European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

After three months of running down the clock, the Prime Minister has, despite very extensive delays, achieved not a single change to the withdrawal agreement: not one single word has changed. In terms of the substance, literally nothing has changed.

On 29 January, the Prime Minister backed an amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady), which called for the backstop

“to be replaced with alternative arrangements”.

On 12 February, the Prime Minister said that the Government were seeking three potential changes to the backstop:

“a legally binding time limit… a legally binding unilateral exit clause”,

or

“the ideas put forward by the Alternative Arrangements Working Group”.—[Official Report, 12 February 2019; Vol. 654, c. 731.]

There is no unilateral exit mechanism, there is no time limit, and there are no alternative arrangements.

So let us be clear: the withdrawal agreement is unchanged, the political declaration is unchanged, the joint statement is a legal interpretation of what is in the withdrawal agreement, and the unilateral statement is the UK Government trying to fool their own Back Benchers, because the European Union has not even signed up to it.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman not recognise that millions of citizens out there are looking to his party—cross-party—to deliver the certainty that they are crying out for? Can he not compromise, as many colleagues have done, to deliver the result of the referendum?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The Labour party has put forward very clear proposals. I shall come to them later in the speech, but, for the avoidance of doubt, they are about a customs union, access to the market, and the protection of rights. We have put those proposals forward, and we continue to put them forward. What the British people are not looking forward to is either the chaos of leaving with no agreement or the problems that are involved in this agreement, which will therefore be strongly opposed by Members tonight.