Business of the House (Saturday 19 October)

Stewart Hosie Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

These are the matters that will be discussed if we pass the motion to sit on Saturday, so I think we are getting slightly ahead of ourselves in trying to go into the details of the debate. Much though I should like to be the one dealing with that debate, that will belong to higher authorities than me, who will I am sure welcome questions from the right hon. Gentleman.

[Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)]

May I seek some clarification before we decide whether to sit and have this debate on Saturday? The Government have published a declaration, a political declaration and a substantial protocol. However, the actual changes to the withdrawal agreement—in articles 184 and 185—are contained on a single page, which is the last page of the protocol. Those are the substantial—if one could call it that—changes. Can the Leader of the House confirm that, should we sit and debate this on Saturday, what we will actually be debating is fundamentally the same withdrawal agreement that has already failed to pass this House on a number of occasions?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am sorry to be distracted down this route, Mr Speaker, but I hope you will allow me a little leeway, because that point is so fundamentally wrong. The new agreement is of the greatest significance and the greatest change. The backstop, which has been excised, meant that we could be tied into the rules and regulations and the customs union of the European Union forever. It was harder to leave the backstop than to leave the European Union itself. Under article 4 of the previous treaty, that would then have been our senior law, in exactly the same way as EU law takes direct effect under the European Communities Act 1972.

That was not leaving the European Union; the change that has been made means that we will leave the European Union, and we will be in charge of our own destiny and of our own future. It does surprise me that the nationalist party wants independence yet wants to be under the yoke of Brussels, but we want to be free to make our own way because we have confidence in our ability to make our own way successfully, without being told what to do by others.