Leaving the European Union

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

It is good to see you in the Chair, Ms McDonagh. The hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) talked about soundbites. We have heard, “Brexit means Brexit,” “No deal is better than a bad deal,” and—my personal favourite—“Red, white and blue Brexit”. I remember when soundbites were good—I know you do too, Ms McDonagh. I remember, “Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”—soundbites that actually meant something. Those were the days.

I congratulate the petitioners and my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) on bringing forward this debate. The fact that thousands of people signed a petition that asks us to put a stop to this whole process speaks to the frustration that is clearly present in many communities up and down the country. I would observe, though, that that frustration, and the petitioners’ preferred solution to it, is not equally shared around our country. Some 100 of my constituents signed the petition, I notice that 1,100 of my hon. Friend’s constituents signed it, and there are other places, which voted more heavily to leave, where I do not think anybody thought it was a very good idea.

It is pretty clear that what started off as a division within the Tory party has spread across the country, and we find that we now have a nation divided. I hope you are proud of what you have done. I am not. I deeply regret the state we have got ourselves into. I voted remain, but I said the day the result became clear and the moment I found my constituency had voted to leave that I would respect that result.

I voted to trigger article 50. My party supported that position, and we supported starting negotiations, but what a mess you have made of it. I never, ever thought, even in my—[Interruption.] What a mess the Conservatives have made of it. I correct myself, Ms McDonagh—I would never suggest that you would have made such a bad job of this negotiation. If only you were leading it, I am sure we would be in a much better place by now. It could hardly be worse. That is clearly what is in the minds of the petitioners, who just want it to stop. They have had enough. I know exactly where they are coming from, but I do feel, even at this stage, that I must continue to honour the decision my constituents made.

Revoking article 50 is clearly possible. The European Court of Justice, in its ruling on the matter, said we could revoke article 50 should we want to. I think it was the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans), who is no longer in his place, who said that that would be seen very negatively, particularly by communities in which people voted very strongly to leave. If we revoked article 50 unilaterally, without the consent of the British people, he would probably be right.

It seems to many people who think we should be looking for a way out of this situation that the only way to do that is to have another vote. That is not something I would ever enter into lightly or, I have to say, with any enthusiasm, but given the way the Government have mishandled this process, I find myself wondering whether only two options remain. One is to have a different deal that could get through Parliament. I will talk a little about what that might look like. The other may be to have another vote. I cannot over-emphasise my reluctance about that. I agree with most of the arguments against having another vote—arguments about division and trust in politics—but, even so, that may be the only option that remains if we are stuck in this impasse and we need to break the deadlock. Given where we are today—it looks like, in 24 hours’ time, we will be voting again and rejecting the Prime Minister’s deal, probably in almost the same way we did only a few weeks ago —we need to agree a way forward.

Government Members spoke at length about the backstop. The backstop is not really the fundamental problem. The best way to deal with the backstop is to have a clear vision of the future, to know where we are going and to know what kind of relationship we are going to have with the European Union. That is how we would avoid ever having to use the backstop. The problem we have is that the Prime Minister has been unable to be clear—in her own mind, perhaps, but certainly with Parliament—about where she intends to take the country after we have left. I can only imagine that is for reasons of party management, which, given what we have seen today, I think we can all understand. Because she has not been clear—because the political declaration is incredibly vague and could imply two very different visions of Brexit—we have been forced to focus on the backstop.

That really has not worked very well for the Prime Minister, if I can put it like that. She is now having to try to negotiate something that she hopes will be legally binding and will satisfy the needs of the Government Members who have spoken in the debate. I somehow doubt it. Perhaps it will be a form of unilateral mechanism. Perhaps it will be an end date. But even if either could somehow be negotiated, I doubt whether that would do the job that she needs to have done. We would still be lacking the fully-formed vision of the future direction of our country. I do not think that will be enough for MPs to be able to walk through the Lobby and say, “Yes, we support this,” because we care deeply about what happens to our constituents. We were all elected on manifestos and promises that said that we wanted to make our constituents more prosperous, to secure their jobs and to bring more employment to our constituencies. I said that the three times that I have been elected, and that is the promise that I would never, ever break.

[Adam Holloway]

I greatly appreciate the hon. Lady’s thoughtful speech, but just because the political class has messed it up, does that mean we have to ignore the will of the British people and go back to them to get what the political class thinks is the right answer?

[Jenny Chapman]

It is not the political class that has messed it up; it is the Tory party. I do not think even somebody as unsympathetic to my side of the House as the hon. Gentleman can lay this at Labour’s door.

[Adam Holloway]

I totally agree with the hon. Lady. It is an appalling spectacle to see Conservative MPs going against the will of their constituents. I quite agree with her.

[Jenny Chapman]

I am grateful that the hon. Gentleman agrees with me. I do not see how this could have gone much worse. It is appalling to see businesses spending millions of pounds—which they should be investing in their workforce, their sites and their products—on consultants and preparations for a no-deal departure, because the Government have refused to rule it out. The Conservative party will be judged on that very dimly in the future. Businesses in the north-east in the automotive, chemical and pharmaceuticals industries are clear with me that they are spending vast amounts on preparing for the idea that we will leave without a deal in 18 days. Even though Parliament has rejected that outcome, the Prime Minister dare not face down her own party and be clear that that is not what she intends to do.

[Steve Double]

Is the hon. Lady’s experience the same as mine? When I have asked businesses in my constituency if they would prefer a no-deal Brexit or a Labour Government led by the current leader of the Labour party, every single business I have spoken to said, “I will take a no-deal Brexit every time.”

[Jenny Chapman]

The hon. Gentleman is cheap. We are 18 days away from leaving the European Union. His party does not have a negotiated deal that could get through this Parliament. That is where he is; it is his party that has done that, not my party. Businesses ask me what a Labour Brexit would look like, and I can tell them. They say to me, “Yes, that is a future I can work in. That is an economic framework that I can keep my business thriving in.” They look at what is happening now, with the hon. Gentleman’s party in power, and they are horrified. I am horrified, and he should be horrified. It is nothing to be proud of. He can make cheap comments about my party leader if he likes—everyone knows my views about this—but it is his party leader who has misled and mismanaged this process, not mine.

We now have two options. My party leader, who the hon. Gentleman so derides, has written to the Prime Minister outlining a sensible deal that is negotiable. It has been well received by colleagues in the European Union, and is actually quite well received by Members on the hon. Gentleman’s Benches. The options set out in that letter ought to be put to the test of a vote in Parliament. Why is the Prime Minister too afraid to do that? It is because when we put a customs union to the vote in June, and the Prime Minister whipped against it as hard as she could, we lost by a grand total of six votes. I suggest that that is something that could find support in Parliament, and I would like to get it before the House of Commons so we can test it.

Such a deal would be supported by businesses, trade unions and the CBI, as well as in Northern Ireland—the Ulster farmers have been crying out for it. Everybody who has any real interest in this issue and has looked at it carefully has come out and supported that proposal. It is a real shame that the Prime Minister is so cowed by her own party that she will not put it before the House of Commons.

The Labour party wrote to the Prime Minister. We asked for a

“comprehensive UK-wide customs union…Close alignment with the Single Market…Dynamic alignment on rights and protections…Clear commitments on participation in EU agencies…Unambiguous agreements on the detail of future security arrangements”.

The right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) is never going to agree with that; it is not his vision for Brexit. I am not going to attempt to persuade him that it should be, because we would be here a long time. I accept that. He is entitled to vote for a different vision of Brexit, if that is what he feels is right. Surely, Members are entitled to vote for what we think would be the right outcome, if, as we believe, it is negotiable even at this late stage. If the deal does not get through tomorrow, it behoves the Minister and his colleagues to work out how it would work and what the process would be to enable us to have a vote on a different type of deal, which we could negotiate with Brussels.

Whatever happens, we cannot have a border in Northern Ireland; everybody accepts that. However, nobody has provided a credible means of achieving that. We have had suggestions about “alternative arrangements”—whatever they are—and there has been talk about technology. Our team visited the border between Norway and Sweden, which is the most technologically advanced in the world. There is infrastructure there to make checks, take payments and provide security, because it is a border between two different customs territories. There is nowhere on the planet where there is a border between two different customs territories and no infrastructure. Try as we might to find a different solution—and we did try—we have been unable to do so. It seems as if no one else has been able to find one either. It is impossible not to have border infrastructure if there is no customs union. It cannot be done. For that reason, as well as all the benefits to manufacturing that are important to me in north-east England, we have concluded that we need to be part of a customs union after we leave the European Union.

[Stewart Hosie in the Chair]

The other thing I hear all the time from businesses is that they do not want us to leave at all without a deal. It seems odd that the Government are persisting in keeping that option open. I note that a couple of weeks ago—the last time she was confronting heavy defeats—the Prime Minister said that, should her deal not succeed tomorrow, Parliament would have the opportunity to vote against leaving without a deal. I know the Minister does not have a crystal ball, but it would be helpful to colleagues if he could clarify exactly what we will be voting on tomorrow. Who knows? Will this be a straightforward vote on the Prime Minister’s deal, whether it be the same deal we voted on previously or an amended deal? When will we find out what we will be voting on? If it is a different deal, will we be given an opportunity to examine that deal prior to the debate tomorrow? When will that motion be laid before the House? Will there be opportunity for colleagues to amend it? That is something we have discussed at length previously, and it is only fair that Members are given that opportunity.

That is tomorrow. What about Wednesday? Assuming that the deal does not go through tomorrow, we were promised by the Prime Minister that there would be an opportunity to vote on leaving without a deal. Will that still be the case on Wednesday and, if it is, what position will the Government take? Will Wednesday be the day when, finally, the Government of this country say to businesses, the public, communities such as mine and their own colleagues that they do not intend to take the UK out of the EU without a deal? We need to know. Do the Government still intend on Thursday, as the Prime Minister promised, to have a vote on whether we need more time? If that promise is kept, how much more time does the Minister intend we should have, and what does he intend to do with it? What form will the motion on Thursday take? I am not asking him to foretell anything very far ahead; just the next three days will do. We need to know what MPs will be asked to decide on this week, on behalf of our constituents. These are probably the most important decisions that we shall ever be asked to make. We were promised by the Prime Minister that they would be taken this week, but we have not had confirmation of that or information about what the votes will look like.

The chaos we have seen, the way the negotiations have been mishandled, and the situation we are in, just days away from 29 March, make me embarrassed for Parliament. Unfortunately, the blame can only be laid at the door of the Prime Minister, because of the way she has led the process. The Minister is a decent person, and it falls to him—

[John Redwood]

The hon. Lady is asking good questions about what our business will be, but I fear our ministerial friend cannot answer tonight. We shall probably find out later from the Prime Minister, who will be controlling those things.

The hon. Lady said she thought a second referendum might be a good idea. Can she tell us what the question would be? If it is “Accept the withdrawal agreement or stay in,” there is no option for leave. If it is “Accept the withdrawal agreement or leave without a deal” there is no option for remain; so what would the question be?

[Jenny Chapman]

I do not think I have ever said that a second referendum would be a good idea. It is something I should be incredibly reluctant to support, but I have to recognise, if I do not want to leave without a deal, that the only thing that stands between leaving with a deal and leaving without one may be to put the issue back to the country. It is not something I want to happen, at all. Because I am not enthusiastic about it I have not thought through what the questions should be. That is one of the problems with the proposal for another referendum. Those who propose it have not made the matter clear. It is deeply problematic and risky. Who knows where it might lead, and what the experience might do to our country? I am not enthusiastic about it at all; I want to make that clear—but I have to accept, given that I do not want to leave without a deal, that it may be necessary.

[David Linden]

One thing that I have been finding difficult in Scotland is Labour’s position on a people’s vote. Is the hon. Lady saying that, 18 days out from Brexit, and possibly looking over the cliff edge, the British Labour party and Scottish Labour party have not really thought through what the fall-back option is when 100,000 jobs could be lost from the economy? Does she understand that that is why Labour in Scotland is in such a perilous position—because 18 days out it does not have an answer on a people’s vote?

[Jenny Chapman]

We do. We would accept a people’s vote, but we would also accept a deal along the lines that I have outlined. I know that being able to back either option might be a little complicated for some colleagues who like a nice single answer, but Brexit is not like that, and never has been. The position that the Labour party adopted is not where we wanted to be. The situation is not of our making. However, the situation we are in now, with just 18 days to go, means that we would be prepared to accept either one of those options in preference to the deal that will probably be rejected tomorrow, or leaving without a deal. I should hope that the hon. Gentleman could understand what I have just explained to him.

I shall conclude now, Mr Hosie—it is good to see you in the Chair. However, I should like the Minister to explain clearly and precisely, if he can, what we shall be voting on tomorrow.