Leaving the EU

Richard Drax Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Article 50 is the basis on which the negotiations have been held. It was the triggering of article 50 that led to the negotiations and led to the timetable for leaving on 29 March 2019. Article 50, in itself, does not determine the nature of any future relationship with the European Union, so it is not a question of what article 50 says; it is a question of negotiating a deal. We have negotiated a deal, and it is a good deal for the UK.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend talks about the national interest, and we all have the national interest at heart, even if we do not necessarily agree with her deal, which I personally think is a halfway house that leaves us neither in nor out of the EU, with no confirmed end date. If we cannot get the free trade deal that we should be able to get, surely the best way to unite the country is to leave the EU, negotiate a deal from outside and get our country back.

[The Prime Minister]

I believe that the deal we have negotiated does enable us to do the things I am sure my hon. Friend would wish us to do—crucially, to bring an end to the jurisdiction of the ECJ in the UK; crucially, to bring an end to free movement once and for all; and to come out of those aspects of the European Union that have not provided for certain sectors of our economy, such as the common agricultural policy and the common fisheries policy. We are negotiating a deal with a free trade area at its heart, and it goes beyond any other free trade agreement that the European Union has negotiated with other countries. It is an agreement of unprecedented ambition and depth that is being proposed for the United Kingdom.