European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Dean Russell

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

After sharing many conversations with friends around the House and on various Benches, I am sorry to say that I disagree with the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) and many on the Opposition Benches. I am going to vote, alongside Members of the Dáil and Parliaments around Europe, to back this treaty. I am going to recognise that the European Union has made an offer and we have accepted it, and that we have made one and they have accepted it, and I am going to respect that. That is why I am going to vote with the Government today.

After the last four years, nobody can claim that breaking up is easy, so I am delighted that I was here to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) speak, because what he said, he said with his usual candour. He respects our interdependence, and he respects that that interdependence comes at a cost when we assert independence from it. I respect that; he is right. He also made it clear that sovereignty is deeper than deals: it is in the Government’s robustness and preparedness and in their willingness to defend our interests with vigour. Great Britain, as he rightly said, has guarded its sovereignty in this agreement.

After years of acrimony and anger, it is time to end the constitutional Kama Sutra that has left us all bruised, exhausted and distracted from our families, our friends and our communities. It is time to move on.

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

In constituencies such as mine there was great division around Brexit and the referendum. Does my hon. Friend agree that when the Division bell rings today and the deal goes through, it is time to heal those divisions and to move forward together as one Union?

[Tom Tugendhat]

I absolutely agree. We have been in the EU for only 47 years—that is the lifespan of a Hohenzollern empire. We are leaving the EU, just as Germany left that empire, and we will find a new way of working together. This deal is but the first step on that journey; it is just the concordat that bridges the channel and looks to future co-operation.

Many areas are overlooked; many people have mentioned them, and I know will build into them. Building on the rule of law, our close partnership with like-minded democracies, our new alliances with European countries and other countries around the world, and our global ambition—in many ways that was the building block for the Union of our four nations, which still lives in the hearts of our people today—we can see our people prosper in security and peace for years to come. Indeed, we have achieved that as an island nation for longer than almost any other nation.

The history of that stability is one reason why the Foreign Affairs Committee has heard from people such as the King of Jordan and the former President of Liberia, Nobel peace prize winners, former Foreign Ministers, business leaders and diplomats that British leadership has been missed for too long. They recognise that what we offer is worth having. We need now to invest in our foreign services and co-ordinate our Departments to deliver abroad, and we need to do more than roll over trade deals.

Wars are not won by defence but, as NATO doctrine puts it, by offensive action. We need to be bold if we are to chart a different future and we need to build on the Prime Minister’s coming visit to India and the wider alliance that is coming together in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. We would be welcomed hugely, and I have been told clearly by many, particularly by the Pacific democracies. We have a chance to renew international co-operation and commit ourselves to the environmental revolution that is so essential as we chair the G7 and COP26. This Government have the chance to set the agenda that the world needs to protect democracy at a time of autocracy and to defend the rule of law. We can make Glasgow the next milestone after Paris in the path to a greener world. Britain will succeed if we remember our friends in Europe, the Commonwealth and the world, if we renew our alliances and build new partnerships, and if we develop new, greener markets and industries, innovate and invest in ourselves. This is a new beginning and we alone are responsible for seizing it.