Brexit Negotiations

Jo Swinson Excerpts

Thursday 3rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who has taken a keen interest in these matters for a long time and has helped to bring many Members together across the House on this question. I can tell him: absolutely not—the proposals we are putting forward do not involve physical infrastructure at or near the border or indeed at any other place.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

If the Prime Minister had bothered to go to the Northern Ireland border, he would know the genuine fear that people there feel about his proposals, which they see will result in physical infrastructure for the border, whether that is actually on the border or, as he euphemistically puts it, at some other point in the supply chain. His plans there have been denounced as the worst of both worlds. Will the Prime Minister now go to the Northern Ireland border and listen to the people and communities there, or does he just not care?

[The Prime Minister]

I, of course, understand the concerns of people on both sides of the Northern Irish border and indeed across this country. That is why we are absolutely determined not to have any kind of infrastructure checks at the border or near the border. As I explained to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green), they are not necessary. May I invite the hon. Lady also to support these proposals? Perhaps she could ask her Liberal Democrat colleagues to retract their letter to Jean-Claude Juncker urging him not to agree to a new deal with the British Government.