Boris Johnson
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European Union (Withdrawal) Act
Boris Johnson Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Boris Johnson (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)
It is perfectly clear from listening to the leader of the Labour party that he is joining the shadow Chancellor and the shadow Brexit Secretary and is now determined to frustrate Brexit and the result of the referendum in 2016. That is absolutely clear from what he just said.
I must regretfully say to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister that I cannot believe that a single Member sincerely believes that the deal before us is good for the UK.
Boris Johnson
In which case, I am happy to acknowledge my right hon. Friend’s sincerity. However, I have to say that the Government’s heart does not appear to be in this deal. From listening to those who are sent out to defend and explain it, they know that it is a democratic disaster.
As has been said, after two years of negotiation, the deal has achieved an extraordinary thing: it has finally brought us together. Remainers and leavers, myself and Tony Blair, we are united—indeed, the whole Johnson family is united—in the belief that the deal is a national humiliation that makes a mockery of Brexit. I am sorry to say this—these are hard truths—but there will be no proper free trade deals and we will not take back control of our laws. For the Government to continue to suggest otherwise is to do violence to the natural meaning of words. We will give up £39 billion for nothing. We will not be taking back control of our borders. Not only have we yet to settle the terms on which EU migrants will in future come to this country, but we will be levying EU tariffs at UK ports and sending 80% of the cash to Brussels. In short, we are going to be rule-takers. We are going to be a de facto colony. Out of sheer funk—I am sorry to have to say this to the House—we are ensuring that we will never, ever be able to take advantage of the freedoms we should have won by Brexit.
Under the terms of the backstop, we have to stay in the customs union, while Northern Ireland, and therefore the rest of the UK if we want to keep the Union together, will stay in regulatory alignment unless and until the EU decides to let us go. And why should they let us go? By handing over £39 billion, we lose all our leverage in the talks. With the £95 billion surplus they have with us in goods alone, the EU has absolutely no interest or incentive to allow us—
Vicky Ford
The Prime Minister gave us seven reasons why the EU will not be using the backstop. Yesterday, the Attorney General made it completely clear that the backstop, if it ever came into place, would be challengeable under EU law itself. I say to my greatly respected colleague that I think he is promoting “Project Fear”. What is his option—
Mr Speaker
Order. Resume your seat. I am sorry to have to bark at the hon. Lady, but the intervention is just too long—end of. Enough.
Boris Johnson
A very good point none the less, Mr Speaker. It is exactly on the point. As I have been saying, the EU has no incentive whatever to let us out of this backstop precisely because they have a massive trade surplus with us. Furthermore, when they look at UK manufacturing and UK business, they realise that they will have, in that backstop and through the whole of the implementation period and beyond, unchecked and unmediated power effectively to legislate for the UK with no UK representation.
Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Boris Johnson
If the hon. Gentleman thinks that that is an ideal situation for this country to end up in, then let him speak now.
Stephen Gethins
The right hon. Member talks about an ideal situation. He was a senior member of Vote Leave. He was Foreign Secretary for two years. We are in this mess because of him. Does he take no responsibility?
Boris Johnson
I am grateful to the hon. Member, but the fact is that I was not able to continue to support this process for precisely that reason.
Several hon. Members rose—
Boris Johnson
If the House will allow me, I will make some progress.
The EU knows that having that regulatory control over us, they would have no incentive, as it were, to take the foot off our neck. They will have us in permanent captivity as a memento mori, as a reminder to the world of what happens to all those who try to leave the EU. This is a recipe for blackmail and it is open to any member of the EU to name its price for Britain’s right to leave the backstop. The Spanish will make a play for Gibraltar. They French will go for our fish and our bankers. The Germans may well want some concessions on the free movement of EU nationals—and so it goes on.
Boris Johnson
I will give way in just a second.
The worst of it is that we have not even tried properly to leave or show any real interest in having a different future.
Alberto Costa
The Prime Minister, at the Dispatch Box today, was generous. She made very clear that for us to unify the country we have to bring the 48% who voted to stay, as well as the 52%. Can I ask my right hon. Friend, someone who was regarded in London as a unifying political figure, what he would do to bring the 48% and the 52% together?
Boris Johnson
As I say, remain and leave have been, to a very large extent, united in their dismay at what I think is a wholly undemocratic deal. The thing that really pains me—the hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins) asked about the role of Ministers in this—is that we on the UK side of the negotiation have been responsible for forging our own manacles, in the sense that it is almost as though we decided that we needed to stay in the customs union and in the single market in defiance of the wishes of the people.
Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend allow me to intervene?
Boris Johnson
I will give way in a minute to my hon. Friend, who has been chuntering away from a sedentary position behind me. We should be careful about claiming any kind of subterfuge—we have lost two Brexit Secretaries in the course of these negotiations, and it is very hard to understand how the former Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union could have been kept in the dark about the crucial addition to paragraph 23 of the political declaration. This country agreed in paragraph 23, apparently without the knowledge of the elected politician concerned, that our future relationship would be based on the backstop. No one campaigned for that outcome. No one voted for this type of Brexit. This is not Brexit, but a feeble simulacrum of national independence.
Several hon. Members rose—
Boris Johnson
I will give way in a second to my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale). It is a paint and plaster pseudo-Brexit, and beneath the camouflage, we find the same old EU institutions—the customs union and the single market—all of it adjudicated, by the way, by the European Court of Justice. If we vote for this deal, we will not be taking back control, but losing it.
Sir Roger Gale
I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. He appears to be one of those who prefers the grievance to the solution. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has come up with a solution. What is his big idea? [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Members must not shout across the Chamber at the right hon. Gentleman. It is extremely unseemly—[Interruption.] Order. I have no doubt that he is well able to look after himself. I am not really concerned about him; I am concerned about the reputation of the House.
Boris Johnson
I have been told, by your leave, Mr Speaker, that I have an unlimited time to speak, so I will come to the solution that my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet craves in just a minute.
Several hon. Members rose—
Boris Johnson
I must make some progress. If we vote for this deal, we are not taking back control. Indeed, I say to colleagues and friends across the House of Commons that we are part of a representative democracy, and voting for this deal would be not just like, as it were, turkeys voting for Christmas; it is actually worse than that. There is a sense in which we would be voting for Turkey, or Turkish—[Interruption.] That is exactly true. We would be voting for Turkish-style membership of the customs union, obliged to watch as access to the UK market is traded by Brussels, but with no say in the negotiations. Of course, the kicker is that with its veto, the EU ensures that the backstop that they impose on us is more subservient even than the arrangements that the Turks have—[Interruption.] That is absolutely true. It is a wonder, frankly, that any democratic politician could conceivably vote for this deal, and yet I know that many good colleagues are indeed determined to do so in the belief that we have no alternative or that we have run out of road, and as we heard earlier, that Brussels will offer us nothing else.
Boris Johnson
And I want respectfully to deal with those anxieties, which I am sure my hon. Friend shares.
Simon Hoare
Given that my right hon. Friend appears to be unwilling to enter into an understanding of what a negotiation is, can we take it that he has only ever meant that no deal is a good deal because he does not believe in having a deal with an institution—this windmill at which he tilts at every turn—to which he is philosophically opposed?
Boris Johnson
I have great respect and admiration for my hon. Friend, but I do not philosophically oppose the EU; I simply think that membership is no longer right for the UK. That was what I campaigned on, and I think the British people were completely right. I do not believe that no deal is the option we should be going for automatically, but I will come to that in just a minute. I want to deal with the anxieties that I know that he shares, because I think that he is profoundly mistaken, as indeed are other colleagues, in thinking that we have absolutely no option but to go ahead on this basis. We have plenty of other options. In order to see the way ahead, we need to understand what happens if next Tuesday this great House of Commons votes down this deal, as I very much hope it does. I will tell hon. Members what will happen, but they have to put themselves in the mind of our counterparts across the table in Brussels. In Brussels, they think they’ve got us beat— they do.
Boris Johnson
They think our nerve will eventually fail, that the Prime Minister will come to the summit next week and, in the event of the deal having been voted down, ask for some cosmetic changes, and I expect they will think about granting some cosmetic language that is intended to be helpful but which does not change the legal position.
In Brussels, they are confident that some time before next March, the Government will come back to the House and that the deal will go through somehow or other—by hook or by crook—because, as everybody keeps saying, there is allegedly no alternative. The Norway option will be seen for what it is—an even worse solution than what is currently proposed—and the notion of extending article 50, thereby delaying the date of Brexit, will be greeted, I think, with fury by the electorate, as would any attempt to amend the terms of exit so as to plunge us back into the customs union. That would be rumbled by the electorate as well.
Colin Clark (Gordon) (Con)
Is my right hon. Friend not concerned that, in trying to win 7-0, he might lose 4-3?
Boris Johnson
No, although I understand exactly my hon. Friend’s analogy. I have heard it said by defenders of the Government that we may be 1-0 down at the end of the first half of the negotiations, but that we will win 2-0—I mean 2-1—by the end.
Boris Johnson
I do not see it that way. If we go on like this, with the backstop as it is, we will be thrashed out of sight. [Hon. Members: “Let Carol in!”] I will come to Carol in a minute. Having studied the UK’s negotiating style in detail, I do not think that it believes—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. There is excessive noise in the Chamber. My understanding, in so far as I can hear—[Interruption.] Order. Calm yourselves. My understanding is that Mr Johnson is not currently giving way.
Boris Johnson
I think the House will agree that I have given way quite a lot so far, and I am very happy to do so again in the future, but I want to come to the point that has been raised by my hon. Friends.
Several hon. Members rose—
Boris Johnson
Just one second. In Brussels, they think we have nothing left in our tank and that we want to do a deal at any price. As we all think about this vote and what we are individually going to do, and thinking about the attitude in Brussels towards us, now is the time for us to show them that they grossly underestimate this country and this House of Commons and our attachment to our liberties. There is an alternative. There is another way. We should not pretend, after two years of wasted negotiations, that it is going to be easy, but it is the only option that delivers on the will of the people and also, I believe, maintains our democratic self-respect as a country. That option is obvious from this debate, and from every poll that I have seen. We should go back to Brussels and say, “Yes, we want a deal if we can get one, and yes, there is much in the withdrawal agreement that we can keep, notably the good work that has been done on citizens.”
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
When you went to Russia, did Lavrov give Ukraine back?
Boris Johnson
My hon. Friend, from a sedentary position, compares the European Union to Lavrov and Russia. I think that that is an entirely inapposite comparison. These are our friends. These are our partners. To compare them to Russia today is quite extraordinary.
We should say that we appreciate the good work that is being done to protect the rights of citizens on either side of the channel, but we must be clear that we will not accept the backstop. It is nonsensical to claim that it is somehow essential to further progress in the negotiations. The question of the Irish border is for the future partnership, not the withdrawal agreement. It was always absurd that it should be imported into this section of the negotiations. We should use the implementation period to negotiate that future partnership, which is what I believe the Government themselves envisage—and, by the way, we should withhold at least half that £39 billion until the negotiation on the new partnership is concluded.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
May I ask the right hon. Gentleman a simple question? Is the deal that is currently on the table better or worse than staying in the European Union?
Boris Johnson
I am afraid that that is a finely balanced question. [Interruption.] Much will depend on what happens after the vote on Tuesday. I believe that if we say what I propose, the EU will understand that the Government have found their resolve and are willing to be tough at last, and I believe that the EU will do a deal on those terms.
Boris Johnson
I am going to anticipate the intervention of my right hon. and learned Friend. I bet I know what he is going to say. In case the EU does not agree, we must be absolutely emphatic now that we are preparing urgently for the possibility that we will indeed have to leave before we reach a final agreement.
Mr Clarke
What we are voting on is the withdrawal agreement, and three points that must be settled before the big, wide, grown-up negotiations start on the future relationship. There will be a very wide agenda over the next few years. My right hon. Friend is suggesting that we reject the withdrawal agreement now, in December, before we leave in March, and that we go back and say, “We are not going to pay our contribution to any legal liabilities and any continued access, and we are not at this stage going to guarantee an open border in Ireland.” Does he think there is the faintest chance of that being listened to seriously by any other member Government? If he gets his way, will he not doom us to rushing into a no-deal arrangement?
Boris Johnson
I do not agree with that at all. Obviously we should state what is agreed among all—that there will be no hard border in Northern Ireland. All sides agree on that. As for the legal liabilities to pay the £39 billion, they are, to say the least, contested. I believe it is additionally vital to do what we have failed to do so far, which is to show that we have the conviction and the willingness to leave without an agreement. Yes, I agree that that will mean a great national effort if it comes to that point, and yes it will mean that we have to make sure we get all the goods to our ports in addition to Dover, and ensure that the planes can fly and we address all the other questions.
Carol Monaghan
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for finally giving way. He is presenting an illusion of the EU not being good for the UK. Does he also think Euratom is not good for the UK, and if so can he explain to those currently waiting for cancer diagnosis and treatment where they are going to get their radioactive sources from?
Boris Johnson
I am glad to have given way because that is the kind of scaremongering about the consequences of leaving the EU that does no favours to the debate. In the event of our coming out without an agreement, the Treasury will have an opportunity to use the £39 billion to ensure that we can support the economy rather than talking it down, and I believe it will be far better to make that effort now and at least be responsible for our destiny than to agree to give up our right to self-government forever—because that is effectively what we will be doing—just because of our lack of short-term competence or confidence. Frankly, the EU will not treat us as a sovereign equal in these negotiations unless and until we are willing to stand up for our own interests now and in the future.
I think our country is ready for us to take this stand. [Interruption.] I think it is, because I think it has had enough of being told that we cannot do it—that the fifth or sixth biggest economy in the world is not strong enough to run itself. If we fail now, it will not be good enough—
Several hon. Members rose—
Boris Johnson
I have given way a great deal.
It will not be good enough to say to our fishermen that we cannot actually take back control of our fish because in the end it all proved to be too difficult and it will not be good enough to say to the people of Northern Ireland that after all those promises we accept that they must be treated differently from the rest of the UK.
Kevin Hollinrake
My right hon. Friend talks about avoiding a hard border in Northern Ireland. Speaking to the DUP conference at the weekend before last, he said that if Great Britain chose to vary regulations, there would be a need for regulatory checks and a customs border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Does he accept then that in some future world where the UK can vary its regulations as a whole, that would inevitably lead to regulatory checks between Northern Ireland and the rest of Ireland?
Boris Johnson
I am glad my hon. Friend has raised that point, because it is very important. Michel Barnier himself has said that technical solutions to implement such regulatory checks—not necessarily customs checks but regulatory checks—away from the frontier can be found, and that is what we should be doing. Frankly, that is what we should have been doing for the last two years; that is where our effort and our energy should have gone. And on that point about regulation, it will not be good enough to tell the people of Northern Ireland they are now going to be treated differently and it will not be good enough to tell the businesspeople of the UK that now and in the future they will be burdened with regulation emanating from Brussels over which we will have absolutely no control, and we could not stop it because we could not see an alternative. I must say to colleagues that if they think it is too disruptive to go now for the super-Canada option—to go now for freedom—just wait until we feel the popular reaction that will follow when people realise the referendum has been betrayed.
Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)
Can my right hon. Friend tell us how his cunning plan, which will end up with no deal, will secure the 485,000 jobs that rely on the automotive sector and the just-in-time supply chains that he first heard about some six months ago from the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy?
Boris Johnson
I will not comment on when I heard about just-in-time supply chains, but it was many years ago. The objective, as my right hon. Friend knows, is to create a zero-tariff, zero-quota deal with the EU, which is readily deliverable when we consider that we already have zero tariffs and zero quotas. As for her anxiety about job losses, we have already heard a lot of prophecies about job losses. I think it was said that we would lose 500,000 jobs in this country if the British people had the temerity to vote leave. Actually, we gained 800,000 jobs, so I take such prophecies with a pinch of salt.
The sad thing is that too many people—indeed, some of the people who have been negotiating this deal—seem to regard Brexit as a disaster to be managed, rather than an opportunity. They see bad news as a vindication of that judgment and talk up bad news as a result. In taking that attitude, they badly misunderstand the instincts of the people of this country, who did not vote for Brexit out of hate, as the Prime Minister’s chief of staff tweeted after the referendum. They voted to take back control of our laws because they believe—I think, rightly—that if we govern ourselves and legislate in the interests of the UK economy, they have a better chance of good jobs, higher wages, cheaper food and clothes, and a brighter future, all of which are possible under a proper Brexit, and none of which can be delivered by this deal.
Above all, if we vote through this apology for Brexit, we will be showing that we have treated the 17.4 million people—the highest number of people ever to vote for a single proposition—with contempt. We will be turning our backs on those people. We must understand that when people voted to leave in 2016, they voted for change. They did not vote for an endless transition or a thinly disguised version of the status quo: they voted for freedom, independence and a better Britain—and for a country where politicians actually listen to what the people say. If we try to cheat them now—as I fear that we are trying to cheat them—they will spot it, and they will never forgive us.