European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill

William Cash Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 4th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

I have not had a chance to read the final version, and it will be tabled with the Clerks during this Second Reading debate, but I am aware of the intention of the amendment and I completely understand what my hon. Friends are trying to achieve. We cannot continue to delay taking a decision, and I shall come back to that point later in my speech. I will, of course, also listen to the debate that follows in Committee. I would just say that the Bill is deliberately open as to the purpose of the extension; it provides a framework for reporting and debate. As I have just pointed out, it is supported by right hon. and hon. Members who have already voted for a deal and would vote for one again. It is important that we focus on the principal purpose, which is to prevent a no-deal Brexit, and keep the coalition that shares that view together. I will have more to say about that—

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman believe that, irrespective of the speed with which all this is being done, a matter of such importance should really be dealt with in the context of a general election?

[Hilary Benn]

There may well be a general election at some point, but this legislation needs to be passed. It needs to go through the other place and receive Royal Assent, and it needs to be given effect. In other words, we must secure that extension to article 50, otherwise there is a risk that the election would result in our leaving without a deal, which, as it may turn out at 7 o’clock tonight, is not what the House of Commons wants. We should respect the view of the House of Commons.

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[Alistair Burt]

Absolutely. In my conclusion, I shall talk a bit about that and how we have got to reset, but the hon. Lady makes a good point.

Secondly, why do we want to avoid no deal? I will not repeat all the things that the right hon. Member for Leeds Central said, which are obvious; the economics are clear. For me, there are three reasons. The first is the threat to the Union. I am a Scot, my mother and father are from Scotland. I am a proud Scot. I am also British through and through. I could not believe a recent poll of Conservative members that said they would abandon almost anything, including the Union, providing they left the EU. I regard that as a terrible threat. We should not risk it.

My second reason is Ireland, which is treated by some here as some sort of irrelevance and a place that has made up the border issue to prevent us from leaving the EU. With our history in relation to Ireland and everything that happened there, it became our best friend in the European Union. Our choice to leave—our Brexit—has put Ireland in the most catastrophic situation of any country, and we now expect it to accept another English demand that it should do something. Have we no understanding of what that relationship means and the damage done?

My third reason for wanting to avoid no deal is the damage to Europe and the relationship with Europe itself. I grew up as part of the first generation to avoid war in Europe for countless hundreds of years. I arrived in the House of Commons when there were giants here such as Denis Healey, Willie Whitelaw and Ted Heath—people for whom Europe was the place where they and their friends had fought and died—and they wanted something different. That has always motivated me in my sense of Europe. Whether we are in the European Union or not, that relationship with Europe is clouded by the sort of language that the hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) mentioned. I do not want to see that relationship threatened by a no deal.

[Sir William Cash]

Will he take a second intervention?

[Alistair Burt]

I have listened to the hon. Gentleman involuntarily for most of the years that I have been here—most, not all, because I went to campaign for him in his by-election of 1984. I have no wish to hear from him voluntarily. [Laughter.] Let me go on.

Thirdly, let me end where I began, as the Independent Member for North East Bedfordshire. I do not complain at the removal of the Whip—voting on an issue of confidence, I accept the rules—but I say to my colleagues: just think how this looks. Last week, the Conservative party lost Ruth Davidson, and George Young in the House of Lords resigned the Whip. This morning, we lost my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond) —who made the economy we were cheering just a few minutes ago. What are people going to think about what we have left and what we have lost? Some will have been very happy at the fact that some have been purged—purged. A few weeks ago, one of our colleagues retweeted an article in The Daily Telegraph that looked forward to the purging of remoaners in the Conservative party. That was disgraceful. I say to my colleagues, if we are being purged now, who is next? Watch a film called “Good Night, and Good Luck”, and you will take my point.

This may be the last substantive speech I make here as I am not standing again—and who knows when the election will come? I will leave with the best of memories of this place, friends and colleagues on all sides. The obsession that my party has developed may have sought to devalue my past as a friend of the EU, of our sister centre-right parties, and of many friends, and it may have curtailed my future, but it will not rob me of what I believe. I will walk out of here looking up at the sky, not down at my shoes. [Applause.]

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[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

I want to refer briefly to the remarks of the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt). I simply want to explain very simply that I was going to intervene because he referred to the sacrifice that people had made in the last war and I want to put it on record that my father was killed in the last war, and I think I understand not only the issues involved in that, but also the fact that he fought for freedom, and I believe that that is our heritage, and that is what we should fight for—not to be governed by other people. I just leave that on the record.

I happen also to very much agree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) on what is an extremely rare occasion when somebody has actually explained, as I have a number of times, that there is nothing in this arrangement that has been foisted upon us that would prevent us from leaving without a deal. We can do so if we wish to do so, and there is nothing in the referendum Act, or any question in the Act, which constrains us from that course of action.

Fundamentally, I simply want to make the following point. I would not call this the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill; I would call it the European Union (Subservience) Bill. We have only to look at the words in the Bill, and in the very short time that I have available I will simply refer to a few of its phrases. Clause 1 says:

“The Prime Minister must seek to obtain from the European Council an extension of the period”.

Clause 3 states:

“If the European Council decides to agree an extension…the Prime Minister must, immediately after such a decision is made, notify the President of the European Council that the United Kingdom agrees to the proposed extension”

and so on.

Clause 4 says, in relation to the withdrawal Act of 2018 that, where regulations are to be made, for the definition of exit day

“for ‘may’ substitute ‘must’.”

This is a disgraceful reversal of our constitutional arrangements. We operate in a free Parliament where we have elections that are taken periodically—every five years as a normal rule—and we make our decisions. We have a system of parliamentary Government, not government by Parliament; that is a fundamental constitutional principle. This Bill offends that principle, and that is why I am deeply opposed to its proposals.