European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Sam Gyimah Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend.

[Mr Sam Gyimah (East Surrey) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is being incredibly generous in giving way. She makes a very powerful point about accountability to the democratic will of the people. If, in delivering on the democratic will of the people, we end up as rule-takers of rules over which we have no say, can she explain to the House in what way we are actually delivering on that will?

[Nicky Morgan]

I think my hon. Friend is anticipating the phase 2 negotiations about the form of the future relationship. The difficulty with that is that, unless we pass this withdrawal agreement today or in the next couple of weeks, we are not going to get on to debating phase 2. If my hon. Friend wants to have that debate, he needs to vote for the agreement tonight and then make sure that we are going to move on to phase 2.

I will be brief because I know that many other right hon. and hon. Members want to speak in this debate. I have said before that it is very easy to remain in our entrenched positions and to keep saying the same things over and over again. However, I challenge hon. Members on both sides of the House to think about whether now is the time—and we have heard that my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) could vote for the agreement tonight—to say that we will change our positions.

Actions and votes have consequences, and if this withdrawal agreement is not passed this evening, we may move on tomorrow to a debate about no deal and we may then move on to a debate about the extension of article 50. There will be those in this House who want to have those debates, either because they think no deal is a good thing, or because they think they can take it off the table and potentially put the option of remaining on the table.

A short extension of article 50 would be worse than useless, creating more uncertainty and instability in this country, so I urge right hon. and hon. Members, particularly on these Benches, who have said so far today that they have made up their mind or that they might vote against the agreement, “Please think again”, because the beneficial consequences of passing this withdrawal agreement tonight will be enormous, and I think the public will thank us for it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Sam Gyimah (East Surrey) (Con)]

In the brief time I have available, I do not wish to re-litigate the 2016 referendum. I take the view that whatever their reasons, people knew why they voted the way they did and that those reasons should be accepted. But there is a difference between where we all were during the referendum campaign and where we are now: today, we all now know what is negotiable. I certainly did not know what was negotiable in 2016, and none of our manifestos talked about the issue of Northern Ireland, which has dominated the negotiations so much. Given that we now know what is negotiable, what is the way forward?

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right that during the referendum campaign the issue of the Northern Ireland border was raised only in so far as the movement of people was concerned, and that issue was dealt with by the common travel area. Is that not an indication that the problems along the Northern Ireland border and the terms of the withdrawal agreement have been manufactured for an unnecessary reason, which is that the EU is using the Northern Ireland border as a way to keep the United Kingdom in both the customs union and the single market?

[Mr Gyimah]

I shall come to my comments on the backstop in a moment, but it is definitely clear that although our manifestos committed us to a certain course of action, as all manifestos do, we did not fully appreciate the details of the negotiation in which we were going to be involved.

[Luke Graham]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Gyimah]

Let me just develop this point.

Ordinarily, a manifesto promise is taken through this House, with a Green Paper, a White Paper, First Reading and so on. The manifesto commitment is calibrated and then eventually delivered. The negotiation has been the process through which we have been going with our manifesto commitment.

I could vote for this deal if there was a vision for the future of this country at the heart of it. I could vote for this deal if there was a sense of where we were going at the heart of it. I could vote for this deal if, as many expected, it would improve on the current deal. Reading the newspapers at the moment, I find it depressing how many commentators are saying to us, “The grim reality is that MPs must hold their nose and vote for this.” Someone said today that this is a “grotesquely flawed” deal, but MPs should still vote for it. We are being encouraged to recommend for our constituents something that we blatantly know is not really in the country’s interest. One thing that leavers and remainers all agree on is that had the deal before us been put to us and there had not been a referendum, none of us would recommend it to our constituents as the right path for the future of our country.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Ind)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that had our constituents seen the reality of the actual Brexit deal, they too would have rejected it, and that they should have the opportunity to have the final say and a right to vote, not just MPs?

[Mr Gyimah]

The hon. Lady makes a powerful point, to which I shall return in a second.

We have this misleading cliché today that we just have to get on with it, as though the result is somehow immaterial so long as we do. That gives me cause for extreme concern about supporting the deal. Let me make two principal points. First, as far as I can understand it, the backstop is there to try to solve an impossible problem: we want to take control of our borders but we want the other side to have an open border. The back- stop exists now because after months and years of negotiation, we have not found a solution to that problem. If those who, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), say that alternative arrangements could solve the problem genuinely believe that such arrangements could, they need not fear the backstop.

The truth is that dealing with these alternative arrangements on their own will not address the need for the backstop. The side deal that the Prime Minister has come back with improves things to some extent, but the EU has no need to act in bad faith because it knows that, between now and 2020, we will keep going round the same loop, trying to find alternative arrangements. If we are not careful, we may still end up in that backstop, which is why there is such serious concern.

My second point is on the political declaration.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Gyimah]

I would like to develop this point.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough said that there is no point in discussing the political declaration. She said that all we need to do is vote for the withdrawal agreement, and discussions on the political declaration will come later. We in this House must get real about what the meaningful vote and the withdrawal agreement mean two to three steps down the line.

[Justine Greening (Putney) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a very powerful point. It is easy to forget that when the Prime Minister set out in her Lancaster House speech the many tests and criteria that she felt we needed for a successful Brexit, one of them was to have a future partnership agreed over the course of the two-year article 50 period. As he will know, that was the first time that she mentioned the phrase “No deal is better than a bad deal”, but no deal in that context reflected the future partnership agreement, not just the withdrawal agreement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gyimah]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that point. I am running out of time, so I will have to move on very quickly.

The issue with the political declaration is that, after 29 March, we have no idea what happens. We have no strategy and no plan. What the Prime Minister has said is that she will consult this House on a mandate for negotiation, but if her red lines still exist, how will this House agree on a mandate for negotiation as far as the political declaration and our future are concerned? I cannot see how that is possible given that, today, we know that there is no majority for any of those options in this House.

We know that there are some in this House who would rather that we diverge as far from the EU as we can and go cap in hand to an America First President for that free trade deal. Is there a majority for that in this House? We are setting sail, or we are being encouraged to set sail, with no idea about the future. By August, we will have to decide what our negotiating position is for the 21-month period, because another clock starts ticking after 29 March. The longer that we take to work out our negotiating position, the more we eat into our own negotiating time. Very quickly, this House will have to decide whether it wants to get closer to the EU, whether it wants to diverge a bit more, or whether it wants to be somewhere in the middle. Whenever anyone asks this question, they are told, “You are trying to frustrate Brexit.” The truth is that leaving somewhere and going somewhere are not the same thing. We can all leave this Chamber, and two of us could go in completely different directions. We need to understand where we are going, which is why, for me, extending article 50, pausing and reflecting and working that out, is important.

The scene that we have seen over the past few months of Brexit Ministers having to buy a frequent pass on the Eurostar to go to Brussels to secure a concession will be played out time and time again, because we will have left with our hands tied behind our back and everything we want will come at a price. How would we have taken control on behalf of our constituents if that is what happens?