UK’s Withdrawal from the EU

Justine Greening Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

I will deal with the earlier intervention. It was put to me earlier that we should not adopt that course because of the social unrest that it might cause. There are a number of answers to that. First, this comes at a stage when we are trying to prevent no deal, and I do not think that no deal is going to be orderly and smooth; I think it is going to lead to huge problems up and down the country. Secondly, I think it important for us not to exaggerate social disorder, because to do so can encourage social disorder, and I am really worried about that. I am not suggesting for one minute that that was what the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) was doing—I take her interventions very seriously, as she knows—but I do not think we should casually say that there will be social disorder.

The third thing I want to say is this. I have been in this place for less than four years, but the idea that we would not take the right next step as a matter of principle because we thought that there might be social disorder is a very slippery slope.

[Justine Greening (Putney) (Con)]

Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that if a Parliament simply guessed what version or outcome of Brexit people wanted, brought it about and then hoped that it was the right one for the British people, that would not be a pragmatic, sensible, sustainable or democratically acceptable way of proceeding?

[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful for the right hon. Lady’s intervention for two reasons. First, I have been very hard on the Prime Minister, I think justifiably, for the fact that she set out the red lines without any discussion about them in Parliament, or even, I understand, in the Cabinet. It was her almost personal interpretation of the referendum. In my view, many interpretations could have been applied to it, but that was not one of them.

The second reason is important. I am not sure that getting a deal that is not really liked through the House at the last minute is going to settle anything. If, on a sweaty night in March, a measure goes through that no one really likes, the idea that that constitutes closure is very worrying. Of course, we are building up the expectation that if a deal goes through, that will be it, Brexit will be settled and it will all be over. We will still be in the foothills, because all that will happen after that will be the negotiations on the future relationship, which is so thin at the moment.