EU Withdrawal Agreement

Alex Chalk Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening (Putney) (Con)]

As I speak today, we are just over 100 days from Britain leaving the European Union. There is no plan being debated in this House, no vote in this House and no plan B. Instead what we see, depressingly for many people outside this place, is just party politics. Last week, we had the spectacle of a potential Tory leadership campaign, which I voted against. This week, we have the shambolic Opposition attempt to try to decide whether they have the confidence to bring a no confidence vote. I think people have a sense of drift in Parliament at the very moment when they want decisions to be taken that can help to get our country back on track as the clock ticks down towards Brexit.

People also recognise that, as has been the case for the past two and a half years, we are not discussing anything else. The issues they face in their day-to-day lives are going missing in this Chamber. The challenges my constituents face—South West Trains, housing, tax credits, universal credit and so on—are not being discussed in this Chamber with the level of intensity that the British people need if we are to play our role as a Parliament scrutinising the performance of Government. We have to get back on to the domestic agenda. Until we solve Brexit, we will not begin to get on to solving the challenges that people face in their day-to-day lives.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

I strongly respect my right hon. Friend, but if there were to be a second referendum and remain were to narrowly win, does she seriously think that that would draw a line under the European issue? Is it not far more likely that it would rumble on—and rumble on for a generation?

[Justine Greening]

We have to accept that this country will always debate its relationship with the European Union and our neighbouring countries on the continent of which we are a part. We are a part of the continent, but we are an island just off the mainland of that continent. It is almost an inevitability that we will continue to debate how close our relationship should be with our European neighbours. We should accept that as normal, instead of obsessing about it as a Parliament and as a country when there are so many other, more pressing issues in the 21st century that we now need to get on with.

--- Later in debate ---

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening). On her challenge, on the Order Paper today I have tabled the European Union (Revocation of Notification of Withdrawal) Bill, because I think that there is consensus in the House that we do not want a no-deal Brexit and the chaos that would bring, including the lack of medicines, the lack of food, and economic catastrophe.

What the Bill says, in essence, is that a deal should be voted on here; if it is agreed to, it should subsequently be voted on by the people; if they agree to it, we should go merrily along that Brexit route; but if it is not agreed to, we should remain in the EU, which would mean the revocation of article 50. That is what people expect of this place. They do not expect some sort of chaos. I accept that the Prime Minister has done her best in a difficult situation, going to the EU to negotiate and trying to bring together two irreconcilable models, the pure Brexiteer and the pure remainer, but it is obvious that the Government, and the whole country, are split.

The Secretary of State has said, “We have already had a vote; we cannot have another.” The simple fact is that if the Secretary of State went to a restaurant and ordered a steak and a bit of chewed-up bacon arrived, he would have the right to send it back. The waiter would not have the right to say, “You ordered some food—eat it.” People were promised more money, more trade, more jobs, and “taking back control”, including control of migration. All that sounded great, and I can imagine a lot of sensible people voting for it, but what has been served up is a situation in which there is not more money. There is the £40 billion divorce bill, and there is the reduction in the size of the economy. We do not have more control. The Ministers have taken the control so that they can reduce environmental protections or workers’ rights below EU minimum standards in the future. We will still, in the deal, have to abide by the rules laid down by Europe, so we have not taken back control at all.

[Alex Chalk]

As I understand it, the Opposition’s position is that there is no chance of the deal being improved and therefore the Government should have the vote now, but if that is the case, there is even less chance of Labour’s alternative deal being approved. That means that with every passing day, the inexorable logic is that Labour is becoming an accessory to no deal. Does the hon. Gentleman not agree?

[Geraint Davies]

My own view is that Brexit is a betrayal of conservatism, because we are withdrawing from the most well-constructed market in the world. It obviously denies the Union, because any Brexit will mean an open border with open migration and products moving freely. Ultimately, that will not work. If we have a hard Brexit, there will be a hard border. I also think that Brexit is a betrayal of socialism, because it will mean a smaller cake that we will want to divide more equally, and it will leave a future Tory Government to undermine EU standards and workers’ rights and the environment in the future.

I make no apology for the fact that I am against Brexit and always was. I want a people’s vote because people’s eyes have now opened to the fact that this is an absolute nightmare. They voted for the steak, they got the bacon, and they do not want it. They want to stay with what they had before.

Furthermore, the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 itself empowers the Prime Minister to trigger article 50 on the basis of an advisory referendum. What we have found, and what the courts have found, is that the illegality in the leave campaign would be sufficient for a general election to be ruled void and for the Government to go back to the drawing board. I think that they need, legally, to think again about article 50, and if a deal cannot be agreed, they should withdraw it.

People talk about what will happen if there is another vote. Incidentally, this will not be another vote; it will be a vote on the deal, which is intrinsically different from a vote in principle on whether people want to stay in the European Union. I accept that people wanted to leave on the basis of what they were told, but now that they have seen what has turned up—the bacon—they do not want to eat it, and they should have the right to send it back. That would not be the same as just having another referendum. As Keynes said, “When the facts change, I change my mind.” People say, “What if we had another vote and lost?” We have already lost. Britain will lose if we Brexit.

People say that there will be a lot of anger. Obviously there will be some anger, but people who have been made poorer and poorer by a Conservative Government since 2010 were told, “If you vote for Brexit, we will get rid of the foreigners, and you will have a better job and better services.” In fact, they will have less. They will be even poorer. Those people will not be angry; they will be massively enraged.

We are walking slowly along the road to fascism. That is what is happening in this country. We face a choice between being impoverished and isolated—going down a darkened tunnel with no apparent ending—and seeing the future and returning to the sunny uplands. That means joining the EU again, giving the people the choice as to what to do, and creating a better, stronger future for all our children.

We are at a moment in history when we have to choose whether we give the people a vote or not. Our children will either condemn us in the future for condemning them or will thank us for giving them the opportunity to choose their future in a much better world we can all share—a world in which we can defend our shared values of human rights, democracy and the rule of law, rather than be cast aside, be much weaker, and find those values, in an uncertain world, under attack.