Progress on EU Negotiations

William Cash Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The right hon. Gentleman devoted all his response to the issue of fishing. He is sitting there chuntering that this is a sell-out of Scottish fishermen. I will tell him what a sell-out of Scottish fishermen would be: the policy of the Scottish nationalists to stay in the common fisheries policy.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend accept that this declaration is self-contradictory in that it insists on the sovereignty of both the EU and the United Kingdom legal orders, and that without control of our own laws and by surrendering to binding rules of the European Court, this declaration cannot be reconciled with the repeal of the 1972 Act or with the referendum vote? Will she further note that the European Scrutiny Committee has resolved to hold an inquiry into the Government’s handling and the outcome of these negotiations?

[The Prime Minister]

This political declaration asserts the sovereignty of both sides of the agreement—the United Kingdom and the European Union—because that is exactly what will persist. We will be a sovereign nation. We will no longer be under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. There are circumstances where a point that is being looked at—for example, in arbitration—is considered to be a matter of the interpretation of European Union law. There is one body that interprets European Union law: that is the European Court of Justice. What we make clear is that, in those circumstances, the arbitration panel may ask the European Court of Justice for an opinion on the interpretation of European Union law; the arbitration panel will then consider its decision in the light of that opinion.