United Kingdom’s Withdrawal from the European Union

Richard Bacon Excerpts

Friday 29th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir William Cash]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. We have heard a great deal about the process and the underlying reasons for this motion this morning, but we are really dealing with whether the withdrawal agreement should be passed and approved today, and if not, why not. The first point I make in that respect is quite simple and straightforward: under article 4 of the withdrawal agreement, we will, for a significant period, lose control over the lawmaking conferred on the House by virtue of our election as Members of Parliament according to the wishes of voters in general elections. It is unconscionable that, for whatever reason, the House should be politically castrated by the arrangements set out in article 4. For that reason alone, it is therefore unthinkable that the withdrawal agreement should be passed.

I just refer to the state of affairs within the German constitutional court, which takes precedence over all EU laws. That court often expresses rulings insisting that the EU can only operate or legislate in accordance with what the Bundestag has given it, and that EU actions are illegal if they depart from the terms in which the Bundestag gave that power. If that is good enough for Germany, it is good enough for this country, is it not?

I asked the Attorney General whether there will be a withdrawal and implementation Bill even if the withdrawal agreement goes down this evening. I got no answer, just as I received no answer from the Prime Minister to several questions I put to her about whether the Attorney General had given legal advice in accordance with the ministerial code. One characteristic of this debate is that, when we ask difficult questions, we tend to get no answer. That is not good enough, in terms of the accountability of the Government to the House. That is point No. 1, regarding control over laws. It is unconscionable.

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, with whom I have regular discussions. He makes an interesting point about Germany, and the fact that the Bundesverfassungsgericht has often made that point. However, is it not true that that actually amounts to no more than, to coin a phrase, a political declaration by a court? Were it tested in front of the European Court of Justice, it would be shown that German law is inferior to European law in the same way as for every other member state. That is why we in the United Kingdom have to have legal exit and stop being a member state, however painful the route to get there.

[Sir William Cash]

I understand my hon. Friend’s point, but I have to point out to him that, under EU law, it has been made abundantly clear in several cases regarding the constitutional orders of member states—van Gend en Loos, Costa and similar cases—that the European Court asserts superiority over the internal constitutional orders of the country in question. The reality is that the question he and I raise demonstrates a conflict over competence, because, as I have stated, the German constitutional court will not countenance direct contradiction of its own lawmaking.

The next point I wish to make regards the Northern Ireland backstop. I know that many Members are more than familiar with this; we have justifiably spent an enormous amount of time on this question. However, it really boils down to the constitutional status of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom. The European Communities Act 1972—[Interruption.]

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Richard Bacon Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

A constituent of mine who voted leave recently said:

“I am sick and tired of being told I didn’t know what I was voting for. I knew exactly what I was voting for.”

Recently on Bloomberg, the former Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, wrote:

“Britain is not facing an economic crisis. It is confronting a deep political crisis. Parliament has brought this on the country. It voted overwhelmingly to hold a referendum. The public were told they would decide.”

Indeed they were. On 10 November 2015, David Cameron said at Chatham House that

“ultimately it will be the judgment of the British people in the referendum…You will have to judge what is best…Your decision. Nobody else’s. Not politicians’. Not Parliament’s. Not lobby groups’. Not mine. Just you. You, the British people, will decide…It will be your decision whether to remain in the EU on the basis of the reforms we secure”—

I emphasise those words—

“or whether we leave.”

In February 2016, David Cameron secured his reforms at the EU Council. There was the so-called red card, whereby enough national Parliaments combining together might be able to block a Commission proposal. There were temporary limits on access to in-work benefits for newly arriving EU workers. There were some limits on child benefit and a vague commitment to reducing regulation. It was not very impressive, but that was the deal. People voted on whether to stay in the EU on that basis or to leave, and they voted to leave.

The question in the Scottish referendum was, “Should Scotland be an independent country?” If the vote had gone the other way and Unionists had then said: “Well, it depends what one means by ‘an independent country’”, or, “Did people really know what they were voting for? This will make Scotland poorer, I cannot possibly support it”, there would justifiably have been outrage, yet that is exactly what is happening here, where the question was straightforward. The question was, “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?”, and the people voted to leave.

The problem is that some people have no interest in respecting the result of the referendum and they think they know better. The present situation recalls Bertolt Brecht’s poem, “The Solution”:

“After the uprising of the 17th June

The Secretary of the Writers’ Union

Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee

Stating that the people

Had forfeited the confidence of the government

And could win it back only

By redoubled efforts.”

As Brecht put it so devastatingly in the final stanza:

“Would it not be easier

In that case for the government

To dissolve the people

And elect another?”

I will be voting against the withdrawal agreement because it will not deliver Brexit. It gives the EU the right to impose laws on us indefinitely and a veto over whether that would ever change, while breaking up the country by requiring Northern Ireland to treat Great Britain as a third country and making us pay £39 billion, even though without a withdrawal agreement we are not legally obliged to pay a penny. The former Chief of the Defence Staff and the former chief of the Secret Intelligence Service both say that the withdrawal agreement will fundamentally affect our national security. People voted for change. What we want is a self-governing country where we rule ourselves. We do not need this deal; we just need to leave.