because the people went against the voice of the establishment. The Father of the House and others have long sat here believing in parliamentary democracy, but this time, for the first time in history, the people were given the right to decide very clearly and to the horror of the establishment—political, commercial and legal—they went against it.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about what the people wanted, but were the people told in 2016 that they would be leaving the EU on 29 March 2019?

[Mr Paterson]

They were told that we would leave and take back control, and then, in the ensuing general election, the two main parties and the Democratic Unionist party confirmed that leave meant leaving the single market, leaving the customs union and leaving the remit of the European Court of Justice. That was confirmed by 498 and 494 Members on the Second and Third Readings of the withdrawal Bill triggering article 50, which triggered departure on 29 March.

Opposition Members just must understand the anger outside this House; and the frustration will turn into something that I would not like to quantify. People approach me the whole time and I get letters, emails and calls because it is very clear that this House, perhaps stunned by the immediate impact of the referendum, voted to trigger article 50 and has since done everything it can do to stymie it, culminating in the Bill that went through last night in ridiculous circumstances. The Second Reading went through by a majority of one, and it was then rammed through with hardly any procedures here.

[Anna Soubry]

I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that insulting the majority of people in this House is not exactly a great way to win an argument. However, will he confirm that he himself said we would be wrong to leave the single market? Will he also confirm that the leave campaign made it very clear that we would not leave the European Union before a deal on trade—a long-term relationship—had been established with the EU? That is right, isn’t it?

[Mr Paterson]

The right hon. Lady has done a very good job of infuriating the 17.4 million people out there and insulting them on a daily basis because of her stand. She and I were elected on a clear platform of leaving the single market, the customs union and the remit of the European Court of Justice.

[Anna Soubry]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Paterson]

No, I am going to move on, because others want to speak.

I am aware that such views do not go down well in this House, but I really do appeal to Members to think of the reaction outside it. The anger is touchable. People expect us to leave. At the moment, there is a real, existential threat to both the main parties. The first 100 marginals that the Labour party must win include 78 for leave, and we know that a similar number of the marginals that we on the Conservative side must win are strongly for leave. At the moment, we have a free market in terms of leave votes—UKIP has disappeared, and there is no one else. If we are so stupid as to pass this motion tonight and to go for a European election—I appeal to my colleagues on the Front Bench—we will singlehandedly give a new party an opportunity to emerge, funded with European money, and that would be a great mistake.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I say with the greatest of respect to my right hon. Friend that this is about getting it right for our country—for businesses and employees. It is not about grubbing around for votes.

[Mr Paterson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Very helpfully, he has moved me on to my next point. I am looking at the clock, and I will be quite brief.

The biggest danger to business at the moment is uncertainty. Last week, sadly, we had the resignation of my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris)—or “Dane-tree”, as it was pronounced when I used to work in Northampton. He said to the Prime Minister:

“whilst I would have preferred to leave the European Union with your deal, I truly believe our country would have swiftly overcome any immediate issues of leaving without a deal and gone on to thrive.”

It is absolutely clear that there has been a relentless campaign by “Project Fear” against no deal. There is no such thing as no deal; there has already been a succession of mini-deals. We were told that aeroplanes would not fly; that has been sorted out. We were told that drugs would not arrive; my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health has fixed the drugs problem. We know from Monsieur Puissesseau, who runs the port of Calais, that people there are relaxed. Looking at the World Trade Organisation terms, the WTO facilitation treaty, and the sanitary and phytosanitary terms, it is clear that it is illegal for our partners to arbitrarily stop the shipment of goods that conformed the day before we left. This whole issue of no deal has been blown up out of all proportion; it is a last stand for remain.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

Has my right hon. Friend seen the excellent article in the business section of The Daily Telegraph today, in which several very senior German people, including Mr Verheugen and others, have made it categorically clear that the failure of these negotiations is the fault of all the participants, including the EU itself?

[Mr Paterson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and neighbour for mentioning Mr Verheugen, who quite rightly warned about the dangers to the German economy, which, as we know, is sadly moving into recession. We will be doing the whole European economy a service if we resolve the wretched wrangle about Brexit now.

[Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Paterson]

I am going to move on, because I know others want to speak.

Under the legal position at the moment, unless the Government and particularly the Prime Minister take an executive decision, we will leave at 11 pm on Friday. That is the legal position, so all the pantomime we have had with the Bill over the past few days and last night is actually irrelevant. There has to be a Government decision. I appeal to the Government at this late stage to recognise the extraordinary anger outside this House at the fact that it is not listening to the 17.4 million people who voted to take back control. This issue could be resolved by leaving on Friday evening at 11 o’clock. Lo and behold, we would see that all these fears—there might be some interruptions, there might be some disruption—would be nothing like the damage to the integrity of our democratic institutions. People have said to me, “Mr Paterson, I voted all my life. I am never voting again because they”—all of us in this House—“are not listening.” That will be profound. That is a much bigger danger than a few small interruptions, which will be sorted out in the next few weeks.

United Kingdom’s Withdrawal from the European Union

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Friday 29th March 2019 Commons Chamber

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

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry). I admire her consistency, but she will not agree with what I am about to say. I am afraid that I did not agree with what she said.

This is a simple question of democracy, sovereignty and accountability. That is why 17.4 million people voted to leave. They were told, “You are sovereign. You make a decision. The Commons, as elected, will interpret that.” They trusted us to deliver what they voted for. They will be bitterly disappointed. At 11 o’clock tonight, we should be leaving, and we will not be leaving, and that is a terrible blow to integrity and their trust in us. The Conservative manifesto was very clear that we would interpret leave to mean leaving the single market, leaving the customs union and leaving the European Court of Justice. The Labour party pretty well said the same thing. More than two thirds of Members of Parliament represent seats that said leave, and 444 and 498 Members voted for the Second and Third Readings of the Bill to trigger article 50. At that stage, perhaps Opposition Members were stunned by the effect of the referendum, but now I am amazed by the nature of these debates. There is a sense that that enormous vote—that enormous expression of popular demand—has faded into the past. It is seen as a bit embarrassing and bit like a bad smell at a dinner party

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

[Mr Paterson]

Other Members want to speak, so I must push on.

The issue is live. Those people are out there and they believe that it should happen and that we should deliver it. It is not going back. It cannot be put back in the bottle, with the top screwed on, and then hidden in a cupboard or put in the fridge. That huge vote will continue to dominate our politics. The issue is not going away.

It is extraordinary that the fifth largest economy in the world is proposing to have laws imposed on it by 27 other countries, many of which are competitors that have no incentive to pass law in our interest. We will not be present when the law is made and we will not be able to amend or repeal it, and if we do not apply it to the satisfaction of the European Commission and, ultimately, the European Court of Justice, we will be subject, as we heard during last week’s urgent question, to unlimited fines—“disallowance”, in EU-speak.

We have the horror facing Northern Ireland. The whole basis of getting the Unionist population to vote for the Belfast agreement was the principle of consent. There was an extraordinarily successful campaign by Lord Trimble; it was an amazing effort to get Unionists to vote for it. The basis was trust that the status of Northern Ireland could not be changed, yet we are going to have something horrible called UKNI, which is actually in breach of the Acts of Union of 1801.

[Lady Hermon]

rose—

[Mr Paterson]

I am sorry, but others want to speak. This is about trust and democracy.

Finally, the absolute key point is that what we are seeing today does not deliver. It does not deliver on the referendum, the manifesto commitments or the promises made throughout all the debates. When it comes to trust, I represent a leave constituency and I was clear to my constituents about what I was going to do. Given that I have voted twice against this agreement, they all think it would be perverse if I, under pressure, changed my mind today. Why on earth would I do that? I will maintain my integrity and reputation, with the intention of continuing to campaign. We may lose this battle, but ultimately, we will get back the sovereignty of this country so that people can make decisions.

Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Opinion

Owen Paterson Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th March 2019 Commons Chamber

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

I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on his work, and on the splendid candour of his statement and comments this morning. I also congratulate the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union on getting alternative arrangements and an implementation date into the text. If, however, despite the very best endeavours in negotiations and the very best of faith, agreement is not reached in time for the end of December 2020, what can an independent, sovereign UK do? If a decision is made at the political level that the game is not worth the candle, can the UK walk away?

[The Attorney General]

As my right hon. Friend knows, if the parties, using best endeavours, in complete sincerity with co-operation and good faith, are simply unable to agree anything, not even a few alternative arrangements or a partial agreement—the subsequent agreement referred to in the protocol can of course be a stand-alone agreement—the UK has no unilateral exit right to leave, unless there were a fundamental change of circumstance under article 62 of the Vienna convention on the law of treaties. My right hon Friend knows that, but the question is: is it likely? What this deal has now done is place the burden on the EU to negotiate those alternative arrangements, as a result of his work, in part. I say to him that he should trust in himself, trust in the British people and trust in our ability to deliver a good deal. We can use the new contexts in this agreement, and I believe we will secure a good deal for the Northern Irish border.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Owen Paterson Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Commons Chamber

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

It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake). He touched upon the fact that David Cameron introduced the referendum, but he forgot to mention that it was a Liberal Democrat idea to have an in/out referendum when the Conservatives opposed the Lisbon treaty.

We are facing a constitutional conundrum. The right hon. Gentleman quite rightly said that the Conservatives promised an in/out referendum if we won the 2015 election, and we then had a long parliamentary process to guarantee that we would give the people the power to decide. We then had the referendum, and the people decided overwhelmingly to leave—17.4 million people in the biggest vote in British history and the biggest majority on any one subject. Everyone then said, “What does leave mean?” and the Conservative party helpfully interpreted leave to mean leaving the single market, the customs union and the remit of the European Court of Justice. Sadly, however, what we have come up with here does not deliver that. The withdrawal agreement is a betrayal of what the people voted for.

In my previous speech, I touched on the impact on our laws. It is ludicrous that laws will be made by the 27 nations and then imposed upon us so that we cannot query them. On agriculture, an area which is totally dominated by the EU, it is extraordinary that our agricultural sector will be held back to 2019 levels of support throughout the whole transition period. Our competitors on the continent will be better funded and will have free access to our market, so agriculture will be a particularly badly penalised sector. We have to consider state aid; Sir Richard Dearlove and Lord Guthrie’s letter this week showed the horrors of the impact upon defence; and there will be no exit from the deal, which has been confirmed by the Attorney General.

All that will cost us £39 billion with nothing promised in return. We will be paying £39 billion to have the right to keep talking and talking. There is no incentive for the EU to end the talks. They have us trapped. They will be imposing laws upon us, they will have access to our market, they could clobber us through the ECJ when we do not obey those laws and we will be paying. What is not to like? We saw it from Herr Selmayr, who unwisely blurted out to Passauer Neue Presse that he had got everything, including the cost of losing Northern Ireland. That is the real horror for me in this withdrawal agreement, which carves out something called “UK(NI)”, a new political entity in which not a single elected representative from Northern Ireland will have any impact on the law, which is shameful. It is a complete breach of the principle of consent, which is embedded in the Belfast agreement. As Lord Trimble has said, it is a breach of the demand for the Assembly to be consulted.

I will not be voting for this withdrawal agreement. Thankfully, a very large number of other Members also will not be voting for it. What should we do? I went to see Monsieur Barnier with Lord Trimble to discuss the problem of the Irish border, which can be solved with current techniques and processes. We had an incredibly instructive and constructive discussion. What we need to do is to go back to President Tusk’s free trade offer of 7 March 2018. We should go back on Thursday morning and say, “Yes, we will engage in very serious discussions on your free trade agreement. In parallel, we will immediately go on to World Trade Organisation terms.” WTO terms have come under the most ludicrous caricatured attack, because they are synonymous with leaving. WTO terms are not as good as a free trade agreement, but they do mean that we are leaving. That will galvanise the European Union into coming back to us.

Only today Heiko Maas, the German Foreign Minister, has said that he would come back to the talks. We will do the country a service tonight if we overwhelmingly vote down this completely unacceptable agreement, which will push the EU to go back to its generous offer of a free trade agreement. We will not get it through in time, so we should trigger article 24 of the general agreement on tariffs and trade, which means zero tariffs and zero quotas can continue during the discussions, possibly for up to five years.