UK Exit from the European Union

Debate between Royston Smith and Geraint Davies

Monday 17th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Geraint Davies]

On the hon. Gentleman’s second point, rather than his first comment, there are only two countries in the EU that sell more to us than we sell to them: Holland and Germany. The other 25 nations have an interest in tariffs, because they obviously have a trade deficit. Germany might say, “We have all these Mercedes cars we’re selling,” but we know that when they block out the Japanese—who are primarily here because they want a platform for their car industry—and sell more cars to Spain, because the Japanese cannot, even they might agree with tariffs.

The simplistic proposition that was put forward by the purveyors of “It’s going to be all right; we’ll take control,” is farcical. That campaign was led by the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the one and only right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), who—a recent article has disclosed—was in favour of remaining in the EU. I was saying as much well before that article came out, because all his family were in favour and it is rational to stay in. He made a calculation because his primary objective was to become the leader of the Conservative party and Prime Minister. He was going to be up against the then Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne), who was pro-remain. The majority of Conservatives—more than 60% of party members—are for Brexit, so his plan was to go on about how great it was going to be to take back control, while hoping that we would narrowly remain. He would then have become the great leader standing up to Europe within Europe. But it all failed.

From that article, it is clearly true that that is what it was about. The Foreign Secretary has claimed that the article was some sort of script for “Blackadder”, or whatever his latest claim is, but when I approached him just before the Brexit campaign, I asked him a question—which the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam was asked and did not answer—and which I used to ask cab drivers, or anybody else. I said, “Name me one law in Europe that you don’t like.” The right hon. Gentleman said, “Erm, there are four directives on bananas.” I said, “This is not some sort of joke. Can you think of anything?” Eventually, after some consternation, he said, “REACH.” Members will no doubt know that REACH—the regulation for the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals—applies the precautionary principle to endocrine disrupting chemicals in manufactured products. I said, “What’s wrong with that?” and he said, “Oh, well, I don’t really know,” and he walked off. His heart was not in it; his heart was in becoming the leader of the Conservative party. We are in this farcical position where we are going to lose out economically because the people of Britain have been sold a false promise.

On the point made by the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), if someone goes to a shop and buys a phone that they are told works in a certain way, and they go home and it simply does not work in that way, they have the right to go back and say, “Hold on, I was told that this worked in a certain way but it doesn’t. I want my money back.” We need another referendum.

[Royston Smith]

We seem to have turned this debate into some sort of attack on the Foreign Secretary. Were we to expand on that, we could equally talk about the Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). Because he was actually in favour of Brexit, he was so lukewarm when campaigning for remain that it caused a leadership challenge in the Labour party. We would be better moving on from the personalities and getting back to the substance laid out so eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully).

[Geraint Davies]

It is fair to say that the Foreign Secretary is not completely responsible for a narrow victory and that, had the Labour party and its leader done a better job of explaining the fact that we have inward investment because we are a platform into a big market, and we have good rights at work because they are collectively agreed, and that all that might be lost and so on—I will not run through all the arguments—we might not have ended up where we are. Indeed, had the Prime Minister not been so complacent about staying in the EU that he decided not to give 16-year-olds the right to vote in the referendum and not to allow British people living abroad to vote, we would be in a different place. It is obviously not all the fault of the Foreign Secretary; I am simply saying that his primary objective was to become, essentially, the leader of Britain, and that as a result our destiny has changed. It is a great tragedy of Greek proportions.