European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Peter Bone Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Clegg]

No, I wish to make some progress. That is why I believe that this House has not a choice but a duty to withhold from the Government the right to proceed with Brexit in the way they have planned. That would not stop Brexit but would simply urge the Government to go back to the drawing board and to come back to this House with a more sensible and moderate approach to Brexit.

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[Sir Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con)]

After more than three hours of debate, a great deal of what needed to be said on either side has been said, and I do not intend to bore the House by repeating it. Like my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), I voted to remain; unlike him, I voted to promote the referendum and indeed played some part in bringing the Conservative party to the point of committing to a referendum. I shall therefore obviously vote tonight in favour of triggering article 50 in line with the outcome of that referendum. I shall also vote in the succeeding week against each and every attempt through amendments of whatever kind to bind the Government in any way—administratively or legally—because the Government must have the ability to negotiate flexibly and in the national interest.

In the brief minutes allowed, I would like to add one point that I do not think has so far come out of the debate: what we are doing if, as I suspect, we vote tomorrow night to trigger article 50. There has been some suggestion in some speeches that, somehow or other, this vote is not irrevocable or final, and that there will come a time when Parliament can decide whether it likes the deal that the Government have negotiated or whether it prefers instead to go back to the position of remaining in the EU. That is clearly contrary to what the Prime Minister set out in her speech, when she made it perfectly clear that, in her view, what Parliament will then be deciding is whether to accept the deal or not to accept it, in which case we will have to fall back on the WTO and other such arrangements because we will in any case leave.

I want to make it clear why I think the Prime Minister was right about that from three points of view. The first is the question of legal fact. None of us in this House is qualified to make a judgment about the law in that respect, but we have a piece of luck, which is that the Supreme Court has made a judgment on that. In the judgment of the High Court—a rather unusual High Court as it was composed—it was not totally clear, but in the Supreme Court judgment it was totally clear that the presumption of the minority as well as the majority was that this was an irrevocable act. The whole foundation of the legal case was that.

[Mr Bone]

My right hon. Friend is making a very powerful speech, but was it not agreed in the High Court that both sides accepted that it was irrevocable, so that the Supreme Court did not look at that question?

[Sir Oliver Letwin]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point, but it seems to me that the difference between the two judgments is that the Supreme Court made it clear that in an irrevocable act, what was happening in its view was a fundamental change in our constitution, which is a different character of argument from what was made in the High Court judgment—and it seems to me conclusive. It means that the Supreme Court has ruled that, in its view, this is an irrevocable act.

In a sense, that is irrelevant to us, because we are a Parliament and not a group of lawyers. So we come next to the question of the democratic mandate. Is there a democratic mandate requiring that, when article 50 is triggered, the result—whatever it may be; an acceptable deal or a non-acceptable deal—should be that this country leaves?

In that regard, I thought that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) and one of two others who spoke in similar terms were right. In fact, I know they were right, because I am one of the guilty men. During the referendum campaign, I made it perfectly clear to the many audiences whom I addressed that, in my view—and this is part of the reason why I voted to remain—an inevitable consequence of leaving the EU would be leaving the single market, we would have to reassert our control of the borders which would be incompatible with the single market, we would seek to negotiate with the rest of the world, and therefore we would have to leave the customs union. I made it perfectly clear that we might find ourselves unable to negotiate a free trade agreement—because that takes two sides, and it is impossible for one side to guarantee what the other side will do—and that therefore we might have to fall back on the WTO, which I think would be greatly to the disadvantage of this country.

I made all that clear, so it seems to me, when it comes to the question of the democratic mandate, that the people who voted to leave were voting with their eyes wide open, knowing that the consequence might be our falling back on the WTO. I should add, to be fair, that the leave campaign—or, at least, the more responsible and sensible people in the leave campaign—made that perfectly clear as well. It seems to me that, both as a matter of legal fact and in the context of a democratic mandate, there is an extraordinarily strong argument for believing that when we vote tomorrow night we shall be taking an irrevocable step, which should not lead Parliament to be under any illusion that at a later date it can go back to remaining if it chooses, and if it does not like the deal.

The third and, I think, overwhelming point is this: in the end, what matters most is the fate of our country. All these arguments are just arguments, but the fate of our country is a real thing that affects the men and women living in it. The truth is that the negotiating hand that our Government have will largely determine whether, in the event, we secure a comprehensive free trade deal of the kind that the Prime Minister rightly seeks. I know of no fact more certain than that if the House were to suggest to our counterparties in the EU 27 that we might decide at a later date that, if the deal offered to us was bad enough, we would prefer to remain, they would offer us the worst deal they could think of. It would be an inevitable consequence of their wanting to keep us in—and, although I do not know exactly why, many of our EU 27 counterparties do want to keep us in—that they would best achieve that by offering the worst deal possible if they knew that Parliament might then vote to remain.

I therefore think that we in the House have a very solemn duty to make it abundantly clear—not just to the people in this country, but to the EU 27—that tomorrow night’s vote will be an irrevocable act. We must make it clear that we are taking a step from which we cannot go back; that if those countries want a proper deal that is in the mutual interest, they should offer it; and that if we do not get that deal we will leave, because we have triggered article 50 and we will be out, and we will have to cope with the consequences thereafter. That makes tomorrow night’s vote one of the most important that we shall ever take in the House, and I take it with some doubt and hesitation, but I take it because I believe that, ultimately, the will of the people has been expressed.

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[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West), who speaks with total sincerity. I obviously do not agree with her analysis of the economy, and I do not agree with voting against article 50, but I absolutely respect her sincerity in making the decision she has. One important aspect of today’s debate is that it is about individual Members making up their mind.

Anyone who goes to a Conservative selection event will find that one question likely to be asked is, “What would you put first—country, constituency or party?” The answer is country first, constituency second and party third. Happily, in most cases that aligns; it certainly aligns now, and I am delighted with what the Government have done.

I think that the Government were wrong, but I understand why they tried to go via the royal prerogative. They took the view that this House had delegated to the British people the decision on whether we should stay or leave the European Union. Once that decision was made, they thought they could trigger article 50 through the royal prerogative. In fact, I remember the previous Prime Minister saying that he would trigger article 50 the day after the vote. I argued against that privately. I said that we should have a parliamentary process, and that it should be done through a Bill in Parliament. I introduced a private Member’s Bill to do exactly that, and trigger article 50 by 31 March. The only reason it did not get a Second Reading was that the Labour deputy Chief Whip objected to it.

I am very pleased that the Labour party has now taken a very different line. I thought the shadow Secretary of State got it right: trigger article 50, because that is what the British people voted for, then let us have full parliamentary scrutiny of the Bill. No Bill going through this Parliament—the great repeal Act or anything else—will fail to benefit from the parliamentary process. It may well be that this Bill will benefit next week from the approval of some amendment or other. I do not know, but it will benefit from full parliamentary scrutiny.

I apologise for wearing the hideous tie again. It has come out of retirement for today and tomorrow and for three days next week. Obviously, however, if this House were somehow to vote not to trigger article 50, I would have to wear the tie for a lot longer. Hopefully, that might change some votes on the other side.

The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green mentioned that it was very difficult to get on and work with some people. As a founding member of GO —Grassroots Out—which was a cross-party group that campaigned to leave, I know exactly what she means. I had to work with people from the Labour party, the Democratic Unionist party and the UK Independence party—and, what was even more difficult, with people from my own party—to try to get us all to agree to put party politics to one side. It was an amazing feat as we toured up and down the country to find that people who could not really stand each other—[Interruption]; yes, and that is just the Tory party—could actually work together and produce something in the national interest.

I look across the Chamber and see the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey). What an outstanding parliamentarian! She put the country first. It was difficult enough, all those years ago, to be in the Conservative party when it was absolutely for the European Union and we were idiots to request a referendum. It must be much more difficult to be in the Labour party and campaign for us to leave, and I congratulate members of the Labour party who put their country first.

It may seem somewhat controversial in this Chamber, but I also congratulate Nigel Farage. I think that he campaigned for something in which he believed passionately. When I worked with him, he toed the GO line. Four people decided GO policy: the hon. Member for Vauxhall, myself, my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove), and Nigel Farage. Despite our different views, we all managed to work together in the country’s interest.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

I am actually rather enjoying my hon. Friend’s speech, but will he say whether he and the other members of the GO campaign supported the shameful and outrageous “Breaking Point” poster?

[Mr Bone]

I am afraid that by the time we embarked on the referendum campaign proper, the GO movement alliance had broken down. I am sorry if I misled the House. I should have said that prior to the designation of the official campaign, the GO organisation was united, but after that its members went their separate ways. If we are touching on the issue of immigration, however, let me say that it was always GO’s view that European Union citizens who were in this country before the referendum had the right to stay. I personally would have liked the Government to act on that unilaterally, although I completely understand why they have not done so: they want to protect our citizens abroad.

Whichever way we look at it, and whichever side of the argument we were on, this was an extraordinarily democratic exercise. The great thing now is that the focus of the country is back here in this sovereign Parliament, where we can make the decisions. Let me say this to Opposition Members. Some time in the future, you will be on these Benches, and you will be able to make the laws. You will be able to push it. Hopefully, that will not happen for a long time—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Will the hon. Gentleman please say “they will able to make the laws”? I will give him 10 seconds in which to say that.

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[Mr Bone]

In fact, I am going to change my mind. They will never have a chance to make the laws.