European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

The Attorney General admitted that there are two problems with the deal. It is a bit like a yachtsman who, when seeing his yacht on the rocks, says, “That anchor chain was great. Only two links were bad.” That is what he is giving the House. It is a disaster, and well he knows it. My second point is that he misunderstood the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown). He was not talking about fish being caught, but fish as a commodity once caught. If it is landed in Northern Ireland, it is in a more advantaged position for export to Europe than fish caught and then landed in Scotland for export to Europe. He should recognise that and be straight with my hon. Friend, which I am sure he was trying to be, but he misunderstood the point.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

rose—

[The Attorney General]

I wonder whether I might take the intervention of the hon. and learned Lady.

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[The Attorney General]

I would need to examine the issue. I am not certain the hon. Gentleman is right but, again, I have offered to discuss it.

[Joanna Cherry]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman says he is much exercised about legal certainty, so may I ask him about paragraph 2 of his letter yesterday on the exchange of letters? He said that the letters from the Council

“would have legal force in international law and…be relevant and cognisable in the interpretation of the…Agreement…albeit they do not alter the fundamental meanings”

of the withdrawal agreement’s provisions. He, as a senior lawyer, like me will know that in a competition between the letter of assurance and the withdrawal agreement, the withdrawal agreement, as the international treaty, will triumph. That is the case, is it not?

[The Attorney General]

Let me say straightaway, as my letter says, that these assurances, in my view, make a difference to the political question that each of us has to take, but, as I said in the letter, they do not affect the legal equation.

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[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

You have selected amendment (b) to be voted on tonight, Mr Speaker. It is obvious that one of the problems with this agreement is the Northern Ireland backstop. We have no ability to end it unilaterally, and no end date has been set. My amendment addresses that problem by proposing that

“if it becomes clear by the end of 2021 that the European Union will not agree to remove the Northern Ireland backstop, the United Kingdom will treat the indefinite continuation of the backstop as a fundamental change of circumstances”,

and will therefore abrogate those parts of the withdrawal agreement. This is a vital point because, under international law, if you sign a treaty saying that under the treaty something will be temporary and it turns out to be permanent, or semi-permanent, you surely have the right to abrogate those parts of the treaty. I ask those who say that amendment (b) is defective in law to look at my amendment (r), which sets out international law in this regard and it would be perfectly possible, allowable and in accordance with precedent under international law for the Government when they sign this treaty to issue what is called a letter of reservation making it clear.

[Joanna Cherry]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Will the hon. and learned Lady allow me to continue, as so many Members wish to speak? [Interruption.] Yes, fewer Members get in if there are interventions.

My amendment is trying to achieve a compromise. It tries to unite as many people as possible around a deal. I must say that having done my level best to help the Government to achieve this compromise I am somewhat disappointed that the Attorney General appears to have slapped it down, following my intervention on him, and therefore I reserve the right, if the Government are not prepared to support this amendment, to vote against the main motion. Why? Because I believe the fundamental problem with this withdrawal agreement is the fear that the Northern Ireland backstop will become permanent; I think I speak for many Conservative Members in saying that. Therefore, we have to find a way of solving this problem. I have no doubt that, if the main motion is lost tonight, the Government will go back to Brussels and try to get some movement on this issue. But, actually, you do not need to unpick the withdrawal agreement; you can do this unilaterally under international law. It is perfectly possible and feasible for the Government to go back to Brussels and inform the EU of their right to issue a letter of reservation making it clear that we cannot allow this backstop to be permanent, and I do not believe that that would destroy the whole deal.

I agree that we have to try to get a deal. I want there to be a deal with the EU. That is what I have been arguing for. I do not want to risk Brexit. I follow the words of the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field). I am aware that this might be in many respects the best deal we are going to get. I do not want to walk through the same Lobby as Members of the Opposition. I do not want to please Tony Blair, who wants chaos so he can argue for a second referendum. I want to bind this party together and find a compromise, and the compromise is staring us in the face. This one last issue needs to be resolved. Then we can unite, get a deal and move things forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

Yesterday the Prime Minister wondered what the history books will make of all this, and I would like to venture a few suggestions. She will be remembered as the Prime Minister who presided over the biggest failure of government and leadership in the United Kingdom in modern times. Instead of having the moral courage to face up to the fact that the EU referendum was won on the back of lies and fraud, she set out to achieve the unachievable—a deal better than the deal we currently enjoy.

In doing so, she has ignored the weight of expert evidence. She has ignored the economic assessments of her own Government and advisers, presided over a regime so incompetent and questionable that no-deal Government contracts are being awarded without competitive tendering to dubious entities without any legal justification whatsoever, and spent hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money trying to prevent us from knowing the answer to the question of whether article 50 could be unilaterally revoked. She barely has the confidence of her own party, and its Members only put up with her because none of them has the gumption to step up to the plate to sort out this mess.

It is likely that the Prime Minister soon will not have the confidence of this House. In Scotland, she has never had our confidence and never will. She should not take the Scots for fools. The majority of us voted to remain, and the majority of Scots now realise that they were lied to during the 2014 independence referendum. Those lies were that Scotland was an equal partner and that the only way to guarantee staying in the EU was to vote to stay in the UK. The results of referendums won on the back of lies cannot stand. That is why I am voting down this deal. I want a second EU referendum and there should also be a second Scottish independence referendum.