European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Stephen Crabb Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

I am grateful to be called in this important and serious debate, ahead of what I think most people expect to be the defeat of the proposed EU withdrawal agreement next Tuesday night.

Like so many of my colleagues, I am currently receiving hundreds of emails from constituents urging us to vote down this deal, for all kinds of different and contradictory reasons: to kill Brexit altogether; to get a second referendum; to get a softer Brexit through some kind of Norway-style deal; to get a harder Brexit or a real Brexit; to get a Canada-style deal or the WTO option; or to get rid of the Prime Minister and get somebody else in charge who genuinely believes in the Brexit project. There are so many different reasons to vote it down that we would cover all our bases by going through the No Lobby next Tuesday night. But the message I would like to give to the House, particularly to my colleagues, is that voting this deal down next Tuesday will resolve nothing at all. It might be the easiest thing to do. It might even be the smart political thing to do. But it will not take us further forward and it will resolve nothing at all.

One of the consistent themes of the negotiating process over the last 18 months has been how the sheer complexity and, at times, difficulty of the Brexit negotiations have increasingly jarred against the perfect theory and almost beautiful and optimistic simplicity of some of the leave campaign slogans that we heard during the referendum campaign in 2016. There was a beautiful and optimistic simplicity about the message of taking back control by being out rather than in. Yet as we have seen during these negotiations, the real world is much more complicated. One thing I have learned during the 14 months that I have been a member of the Exiting the European Union Committee is that there is nothing simple or straightforward about the business of withdrawing the UK from the EU after 40 years of membership.

The former New York governor Mario Cuomo used to like saying:

“You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.”

That was not an acceptance of duplicity in politics, but a recognition that, when it comes to serious and responsible government, the outcomes are always less elegant and less attractive than some of the easy campaign slogans.

As the increasing realisation has set in that Brexit is a more challenging and difficult process than many would have liked to have believed at the start, so the blame game sets in. We hear people lashing out so easily against the Prime Minister, saying things like, “It’s all her fault. This is due to her personality. She’s not tough enough. She should have been stronger. She should have been a real believer and had real faith in Brexit.” And we hear accusations against Olly Robbins and the senior civil servants: “If only we had senior civil servants who weren’t part of the metropolitan elite and who shared the general views of the real British public, we would have a more perfect Brexit option on the table in front of us.”

The truth is that we have a less than perfect Brexit deal in front of us because that was always going to be the case. I say to my Conservative colleagues that the deal on the table is not the Prime Minister’s deal—it is our deal. It already has all of our names attached to it. That is because it has been shaped, fundamentally, not by the Prime Minister’s personality and not by Olly Robbins, but by decisions that we all took as a governing party. We all agreed to the timetable of the article 50 process with its hard deadline; we signed up to that. We all stood on a manifesto last year that included the contradictory red lines that perpetuated the complete fiction that we could have all the same benefits of membership of the single market and the customs union but none of the obligations that come from that. That manifesto embodied those red lines. We are responsible for the way that this deal has been shaped, so we will share in the responsibility for what happens next.

If this deal gets voted down next week, we know—it is already clear from the first day or so of debate that we have had—that no one is sure what happens next, other than a further period of political uncertainty and turmoil, and that cannot be in our nation’s interests.

I will wrap up by saying something about my own constituency, Preseli Pembrokeshire, which voted 55:45 to leave the European Union. On the night of the referendum result, I promised, even though I had been a remain campaigner, that I would respect the outcome of the referendum, and that I would campaign and work towards the outcome being implemented, but in a way that was responsible and that sought to protect key economic interests that affect the lives of the communities in my constituency. My constituency is one of the peripheral areas of the United Kingdom. We are closer to Ireland than we are to England. We have ferry ports that connect to Ireland. We have oil refining, gas imports, farming and fishing—so many economic interests—and how we leave the EU really matters to the livelihoods of people in those sectors.

One particular sector that I want to draw attention to is oil refining. The Valero oil refinery in Pembroke is probably our largest employer—it employs 1,000 people directly and indirectly through contractors. Having sat down with the general manager of that plant a few weeks ago, I can say to the House that there are very serious and specific reasons why a no deal outcome would be very bad news indeed for that major employer in my constituency. No serious Member of Parliament for Preseli Pembrokeshire could vote for something that could lead to a no deal outcome and look their constituents in the eye again. In my time as MP, I have been through one refinery closure four years ago when the Murco refinery closed, and it was horrible. I have friends who lost their jobs; I have staff members whose family members who lost their jobs. I do not want to see that again.

How we leave the EU really matters. Yes, this is an imperfect deal; it could have been so much better if we had used our time much better as a Government and a party over the past two years. But I am going to vote for it because I believe in doing Brexit in a responsible way that protects the interests of my constituents and abides by the outcome of the referendum in 2016.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Harper]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. That is not a contract I would be willing to sign and I am afraid that is why I cannot sign up to this withdrawal agreement. It is also the case that the withdrawal agreement will hand over about £39 billion in an unconditional way. I think that most people who carry out negotiations generally do not hand over all the money until they have a deal. We should make the money conditional on both getting a good deal and getting a good deal on a timely basis. If we were to do that, we would get a good deal on a timely basis.

There may be before the House amendments to the motions and extra words may be added to the political declaration, but what we are being asked to vote on is a legally binding treaty—the withdrawal agreement. Unless that is changed, words added to the political declaration and any extra words on the motions before this House are legally meaningless. I do not think they are capable of persuading colleagues who are concerned about the withdrawal agreement that they have significantly changed the position.

[Stephen Crabb]

My right hon. Friend is making a clear and compelling speech. Given that it has been pretty clear for 12 months that the withdrawal agreement would include a Northern Irish backstop and that that would have some teeth to it, and that there was no way that the EU or the Irish Government were going to agree to a backstop with an end date because then it would not be a backstop, how does he propose that we overcome that problem? What does voting down the deal next Tuesday do to make a solution to the problem he sets out any more likely?

[Mr Harper]

First, there were two aspects to the joint report that was signed. We have delivered one of them in the withdrawal agreement. The other one was about ensuring that unfettered access to the United Kingdom market remained in place. That may well be true for Northern Ireland businesses, but it is not true for businesses in Great Britain. So we have not delivered, according to the Attorney General’s advice, on that joint report in this withdrawal agreement.

The Irish Government, the British Government and the EU have all said that they do not want to see a hard border or infrastructure—we are all committed to that and we are all supposed to be committed to reaching a deal on a future relationship—so I do not see any need to have the backstop in this deal. It is clear to me that, if the backstop remains in the deal, the Prime Minister will not be able to get it through the House. If the Cabinet’s deal is defeated—this is the Cabinet’s agreement, not just the Prime Minister’s—the Prime Minister should go to the European Council at the end of next week and say that any deal with the backstop will not be passed by this House and that they should think again. I think they will reflect on the fact that, if the fifth largest economy in the world and a close defence and security partner is leaving the EU, they have a choice: do we leave with a good, positive relationship on which we can build in the months and years to come, or do we leave with a spirit of rancour and discord? That is something our European partners will have to reflect on. I hope that, if they reflect on that, they will reach a wise and sensible decision and we can reach a sensible agreement.

My final point is aimed more at my Conservative colleagues. Because of the importance of Northern Ireland, my colleagues need to reflect on the fact that, if the deal were voted through next week, it is my belief, having listened carefully to what they have said, that the relationship between our Democratic Unionist party allies and the Prime Minister would be fractured beyond repair and what we saw yesterday, when we were defeated three times in this House, will be a state of affairs repeated on a number of occasions day after day after day. I think we would be in office but unable to govern our country effectively. Colleagues need to think about that.

It is not too late for the Prime Minister to think again, to come before the House before the vote on Tuesday and to say that she is going to change the withdrawal agreement and deliver that message to our European partners. If she does that and the withdrawal agreement is changed, I for one will happily support the Government, and I believe that the majority of MPs in this House will do so. It will unify our party and bring our DUP allies back with us. If she does that, she will have my support. If she does not, I regret that, for the first time in my 13 years in Parliament, I will be unable to support the leader of my party and the Prime Minister of my country.