Article 50 Extension

Paul Sweeney Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of the length and purpose of the extension of the Article 50 process requested by the Government.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this debate, which provides a vital opportunity to scrutinise the Prime Minister’s letter to the President of the EU Council and, of course, the wider Government approach to seeking an extension. An issue of this importance should not have to be dealt with through a debate under Standing Order No. 24. The Prime Minister should be here to answer questions. There should have been a full statement to the House. I appreciate that we had Prime Minister’s questions earlier, but this is a very important decision about the future of the United Kingdom, and the Prime Minister should be here to make a full statement setting out why she has applied for the extension she has applied for, and to answer such questions as there are across the House. It is symptomatic of the way the Prime Minister has approached many Brexit issues, which is to push Parliament as far away from the process as possible.

The House has rejected the Prime Minister’s deal twice, and not by small margins. It has voted to rule out no deal, and it voted to require the Prime Minister to seek an extension of article 50. I appreciate that on Thursday the last words of the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union at the Dispatch Box were:

“I commend the Government motion to the House”—[Official Report, 14 March 2019; Vol. 656, c. 628.]

before he promptly went off to vote against it, which caught me slightly by surprise—he is probably rather hoping that we do not divide this afternoon. However, given where we got to last week, when we ruled out no deal and required the Prime Minister to seek an extension of article 50, one might have expected the Prime Minister, in the intervening days, to reflect on where we are at and to recognise, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) said earlier, that perhaps she is the roadblock to progress. She could, at this stage, act in the national interest and, frankly, show some leadership and take a responsible approach, which I think would be to seek an extension to prevent no deal and to provide time for Parliament to find a majority for a different approach.

I think many Members are yearning for the opportunity to move forward and break the impasse, but the letter to President Tusk makes it clear that that is not the Prime Minister’s intention. It says:

“The UK Government’s policy remains to leave the European Union in an orderly manner on the basis of the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration agreed in November”.

The letter continues,

“it remains my intention to bring the deal back to the House”—

not a new deal, a changed deal, or a deal, compromise or position agreed by this House, but

“the deal back to the House.”

It does not speak of seeking time for change or to consider other options that could win support in Parliament. The only mention is of

“domestic proposals that confirm my previous commitments to protect our internal market, given the concerns expressed about the backstop.”

There is nothing new; it is just the same deal, to be brought back as soon as possible.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

My right hon. and learned Friend is making a powerful speech about the real predicament and crisis we currently face. There have been indications from the Government of France that they may well not permit an extension to article 50. Faced with that proposition, does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the Government are in a real fix? Unless they meaningfully change the deal that is on offer to Parliament and bring it back urgently, the Prime Minister will be faced with the difficult choice of whether to revoke article 50 or crash out with no deal.

[Keir Starmer]

I do understand the difficulty, but I do not think it is appropriate for me to respond to or comment on what may or may not have been said by Heads of State about what may or may not be agreed tomorrow. The point I am making is about the expectation of this House as to the approach that the Prime Minister would take. There is an even greater expectation—a yearning, which I can feel across the House and which I could feel last week—that this House be given an opportunity to break the impasse for itself by finding a way forward. I am afraid the Prime Minister’s approach is the same old blinkered approach, which is, “All I’m going to do is seek time to put my deal, exactly the same, back before the House for another vote.”