UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

It would be a decision for the House to take were that to happen. It was open to the hon. Gentleman to table an amendment to that effect today had he wished to do so. These are matters for the House as a whole.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

The 2014 Euro elections cost £100 million, which seems like a lot of money, but the Transport Secretary could spend it in a morning, so I would not worry too much about that. The real issue today, though, and it continues to be the issue, is that unless we can secure an agreement that gets majority support in this House, we are going to continually go round in circles on this. So surely the Minister must agree that the only way to move forward and unite people is for compromise from the Government to actually get a deal that we can support.

[Mr Lidington]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman to this extent: the only way we can move forward, whether we are looking at the immediate future or the longer term, is for this House to come behind an actual deal embodied in text which the European Union is also willing to accept.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir William Cash]

Well, I have to say that on the Chequers deal, for example, we went through the whole ramifications of enacting the 2018 Act including the date of 29 March, but then, on 6 July, we had it completely overturned. That is why I said in a previous debate I had lost trust in the Government and the Prime Minister. That is my point. I am asking a lot of big questions simply because I have grave doubts as to what we will be confronted with. The Bill that will enact into domestic law the arrangements that are supposed to be included in the withdrawal agreement, to which I have been so vehemently opposed because it undermines the sovereignty of the United Kingdom, Parliament and the vote, is my reason for stating now that I retain my concern and my distrust.

[Jim McMahon]

We need to call out the idea that the Irish Government are trying to deliberately cause problems to push for a referendum to try to get a united Ireland. The Irish government have been trying desperately to make sense of the confusing negotiations led by this Parliament and by this Government, making sure that their own interests of course are aligned. However, it is not the case that the backstop does not provide a problem for the Good Friday agreement and for Northern Ireland, because it does, and that has been the lion’s share of the debate here. If we are not part of the customs union and the single market, we must have a border somewhere. Whether on the island of Ireland or in the Irish sea, it has to be somewhere, and the idea that that can be cast aside as if it is not important is negligent. We cannot continue to have that kind of vacuous debate in here. Let us talk substance.

[Sir William Cash]

I can only say to the hon. Gentleman that, having been involved in these European issues for about 34 years and having some knowledge of constitutional law and the way in which these things operate in practice, I am not going to trust anybody or anything until I see a copy of the withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill, which will be rammed through this House. If we do not have a chance to look at it beforehand, it would put us at considerable risk. That is my point, and I think we need to take it into account.

I now turn to the framework for our leaving the EU lawfully under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act. Subject only to the extension of time, this is the law of the land and it is how we assert our sovereign constitutional right not merely to reaffirm but to guarantee in law that we control our own laws in this Parliament as a sovereign nation, in line with the democratic wishes of the British electorate in general elections.

The European Communities Act itself was passed on the basis of the White Paper that preceded it. In that White Paper there was an unequivocal statement that we would retain a veto on matters affecting our vital national interests. Gradually over time, since 1973, there has been a continuing reduction, a whittling away, of that veto to virtual extinction.

Leaving the EU, however, in the context of article 4 of the withdrawal agreement raises this question again as an issue of fundamental importance. We are no longer living in the legal world of Factortame—that was when we were in the European Union. When we leave, the circumstances change. We simply cannot have laws passed and imposed upon us, against our vital national interests, by the Council of Ministers behind closed doors during the transition period, or at any time. That would be done by qualified majority voting or consensus and, as I said to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in my first intervention in the previous debate, it would subjugate this Parliament for the first time in our entire history, as we would have left the European Union. It would therefore be a radical invasion of the powers and privileges of this House, which I believe would effectively be castrated during that period of time. We would be subjected to total humiliation.

I therefore regard it as axiomatic that, in the withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill, we must include a parliamentary veto over any such law within the entire range of European treaties and laws. As Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, I know that we currently have about 200 uncleared European provisions and, in my 34 years on the Committee, we have never once overturned a European law imposed on us through the Council of Ministers.

Just think about it. This House will accept laws by qualified majority vote without our being there and with no transcript. Where we were once in the EU, we will now have left. Leaving totally changes the basis on which we conduct our business. Under our Standing Orders, my Committee has the task, in respect of European Union documents, of evaluating what is of legal and political importance, and it has the right to refer matters to European Standing Committees or to the Floor of the House, particularly where the Government accept the latter.

We can impose a scrutiny reserve, which means that Ministers cannot, except in exceptional circumstances, agree to any proposed law passed in the Council of Ministers in defiance of our scrutiny reserve. However, that is not a veto. Once a matter has been debated, or once the scrutiny reserve has been removed, any such law becomes the law of the United Kingdom and is thereby imposed on our constituents.