Leaving the European Union

Andrew Bowie Excerpts
Monday 22nd January 2018

(6 years, 2 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Andrew Bowie Portrait Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
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It is a genuine pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon.

Last Thursday, I had the pleasure of attending a conference at the Assemblée Nationale in Paris, along with other young and nearly young politicians across Europe. Among the attendees were representatives from En Marche! and Les Républicains from France, liberals from Spain, conservatives and liberals from Poland and many others from all political backgrounds across the continent. Quite contrary to the statement in the petition that

“The EU looks set to offer us a punishment deal out of spite”,

my feeling from talking with delegates from all political ideologies and traditions from across the continent was resignation, disappointment—there is genuine sadness in many quarters that we are leaving—and a genuine desire to make the best of it. They all recognise that a good deal between the UK and the EU is essential, not only for the establishment of good relations in the post-Brexit world, but for the economies of their respective countries as well as our own.

The running argument between the assembly member for Calais and me, about which of our two countries was the fifth or sixth largest economy in the world, belied the underlying truth that the UK economy—we are fifth, by the way—is one of the strongest in the world, and it continues to grow. Our intelligence services work together and are closely intertwined with others on the continent. Our navies work together, combating illegal people trafficking in the Mediterranean, and our soldiers stand shoulder to shoulder in NATO, facing common enemies from Afghanistan to the Balkans.

Many Europeans have made Great Britain their home—my wife included—and they contribute to our communities and our economy, just as Brits do across the continent. We have shared values, a shared cultural heritage, a shared commitment to democracy and freedom in the rule of law and, ultimately, we are all Europeans. In my case, I am mightily proud to be so.

The UK is leaving the political construct of the European Union—that is beyond doubt. The people of these islands chose to do so in the biggest single act of democratic participation for more than three decades. There were 35 million votes, representing 72.2% of the registered voters of this country who took part in the referendum. That is a higher percentage turnout than at any general election since 1992, and it is higher in percentage terms than any election to the Scottish Parliament, and the referendums on the establishment of the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the alternative vote. In nearly 30 years, in percentage turnout by eligible electors, the EU referendum was beaten only by the referendum on Scottish independence, which had an 84% turnout and a result that I know everyone here agrees was conclusive and settled that argument for a generation at least.

Joanna Cherry Portrait Joanna Cherry
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Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Andrew Bowie Portrait Andrew Bowie
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I would be delighted to.

Joanna Cherry Portrait Joanna Cherry
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I am sure it will come as no surprise to the hon. Gentleman that I do not agree that the argument is settled for a generation. Does he, like me, recall that Scottish voters were told during the independence referendum campaign that the way to preserve their EU citizenship was to vote to remain part of the UK? Does he accept that that turned out not to be the case?

Andrew Bowie Portrait Andrew Bowie
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I absolutely accept that. That was the case at the time, of course, but the people of Scotland went to the polls in 2014 in the full knowledge that a referendum on our membership of the EU was on the table. It was January 2013 when David Cameron made his speech at Bloomberg stating his intention to hold a referendum on our membership of the EU if the Conservatives secured a majority at the 2015 general election. The people of Scotland went to the polls in September 2014 in the full knowledge that that would happen if we won a majority.

Peter Grant Portrait Peter Grant
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Will the hon. Gentleman remind us how David Cameron’s party got on in Scotland in 2015, when it put that referendum promise in its manifesto? How many MPs did the Tories get elected in 2015?

Andrew Bowie Portrait Andrew Bowie
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It will come as no surprise to the hon. Gentleman that I tend to reflect more favourably on the result this year, when 13 Scottish Conservatives were returned to this Parliament and, sadly, the Scottish National party lost 21 seats to various Unionist parties. As much as I would like to continue that debate for the entire evening, I must carry on.

In June 2016, 17.5 million people voted to leave the EU and 16 million people voted to remain. That was a conclusive result, which must be respected by all who claim to be democrats. We are leaving the EU, but we are not—this is absolutely key—leaving Europe. That has been recognised on countless occasions by the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU, the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister. We will remain the closest of friends and allies outwith the single market, the customs union and the political bodies of the European Union. It is evident from my discussions last week and from discussions at a far higher level than mine that our friends in Europe recognise that, too.

Joanna Cherry Portrait Joanna Cherry
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I too attended a summit at the weekend in the wake of the Franco-British summit. It was a summit of British and French politicians and businessmen. The French businessmen told us that they are exasperated with Britain, that they want to know what Britain wants out of Brexit and that, if we do not say what we want soon, decisions will be taken that go against the UK’s interests. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we require clarity rather than to crash out with no deal and no indication of what we want?

Andrew Bowie Portrait Andrew Bowie
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I do not advocate, nor do I think anyone in the Government advocates, crashing out. The negotiations are ongoing, and what we want out of the negotiations is key to our getting a good deal from them.

Christine Jardine Portrait Christine Jardine
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Does that mean that it is now accepted that the argument that no deal is better than a bad deal is completely mistaken?

Andrew Bowie Portrait Andrew Bowie
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I will come to this in a second, but I am saying that I believe a good deal is very much on the cards. I have complete confidence that our negotiating team and the European Commission’s negotiators will get a deal that benefits both us and our friends and partners in the European Union.

Joanna Cherry Portrait Joanna Cherry
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Is the hon. Gentleman able to provide the clarity that his colleagues in the Government have so far not been able to provide about what it is that Britain wants? What are the UK Government’s negotiating objectives? What kind of deal do they want with the EU27? Does he know the answers?

Andrew Bowie Portrait Andrew Bowie
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I refer the hon. and learned Lady to the Prime Minister’s speeches at Lancaster House here in London and in Florence, which underlined absolutely what we are asking for from our negotiations with the European Union. I have full confidence in our negotiating team’s ability to achieve those objectives.

Despite the disappointment among our friends and allies on the continent that we are leaving, they recognise that that will free them up to take the EU down a path of their choosing—namely, further integration and co-operation—which would have been opposed and obstructed by the UK at every juncture. Let us be clear: a strong and united Europe is in our national interest. That is why we should do all we can to support it and to assist and work with our allies when and where we can. They know that a strong UK is in their interests. That is why a deal can and will be made, as President Tusk, President Juncker and various Heads of State have made clear.

All effort must go into securing that deal for our farmers, our fishermen, our traders, our bankers, our industrialists, our exporters and our importers, for British subjects in the EU and for European citizens in the UK. We parliamentarians must rally behind those negotiations. A good deal is in all our interests and in our constituents’ interests. Our negotiators are not best served by threats of a second referendum, flip-flopping over the single market or continual threats of another independence referendum in Scotland.

Christine Jardine Portrait Christine Jardine
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Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Andrew Bowie Portrait Andrew Bowie
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I will not, because I have given way many times. I apologise.

Of course, we must be prepared to walk away if it looks like the deal is bad—it would be a strange sort of negotiation if we were not—but I do not believe that will be the case. However, to walk away now as the petition suggests would clearly be folly. I say to the more than 100,000 people who signed the petition, including the 163 in West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine: please have patience. The Government are determined to strike a good deal. The EU is determined to strike a good deal. The nation states on the continent are lobbying for the best deal, which they know is in all our interests. I know that, when the negotiations with our friends in Europe are complete, we will have formed the basis of a new special relationship that complements the one we already have with the United States and the ones will have with our oldest allies in the Commonwealth, and that we will be able to move forward together as Europeans into a brighter, less rancorous future.

--- Later in debate ---
Peter Grant Portrait Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
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I am pleased to begin the summing up of the debate. Interestingly, no one wanted to speak about how a no-deal Brexit would be a good idea. That is not surprising: I suspect that all 650 Members of the House know, deep down in their hearts, that leaving the EU without a deal would be almost criminally incompetent on the negotiators’ part.

The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), who introduced the debate, did what a representative of the Petitions Committee should do: he presented both sides of the argument. I commend him for that. I would be a bit concerned if one of the benefits of Brexit was that we went back to being what he described as a “buccaneering maritime trading nation”. Buccaneers were the state-sponsored international terrorists of their day. The fact that we can hark back—even jokingly—to days when part of Britain’s power as a trading nation was founded on piracy, theft, murder and similar crimes may be an indication of how we have got into the state we are in now.

There is a tendency—certainly in sections of the right-wing media and the right wing of the Conservative party—to build up the days of the empire, when everything was wonderful, and say, “Can’t we just go back to the days when Britannia ruled the waves and waived the rules? Everything will be fine.” No, we cannot, because 6.5 billion to 7 billion people on the other side of the water are saying, “No—this is our country. You are not getting to run India, Pakistan or Kenya in the interests of a handful of British businesses in the way you did before.”

Andrew Bowie Portrait Andrew Bowie
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Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Madeleine Moon Portrait Mrs Madeleine Moon (in the Chair)
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I call Ross Thomson—sorry, Andrew Bowie.

Andrew Bowie Portrait Andrew Bowie
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I have been called much worse, Mrs Moon. I may be wrong—forgive me—but I did not hear anyone in this Chamber, the House of Commons or anywhere else say that we should go back to the days when we ruled India or that we should rule the waves and bring back the empire. That is simply not what we are debating.

Peter Grant Portrait Peter Grant
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Perhaps I have misunderstood what a buccaneering maritime trading nation is or what period in history it refers to. If so, I am happy to apologise, but the days of the buccaneers were those of international pirates and terrorists sponsored by businesses in one country in effect to terrorise the interests of other countries.

The hon. Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) made a powerful, well-put-together contribution. Importantly, she did not talk just about trade. Because trade is such a vital part of the United Kingdom’s relationship with the European Union, it is easy to forget all the other benefits that come from EU membership, such as open skies. There was recently an interesting suggestion that MPs should be allowed to know which of their constituents sign petitions as well as how many of them do so. I would like to go back to the 107 of my constituents who signed the petition—that is 0.12% of the electorate—and say, “Have you heard of open skies? Did you know that it existed when you voted to leave the European Union, or when you signed the petition saying we should leave without a deal? Did you really understand that, without a deal, British-owned and operated airlines will not have automatic authority to land their aircraft or even cross over European airspace after take-off? The only way they will be allowed to do that is through getting a deal.”

--- Later in debate ---
Peter Grant Portrait Peter Grant
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I think that that prospect is becoming much less likely as time goes on. We certainly can retain a lot of the benefits of EU membership. We can do that by staying in the single market. There has never been a referendum vote by the people of the United Kingdom to leave the single market, so it is perfectly legitimate for the Government to admit that they have got that wrong, and to go back on it.

I was quite interested when a Member—I think it was the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie)—referred to the high turnout in the EU referendum and used that as a basis for treating it as binding, conclusive and final. It might surprise some people, but the percentage of eligible voters in the UK who voted to leave the European Union was lower than the percentage of eligible voters in Catalonia who voted to leave Spain. I suggest that if the EU vote is binding, conclusive and final, the future of Catalonia has been determined by its people. Of course, the Government do not want to fall out with Spain, so they will not recognise that.

Andrew Bowie Portrait Andrew Bowie
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The difference between those two referendums is that the one on our membership of the European Union was legal, whereas the one on Catalonia’s membership of Spain was not legal in any way. It was an illegal referendum, as has been recognised by the European Union and the United Nations.

Peter Grant Portrait Peter Grant
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It was legal according to the wish of the people of Catalonia. The referendum in Gibraltar was illegal, but the United Kingdom was quite happy to recognise it and act on its result—and I think it was right. We must be very careful about quoting the European Union as the arbiter of what is and is not acceptable as a way for any nation or people to seek to determine its own future. That does not quite sound like taking back control to me.

To go back to the matter we are supposed to be debating—the petition signed by just over 137,000 people across the United Kingdom—part of the issue I have with it is that some of the statements of fact at the start are quite simply untrue. The European Union is not, and never has been, intent on deliberately punishing the United Kingdom for a decision by its people. For all its faults, at its heart, the European Union wants to see itself as an organisation that respects democracy. That is why, despite the comments from the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq), who has not been able to stay for the rest of the debate, it will not be easy to get back in after we leave. The United Kingdom would be disqualified from applying for membership of the European Union because we are not democratic enough, since more than half of our legislators in the UK Parliament are not elected but appointed on patronage.

The European Union sees itself as an organisation that wants to recognise the will of the people, whether in elections or referendums. What it has said, and will continue to say—I do not think the Government have quite got this yet—is that under no circumstances will the European Union allow the United Kingdom to have a better relationship with the EU by leaving than we would have had had we stayed. That is perfectly understandable and logical; it would be astonishing if it did anything different.

The petition also talks about a “settlement fee”. There is no settlement fee. There have been discussions to agree the liabilities that the United Kingdom has accrued through commitments it made as a member of the European Union, and any liabilities due to come back to the United Kingdom in the same way. Although it is on a bigger scale and more complex, it is a bit like somebody deciding to leave the house they rent before the end of the month and expecting to get a couple of weeks’ rent back because they decided not to stay until the end of the rental period.

If we scale that up several million times, that is what the European Union has been saying to the UK and what the UK has accepted in its relationship with the European Union. Talking about it as a settlement fee or a divorce payment, as many in the media have done, is misleading and steers people down the path of saying, “This is clearly unfair. Let’s just leave without even bothering to wait to fulfil our international legal obligations.”

I think the reason that the petition has attracted so many signatures has been mentioned. There is a clear malaise about politics in these islands. People are fed up with politicians and political parties. They are fed up with the notion that someone can tell blatant lies during a referendum campaign and it does not matter as long as they still win at the ballot box. People do not want that any more. They are fed up with politicians who make promises when everybody knows the promise will be broken.

I am sorry to say that we have not seen any change in that practice from the present Government; we only have to look at the backsliding on the firm commitment that there would be changes to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill in the Commons on Report to avoid any undermining of the devolution settlement. That was a clear promise given by the Secretary of State for Scotland, which was completely ignored when the crunch came. When politicians are allowed to break promises like that and get away with it, it is no wonder that the public begin to lose faith in all of us.