Leaving the European Union

Paul Scully Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 224908 relating to leaving the European Union.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. This is certainly not the first petition that relates to leaving the European Union; it is not even the first this month, and nor is this the first debate on such a petition that I have led.

[David Hanson (in the Chair)]

I chaired the last one as well.

[Paul Scully]

Exactly: we return to it. I will read the petition, entitled “Brexit re article 50 it must not be suspended/stopped under any circumstances”, into Hansard so that it can have its full say:

“The full details are well known to everyone the media has covered it fully, the British people MUST be given the Brexit they voted for anything else is not acceptable to the British public ARTICLE 50 must not under any circumstances be hindered/suspended/stopped for any reason whatsoever the time is here to take action as there has been excessive feet dragging/delaying tactics by those opposed to Brexit.”

The petition ran for six months and received 116,470 signatures.

Obviously this issue continues to exercise members of the public, just as it exercises Members of this House, and it will continue to do so. In recent debates, we have seen that passions run high and that there are different opinions in the House. Similarly, I am sure, colleagues’ inboxes will reflect the number of people saying a variety of things. Although I am a London MP and my situation will be different from that of MPs for other parts of the country, the number of my constituents who want to have a second referendum or stop Brexit entirely is probably equal to the number of people who do not want to go through the process and who want to leave tomorrow with no deal. A whole load of people are in the middle, including myself. I voted leave and campaigned for Vote Leave.

I was happy to support the Prime Minister’s original deal because it did most of the things that I required, although clearly not all of them. It allowed us to leave the EU’s political institutions, to stop paying the huge membership fees to the EU each year, to end freedom of movement—not so we can stop immigration, but so we can have a controlled, better managed immigration system—and to start the process of striking trade deals with countries around the world, and even to ratify them The deal was imperfect because we would not have been able to get started on putting those deals into place until after the implementation period and we had that future relationship agreed with the EU.

The main sticking point that seemed to trouble a number of colleagues was the Irish backstop. Other issues concern some people but, as we saw in recent votes, the Irish backstop seems to be the main sticking point. Having questioned the Prime Minister, Ministers and civil servants, I concluded that I was a bit more relaxed about the backstop than other Members were, because I believe it is not comfortable for the EU to have it, any more than it is for the UK. I do not buy the line that the EU would want to keep us in the backstop forever, through a pseudo-permanent customs union, because if the backstop were ever to come into force, Northern Ireland would suddenly become the most competitive region of the European Union. It would have full access to both the UK market and the EU single market. Economically, that would be very uncomfortable for the EU because it would allow us to cherry-pick. The EU said, right at the beginning of the negotiations, that we would not be able to cherry-pick and break down any of the pillars, but actually the backstop would allow us to do it, because it would allow us to have access to the single market and customs union, without freedom of movement. Imagine a member state such as Hungary allowing that arrangement to stand for any length of time.

The backstop would allow us to have access to the single market and customs union without paying the membership fees. Imagine France, who would bankroll us, allowing that to stand for any length of time. Looking at new trade deals that the EU would want to happen, those countries looking in would say, “Well, hold on a sec. What is happening with the UK?” It would suddenly become Europe’s backstop, because those countries would not be sure about the relationship they had with the UK for any length of time.

That was my thought process, but unfortunately not enough colleagues agreed. The one good thing about that evening’s vote was that it did not take me long to vote and get through the Lobby—there were not enough colleagues with me. Clearly, the House has had its say. Following the second set of votes, including on the so-called Brady amendment, I am pleased that we now have a clear signal to send the Prime Minister back and say, “Okay, fine. I know we spent a long time negotiating this, but if you”—the EU—“just shift a little bit we can get this done.”

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Why did the hon. Gentleman’s leader—the Prime Minister—say for months and months that there will be no deal that does not include a backstop? Why would she have said that, and was she wrong?

[Paul Scully]

At the time, she was not wrong. We will have to wait and see whether there is a backstop or an amended backstop, which is the whole point of negotiation. As we speak, Members are meeting to discuss alternative arrangements. The key thing about the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady) is that it seeks discussion of alternative arrangements to the Irish backstop, which might include the ability to leave unilaterally, a time limit or sunset clause, or what has become known as the Malthouse compromise, proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse).

All those sorts of thing need to be discussed over the next couple of days, so that we can go to Brussels with a clear ask. However, as I was saying, the amendment stating that we need to investigate alternative arrangements to the Irish backstop, and that the chances are that it would then go through, passed the House and has now given the Prime Minister a strong hand to be able to say to Brussels, “If we can get this right, we can do what I hope both sides want: enable the UK to leave in an orderly fashion as possible.” It would be of benefit to the UK to respect the referendum and the will of the 17.4 million people who voted leave while taking on board as many people from the UK who did not vote leave but who acknowledge the result of the referendum, and to ensure that the EU can continue to trade seamlessly with the UK. We can discuss ad infinitum the importance of UK markets to the EU, just as many EU markets are important to the UK. All these things are important.

The vast majority of us who campaigned to leave simply want to be friendly neighbours with the EU rather than its awkward tenants. This is not just a power struggle. The vast majority of people, including me—my main motivation was to leave the EU’s political institutions—wanted to tell Brussels, “You are going in a direction that we do not want to go as a country. Let’s step aside and allow you to develop in the way you want in terms of an ever-closer political union, but let us go in our own direction. We still need to co-operate and collaborate.”

That is why a deal is so important. We can talk about whether a no-deal scenario is a World Trade Organisation scenario, but I am sure the shadow Minister will make the same point that he made last time. He is correct to say that a no-deal scenario covers just trade, which is the whole point of WTO. It does not cover security, education, medical research and so on, which is why a sensible, collaborative deal would be so much better for this country and would allow us to continue relatively seamlessly in the coming months.

Given that the Prime Minister’s hand has been strengthened, I believe that if we develop a clear ask over the next few days, Brussels will give us a bit of flexibility. We are not saying to Brussels, “We’re going to go toe to toe with you.” I still believe that, with a reasonable amount of flexibility, we can get this deal done within the timeframe and will not need to extend article 50.

It would be a democratic travesty were we to follow the line of some of the amendments proposed recently and extend article 50 for months and months. That would let people down. If there is a deal on the table and we just need to dot a couple of i’s and cross a few t’s, I could see it being extended for a week or two, but some people are saying that it should be extended for nine months.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

It has already been two and a half years since the people instructed us to leave. Does my hon. Friend agree that extending article 50 any further would be treating them with contempt and would be a slap in the face for democracy? People expect us to get on with the job now.

[Paul Scully]

I absolutely agree. All I am saying is that if we had a deal and just needed to dot the i’s and cross the t’s—if there were a technical reason to extend article 50 for just a week or two—it would be churlish not to do that. I and a number of my hon. Friend’s constituents have taken this decision for 40 or 50 years, not for the short term, so let us get it right. I do not mind an extension of a few weeks, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right that it would be a travesty to say, “Let’s extend article 50 so we can start the discussion again. Let’s have a second referendum and extend the uncertainty and division that this country finds itself in.” People expect much more of us.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I always welcome people trying to come together to discuss things openly and honestly, and perhaps come to an agreement. I only regret that the other parties are not involved in this coming together; it seems to be something that is done just within the Conservative party. I am a member of the Brexit Committee, and the proposals that seem to be on the table, such as trusted trader schemes or equivalences, have been looked at over the past two and a half years. The Committee has listened to many experts who have ruled them out, and the European Union negotiators have done so, too. Why does the hon. Gentleman think that something that has not been agreed in the past two and a half years can suddenly be agreed with the European Union in the next two and a half days or the next week?

[Paul Scully]

There is a good reason why I believe it can happen: Michel Barnier himself said recently,

“My team and I have done a lot of work on virtual, decentralised controls, which will be useful in all hypotheses…Even in the absence of an agreement, we will do our utmost not to create a hard border in Ireland”.

If it is good enough to use decentralised border checks that do not require a hard border in a no-deal scenario, why is it not good enough to use them in a deal scenario? Michel Barnier is trying his best to use the existing processes to avoid putting in a hard border in the event of no deal. It will be the EU’s responsibility to do that, because the Government have said clearly that we will not put in a hard border, and so have the Irish Government. It will have to come from Brussels. The EU will be the final arbiter if it insists on a hard border. Michel Barnier is clearly saying that he will do everything he can, should we leave with no deal, to ensure that does not happen. Let us hope he can give us a bit of flexibility and does everything he can to make that happen if there were a deal. That would help us with so many other issues.

There is more to be done. We just require more flexibility, not wholesale change. When the former Prime Minister, David Cameron, went to the EU to negotiate ahead of the referendum, he did not get a lot to bring back; in my view, he did not ask for enough, but if he had got a bit more from the EU—if the EU had showed a bit more flexibility at that time—I believe that the referendum result would have been very different. We would almost certainly have voted to remain. I hope the EU will look back at that, reflect on it and say, “Let’s not make the same mistake again. Let’s not dig in our heels in at the end of the process.” As my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) says, this has taken two and a half years. We have come all this way, so let us not trip up at the last step.

The EU just needs to show flexibility. We are not asking for wholesale change. I know that, in all negotiations, people need to save face. There is always a dance at this point in negotiations. We will dance around a bit so the Taoiseach can appeal to his domestic audience; I know he has a difficult balance to strike. I am sure our Prime Minister wants to be able to say that she has delivered on the promise of the referendum, and all parties in this House will want to say that they have done their best for their constituents and their country. Germany, France, Belgium, Hungary, Spain and Greece—all the member states and the negotiating team in the middle of Brussels—all want to take the credit for it. Frankly, I do not care who takes the credit for it. Some of us have been working on this for 20 or 25 years. We just want to leave the EU now. If we all keep our heads and use the right language, I see no reason why we cannot do this within the timescale.

On the point that the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) made about collaboration in this place, people—the media, especially—often say that the Conservatives are arguing among themselves. There is a simple reason why there are often two Conservatives on panels. The Labour party leadership effectively wants a general election. I have made the point several times that if the Leader of the Opposition wrote a deal, gave it to the Prime Minister and had it presented back to him, he would vote against it because he wants a general election. There are many in his party who have a different view. The Lib Dems want a second referendum, and SNP Members have made the honest point that they do not want to leave. Fine—that is probably the most straightforward and honest point. I fundamentally disagree, but that that is nature of debate. Effectively, the Conservative party is the only party saying, “Yes, we want to leave, but how do we do that? Is it with a deal? What kind of deal is it? Or is it with no deal?” That is the vibrant—often tense—discussion that we are having within our party.

I will finish where I started: we must get together and keep our heads. Another reason why we need to keep no deal on the table is so that we have all the options. If Brussels thinks that the options are that we accept the deal or do not leave at all, it will obviously want to keep us in the EU. Imagine someone going to an estate agent and saying, “I don’t want to pay full price for the house. I want at least £20,000 discount, please.” If the estate agent looks over the person’s shoulder and sees their spouse measuring the curtains, that somewhat undermines their negotiating position. That is why keeping no deal on the table is really important. If we just have a bit of flexibility and allow people to pivot and reflect on the alternatives, I truly believe we can do what the petitioners want. We can get a decent deal that allows us to leave in as orderly fashion as possible within the article 50 timescale. We will not have to suspend article 50, and we can leave on 29 March.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Blomfield]

I shall be echoing my hon. Friend’s point in a moment.

The immediate task that the Prime Minister has set herself is to reopen the deal that she said, two weeks ago, was unreopenable. On 15 January, she said:

“Some suggest that there is a fourth option…to vote this deal down in the hope of going back to Brussels and negotiating an alternative deal. However, no such alternative…exists.”—[Official Report, 15 January 2019; Vol. 652, c. 1112.]

It is worth remembering, too, with all this focus on the backstop, that the backstop was not the primary objection for the majority of us who voted to reject the deal. It was the impact that the deal would have on jobs and the economy. The hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) is right to say that we have the right to walk away, but we also have the responsibility to the British people to outline the consequences of taking that sort of step, and we have exercised that to some degree in terms of the impact of no deal.

With the country currently despairing of our politics and with business confidence collapsing, the Prime Minister might reflect—to return to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Sandy Martin)—that it did not have to be like this. At the outset, she could have said, “The British people have voted to leave the European Union, but by the closest of margins; it is a mandate to end our membership of the EU, but not a decision to rupture our relations with our closest neighbours, our main trading partner and our key allies.” She could have added, “Therefore, we will seek a deal that reflects that position: a deal that is right for people’s jobs and livelihoods, in a customs union, close to the single market, in the agencies and partnerships”—some of which the hon. Member for Glasgow North mentioned—“that we have built together over 45 years, retaining the rights and protections for workers, consumers and the environment, and keeping up with those rights and with the EU as we move forward.” If she had said those things, she could have secured a majority in Parliament. She could have united a country that had been so bitterly divided by the referendum, and the issue of the Northern Ireland border would never have existed.

[Paul Scully]

I set out a brief list of the reasons why I voted to leave: leaving the institutions, stopping the payments, stopping freedom of movement and being able to do trade deals. In the customs union that the Opposition are suggesting, can the hon. Gentleman outline which of those would be available?

[Paul Blomfield]

The hon. Gentleman will recognise that freedom of movement has nothing to do with membership of the customs union. Our position is that we cannot be a member of the customs union of the European Union, because we will no longer be a member of the EU, but we should have a customs union that replicates those current arrangements. That means having a common external tariff; it means recognising that we would not be able to negotiate our own trade agreements, but that we would benefit from the trade agreements, which we were part of negotiating as a member of the European Union, that exist with 70 countries, and hoping to have a say—not a deliberative say, but a say—in future trade agreements. Does that answer his question?

[Paul Scully]

What about the institutions and the fees we might pay?

[Paul Blomfield]

The hon. Gentleman raises a much broader question. There would not be fees in relation to the customs union, but, as the Government have acknowledged, there clearly will be payments for other schemes and partnerships that we might want to be part of; the Minister might want to comment on that. There are no fees in relation to the customs union, but there would be if we were to be part of the Horizon 2020 framework programme 9 on research across the European continent. We would pay something in and we would get something out.

There are many other schemes, if we were part of the agencies and partnerships: take Euratom, the European Atomic Energy Community. We are spending an enormous amount of money replicating arrangements that we could have continued to benefit from as a member of Euratom. There is no additional benefit to the UK in that; it is just a separation of functions because of the obsession with the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, which has never ruled on anything relating to Euratom that would be of any concern to the United Kingdom.

My point is that, at that juncture after the referendum, there was an opportunity to reach out to the majority that existed in Parliament for a sensible Brexit. I campaigned to remain, but I recognise the outcome of the referendum. Instead, the Prime Minister let the ERG set the agenda, set the red lines and box her in, leading to the deeply damaging proposal that the House so overwhelmingly rejected a couple of weeks ago. She is putting her party before her country, just as David Cameron did before her, and the country is facing the consequences.

It is not too late. As an Opposition, we are willing to talk about that sensible Brexit deal—a relationship with a customs union, single market, rights and protections, agencies and partnerships. To answer a question that I was anticipating the hon. Member for St Albans would ask, although she did not: if the Prime Minister will not go there, we will consider the option of a further public vote to break the impasse. Nevertheless, whatever happens over the next seven weeks, we cannot and should not rule out an extension of article 50.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Scully]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I will get my 40-slide PowerPoint presentation ready, if you do not mind. No, I just want to take a few minutes to say thank you to everyone who has contributed to the debate. Yes, there has been some knockabout fun, shall we say? But on the whole, this matter has been dealt with in the right spirit—in the knowledge that people are looking to us in this place to hold such debates in this way. We can differ, but we can hear and, more importantly, listen to one another; we can hear a lot of things, but unless we listen, we never learn.

We have to look to the time when this process is finished. Yes, the result was 52% versus 48%. We have to work out how to heal the divide—in Parliament, but most importantly, out there in the country—and ensure that we can secure a Brexit that works for everyone. With regard to securing that Brexit, the petitioners and the 116,000 people who signed the petition can rest assured: the Government and a lot of Government Members certainly do not want to revoke article 50, but we do not want to extend article 50, either.

My hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) agreed with my view that no one is going to die in a ditch about a couple of weeks, if there is a technical position to consider—a few of us have talked about that —but people saw what happened in the voting Lobbies a few weeks ago. My right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) were in the same voting Lobby, celebrating the same result. If we do not end up with a deal, one of those people—they are colleagues—is going to be sadly disappointed. They cannot both be right, given the positions that they took at that time. The obvious way to get through this in time to be able to leave on exit day, 29 March, is to ensure that we secure a deal.

I hope, as I said at the beginning, that we put forward a reasonable proposal to Brussels, in a reasonable way that allows people there the space that our colleagues in this place have had over the last week or so, ahead of that vote. That is what I urge. What changed over the previous weekend was that there was more emollient language from people on all sides of the debate, which allowed people to calm the temperature down a little. The hope is that we can do the same with Brussels. If people there are looking at alternatives in order to avoid a hard border and no deal, surely they can just look at this again and give us what we need on the Irish backstop to ensure that we can get a deal through. That would help us, clearly, but it would also help the EU—and without encouraging other people to leave. All we want is to be able to do our thing and to allow the EU to progress in the way it wants to. Let us be friendly neighbours—let us not be awkward tenants—and let us do that in the most clear way we can, so that we can all progress and move on.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 224908 relating to leaving the European Union.