European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I have said I will make some progress, and then I will be generous in my acceptance of interventions.

We can choose to settle this issue now by backing the deal in this motion—a deal that delivers Brexit and a new partnership with the European Union, a deal that delivers for the whole United Kingdom, a deal that begins to bring our country back together again.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

The deal that my right hon. Friend has brought back has my full and unequivocal support, but may I ask her to confirm that, as we leave, our country will still be a rules-based, international, outward-looking, caring and compassionate country that stands as a beacon for good in the world?

[The Prime Minister]

I am very happy to give my hon. Friend that absolute reassurance, but more than that, we will be a country that promotes those values and that promotes that rules-based international order around the world. That is what we have always done as the UK, and it is what we will continue to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Boris Johnson]

I must make some progress. If we vote for this deal, we are not taking back control. Indeed, I say to colleagues and friends across the House of Commons that we are part of a representative democracy, and voting for this deal would be not just like, as it were, turkeys voting for Christmas; it is actually worse than that. There is a sense in which we would be voting for Turkey, or Turkish—[Interruption.] That is exactly true. We would be voting for Turkish-style membership of the customs union, obliged to watch as access to the UK market is traded by Brussels, but with no say in the negotiations. Of course, the kicker is that with its veto, the EU ensures that the backstop that they impose on us is more subservient even than the arrangements that the Turks have—[Interruption.] That is absolutely true. It is a wonder, frankly, that any democratic politician could conceivably vote for this deal, and yet I know that many good colleagues are indeed determined to do so in the belief that we have no alternative or that we have run out of road, and as we heard earlier, that Brussels will offer us nothing else.

[Simon Hoare]

rose—

[Boris Johnson]

And I want respectfully to deal with those anxieties, which I am sure my hon. Friend shares.

[Simon Hoare]

Given that my right hon. Friend appears to be unwilling to enter into an understanding of what a negotiation is, can we take it that he has only ever meant that no deal is a good deal because he does not believe in having a deal with an institution—this windmill at which he tilts at every turn—to which he is philosophically opposed?

[Boris Johnson]

I have great respect and admiration for my hon. Friend, but I do not philosophically oppose the EU; I simply think that membership is no longer right for the UK. That was what I campaigned on, and I think the British people were completely right. I do not believe that no deal is the option we should be going for automatically, but I will come to that in just a minute. I want to deal with the anxieties that I know that he shares, because I think that he is profoundly mistaken, as indeed are other colleagues, in thinking that we have absolutely no option but to go ahead on this basis. We have plenty of other options. In order to see the way ahead, we need to understand what happens if next Tuesday this great House of Commons votes down this deal, as I very much hope it does. I will tell hon. Members what will happen, but they have to put themselves in the mind of our counterparts across the table in Brussels. In Brussels, they think they’ve got us beat— they do.