European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Justine Greening Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I do think there is a trust issue. I hope that that can improve. The letter to President Tusk was an example of that because, having supposedly taken no deal off the table, the only extension that was asked for was one in the event that the meaningful vote failed, rather than if it went through. That left the prospect, but for what the European Council decided last Thursday, of no deal this Friday going back on the table, just a week after we thought we had taken it off the table.

So we do need to get into Wednesday. We need to have an intense discussion about how the votes on Wednesday are to be taken and see whether we can reach a consensus about that, reach a majority and find where that lies. We need to consider the credible options. Labour has long advocated a close economic relationship, including a customs union and single market alignment, but we have also made clear our support for a public vote as a lock on any deal that the Prime Minister passes. The Leader of the Opposition and I have met colleagues to discuss these proposals and the other ideas that have been put forward by other colleagues. What we need to do now is to agree the process for having a proper debate and to look at those and other credible options.

[Justine Greening (Putney) (Con)]

Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that there is a difference between the people’s vote/public vote option and the others? The others relate to a substantive route forward on Brexit. A public vote is a way of ensuring that there is a broad consensus and the public are behind whatever consensus this House may find favour with.

[Keir Starmer]

That is a very important intervention. Obviously, discussions will take place in the next two days, but the basic proposition that the House needs to decide the substance of any deal it might be able to support—and, arguably, to look at the process around it separately—is important, because some of these options are not like-for-like options, in that some are about substance and some are about process. It would be perfectly possible to make the argument that, if there is to be a deal, it ought to be what we consider to be the least damaging deal. We could have an argument about what that looks like. Equally, it would be possible to say that, whatever deal there was at the end of that exercise, it ought to be subject to the lock or safeguard of some sort of confirmation vote. I do not know. I am not anticipating how the votes would go, but I can see that one of those decisions is about the substance of the issue and the second is about the process. We are going to have to grapple with that before Wednesday.