Brexit and Foreign Affairs

Stephen Gethins Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)]

I start on a European theme, which is apt. The Prime Minister called the election because she was concerned about the opposition to her ideas on our future relationship with Europe. In response, the electorate made politics in this place that little bit more European: no one party holding a majority and parties being forced by the electorate to work together is common in other European legislatures and it is an idea that we certainly welcome. At long last, this place seems to be catching up with ideas that have caught on elsewhere in the UK, with minority Governments in both Edinburgh and Cardiff at the moment. Once again, Westminster appears to be playing catch up with both the devolved Administrations and our European partners.

No party in the House, not least mine or others, has a majority of wisdom or all the good ideas. Big decisions will be made that impact on us all and are the responsibility of this place, devolved Administrations and local government. I have said before that democracy no longer begins and ends here, and the same should be true of decision making, so I welcome the Secretary of State’s remarks earlier about a legislative consent motion. If I may say this to him, I do not expect the devolved Administrations to give the Government a blank cheque, and nor should he expect one.

Only two parties in this Parliament won a majority of the seats in which they stood at the election: the Democratic Unionist party and the Scottish National party. I hope that they will be listened to in equal measure on these issues. In spite of our clear mandate, we are prepared to listen and work with other parties.

I also recognise the loss of some our finest parliamentarians at the last general election. After all, Angus Robertson—I have heard the chuntering from those on the Labour Benches, but they could learn a thing or two from him about providing effective opposition to that lot—was a parliamentarian who managed to show up the Prime Minister long before the Labour party managed to do so.

Alex Salmond is a political giant and one of the few parliamentarians with extensive experience of minority government. The UK Government may wish to reflect on the fact that the former First Minister led a Government for a full term, passing historic measures on free education, world-beating climate change measures and measures on universal services that remain the envy of the rest of the UK, with just 47 out of 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament. That is something that they will perhaps reflect on.

We on these Benches stand on the shoulders of giants, and if I might be permitted to say so, Mr Deputy Speaker, that includes our former leader and former Member for Dundee, East, Gordon Wilson, who passed away yesterday. It is easy to forget in these days when some in this Chamber claim that a majority of Scottish seats is somehow a failure that our former leader sat in a group of two. In spite of those numbers, he provided Dundee and Scotland with a powerful voice. We on these Benches, and I think elsewhere, owe him a huge debt of gratitude. We think of him and of his wife, Edith, at this moment.

Given the dynamics of Parliament, the SNP group will use its position to work with others where we can. That will be especially important in terms of our future relationship with our European partners. It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of those negotiations to each and every one of us. It is fair to say and abundantly clear that this Government do not have all the answers on our future relationship with Europe. They have taken up the “whole lotta nothing” provided by Vote Leave and built on that with a year of not much in the way of progress. I am afraid to say to the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union that the talks have not got off to the best of starts, as the Labour spokesperson, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), said. The Secretary of State promised us the “row of the summer” over whether trade talks should start at the same time as talks on agreeing the cost of Brexit. That has turned into the “sound of silence”—the new quiet man, indeed, of Conservative party politics. It would be comical if it were not so serious.

The whole Government must have some culpability for the vacuum that has been left in our relationship with Europe, and none more so than the Foreign Secretary, who sat at the heart of the leave campaign and has spent a year in the Foreign Secretary’s chair giving us not much more detail than we had previously.

A minority Administration leaves all of us in this Chamber, not least those of us on the SNP Benches and Members across the Opposition Benches, with an opportunity. May I give credit to my colleagues from across the political divide who have put aside political differences to table amendments such as that which stands in my name and that of other colleagues, and I include in that the hon. Members for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) and for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas)? We will not agree on everything, but where we can agree we should try to come together.

We certainly agree that we should try to retain our membership of the single market and the customs union, and provide both a role for devolved Administrations and security for EU nationals, which, frankly, they deserve and which we should have given them long before now. That respects the referendum result. In fact, in July last year, just after the EU referendum, the Secretary of State for Scotland, no less, argued:

“My role is to ensure Scotland gets the best possible deal and that deal involves clearly being part of the single market.”

We had a referendum that delivered a narrow win for leave and a general election in which no one won a majority, but there was certainly a rejection of a hard Tory Brexit, so where we can come together we should do so. There has to be—I will say it clearly—a four-nation, cross-party and cross-institutional approach. That is the clear mandate that we have been given from the electorate across the UK.

In terms of the devolved Administrations, it is important that the Government do not turn the great repeal Bill— or rather the repeal Bill now—into the power grab undermining devolution. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) pointed out, whatever happened to the promise from the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs that it would be “for Scotland to decide” its immigration levels? For the avoidance of doubt, and there seemed to be some from the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, that came from the DEFRA Secretary just before, on “Good Morning Scotland” no less.

I am a passionate pro-European and our relationship with the EU is one that gave me many opportunities. It has made us all safer, healthier and wealthier, and the UK’s departure is bad news for our EU partners, but worse news for us in the UK. In fact—I see the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi) in his place—it was our Foreign Affairs Committee report that found that although no deal would be bad for our European partners, it would be much worse for the UK. That was the conclusion that we collectively came to.

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I would not want the hon. Gentleman accidently to misrepresent our report. What we precisely said was that there would be mutually assured damage if there was no deal and that in absolute terms the damage would probably be greater to the 27 than to us, because that is where the balance of trade and the money flows sit, but that in relative terms the damage would be greater to the UK. I think that is a full summary of the conclusions of our report, which we fairly reported.

[Stephen Gethins]

I thank the, at the moment, former Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee for that intervention, but what he makes clear and what we came to a collective decision on was that this will be damaging for the UK. It is damage that we are causing to ourselves, and that we can do something about. We are willing to compromise. The Scottish Government’s publication, “Scotland’s Place in Europe”, provided a route towards a mid-way option. That openness, despite the fact that Scotland and my constituents voted overwhelmingly to remain part of the EU, shows the way we have to go.

I want to touch briefly on a couple of other issues apart from Europe. We are undergoing the worst refugee crisis in European terms and global displacement stands at almost 60 million people—its highest ever level. UK foreign policy must bear some responsibility, and I am sure that the Foreign Secretary will reflect on some of the measures that we should be taking. Not least, we have those fleeing conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the open door that is the failed state in Libya. In Syria, which is so closely linked to the refugee crisis, we need a coherent, long-term strategy. With regard to Yemen, we on the SNP Benches will continue to ask questions about arms sales to those involved in the conflict.

I was glad to hear the right hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) mention Ukraine. On Russia, we must continue to work with our European partners, not least in relation to Russia’s actions in Ukraine, the Caucasus and elsewhere. I am grateful to him for making those points.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

All the party manifestos committed the UK Government to retaining the 0.7% aid target, but does my hon. Friend share my concern about some of the language in the Conservative manifesto, which seemed to suggest that the Government could simply redefine aid and spend it on whatever they wanted?

[Stephen Gethins]

My hon. Friend, as usual, makes an excellent point. In this Parliament we will seek to build on the good work he did in his previous role as our international development spokesperson, especially with reference to the 0.7% commitment. Perhaps the Foreign Secretary will also mention that.

In conclusion, my appeal is that we continue to work together. Our European neighbours remain our closest partners, not just geographically, but economically, culturally and politically. That reality needs to start seeping in. We will work as constructively as we can with colleagues in other political parties, but there must be an openness and a willingness to do so.