Article 50 Extension

Keir Starmer Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of the length and purpose of the extension of the Article 50 process requested by the Government.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this debate, which provides a vital opportunity to scrutinise the Prime Minister’s letter to the President of the EU Council and, of course, the wider Government approach to seeking an extension. An issue of this importance should not have to be dealt with through a debate under Standing Order No. 24. The Prime Minister should be here to answer questions. There should have been a full statement to the House. I appreciate that we had Prime Minister’s questions earlier, but this is a very important decision about the future of the United Kingdom, and the Prime Minister should be here to make a full statement setting out why she has applied for the extension she has applied for, and to answer such questions as there are across the House. It is symptomatic of the way the Prime Minister has approached many Brexit issues, which is to push Parliament as far away from the process as possible.

The House has rejected the Prime Minister’s deal twice, and not by small margins. It has voted to rule out no deal, and it voted to require the Prime Minister to seek an extension of article 50. I appreciate that on Thursday the last words of the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union at the Dispatch Box were:

“I commend the Government motion to the House”—[Official Report, 14 March 2019; Vol. 656, c. 628.]

before he promptly went off to vote against it, which caught me slightly by surprise—he is probably rather hoping that we do not divide this afternoon. However, given where we got to last week, when we ruled out no deal and required the Prime Minister to seek an extension of article 50, one might have expected the Prime Minister, in the intervening days, to reflect on where we are at and to recognise, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) said earlier, that perhaps she is the roadblock to progress. She could, at this stage, act in the national interest and, frankly, show some leadership and take a responsible approach, which I think would be to seek an extension to prevent no deal and to provide time for Parliament to find a majority for a different approach.

I think many Members are yearning for the opportunity to move forward and break the impasse, but the letter to President Tusk makes it clear that that is not the Prime Minister’s intention. It says:

“The UK Government’s policy remains to leave the European Union in an orderly manner on the basis of the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration agreed in November”.

The letter continues,

“it remains my intention to bring the deal back to the House”—

not a new deal, a changed deal, or a deal, compromise or position agreed by this House, but

“the deal back to the House.”

It does not speak of seeking time for change or to consider other options that could win support in Parliament. The only mention is of

“domestic proposals that confirm my previous commitments to protect our internal market, given the concerns expressed about the backstop.”

There is nothing new; it is just the same deal, to be brought back as soon as possible.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

My right hon. and learned Friend is making a powerful speech about the real predicament and crisis we currently face. There have been indications from the Government of France that they may well not permit an extension to article 50. Faced with that proposition, does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the Government are in a real fix? Unless they meaningfully change the deal that is on offer to Parliament and bring it back urgently, the Prime Minister will be faced with the difficult choice of whether to revoke article 50 or crash out with no deal.

[Keir Starmer]

I do understand the difficulty, but I do not think it is appropriate for me to respond to or comment on what may or may not have been said by Heads of State about what may or may not be agreed tomorrow. The point I am making is about the expectation of this House as to the approach that the Prime Minister would take. There is an even greater expectation—a yearning, which I can feel across the House and which I could feel last week—that this House be given an opportunity to break the impasse for itself by finding a way forward. I am afraid the Prime Minister’s approach is the same old blinkered approach, which is, “All I’m going to do is seek time to put my deal, exactly the same, back before the House for another vote.”

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

Based on the Prime Minister’s letter, I am not entirely clear why the EU would grant an extension in the first place, but the question for us all is the length of the extension that it would grant, and for what purpose. What is the Labour party’s policy?

[Keir Starmer]

I shall come to that later, but I will make this point. The period should of course be as short as possible, but it must be long enough to determine the purpose. In other words, the purpose has to determine the length. One of the mistakes we have made in the past two years, on which we have struggled and challenged the Prime Minister, is that if we let the clock, rather than the purpose, dictate we end up exactly where we have ended up now.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that it is absolutely ridiculous to suggest the idea of participating in democratic elections this May as the main reason for this House, or this nation, not to do what is in our national interest? It is complete nonsense.

[Keir Starmer]

Last week we touched on the difficulty of the EU elections and discussed the legal position and what the political position may be, and we need to bear that in mind. Of greater importance is that, given that we are discussing the future of the United Kingdom and its relationship with the EU, we take time to find the purpose of the extension and a majority that the House can get behind, so that we know why we are seeking the extension. That will begin to answer the question of how long an extension should be for.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I fully agree with my right hon. and learned Friend’s last point. The problem really is that the EU negotiators have said that there would have to be significant changes before they would look at an extension. The problem we have, certainly on the Back Benches and I am sure shared by my right hon. and learned Friend, is that nobody knows what the Prime Minister is going to ask the EU for in relation to that extension. Does he agree that it is disgraceful for the House to be kept in the dark in this way?

[Keir Starmer]

The problem with the Prime Minister’s approach is that last week we voted on a motion that said she would seek a short extension if the deal was passed by today—that was in paragraph (2) of the Prime Minister’s motion—and it has not been put before the House today, and that she would seek a longer extension if that was not the case. So, there was an expectation that the Prime Minister would do the opposite of what she has done today. Equally important is that there is a growing expectation that the House needs to have time to decide what happens next. A different Prime Minister might have reflected on what happened last week and come to the House this week to say, “I recognise that my deal is not going to get through as it is and I, the Prime Minister, will provide a process of some sort, or ask the House to help me with a process of some sort, to decide where there is a majority, so that we can move forward.” That is what is being missed in the letter.

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Ind)]

As ever, the right hon. and learned Gentleman makes a powerful speech. He has given a description of what he would have expected the Prime Minister to do in the circumstances; what explanation does he put forward as to why the Prime Minister has not behaved in that way? Is it because she is stubborn, or is it because she is in the pockets of the European Research Group—the hard Brexiteers who are essentially running this country and this Brexit process? What does he think the explanation is?

[Keir Starmer]

The immediate concern is that the Prime Minister does not appear to be acting in accordance with her own motion of last week, but the deeper problem, which is what I am most concerned about, is that the Prime Minister still thinks that the failed strategy of the past two years, “My deal or no deal”—a blinkered approach with no changes and no room for Parliament—should be pursued for another three months. In other words, all she will do is use the three months in exactly the same way to bring back the deal over and over again—or as many times as she can without breaching the rules of the House—and try to force it through. That is the strategy that she has been pursuing throughout these negotiations and it has failed badly. We must not allow another three months to be used up on the same approach.

The letter sent by the Prime Minister this morning makes two requests to the Council—that it approves the documents agreed in Strasbourg on 11 March, and that it allows three months for the Prime Minister to get the same deal through Parliament. If I have read and understood the letter properly, I think the Prime Minister may be planning to bring the deal back on the basis that the documents that were before us last time have now been approved formally at the Council, and that some domestic arrangements have been agreed with possibly other parties, which means that she can then say that the deal can now be put to another vote, notwithstanding the fact that the documents on the table are exactly the same as the ones that we voted on last week. Obviously, that will raise the issue as to whether that is in accordance with the Standing Orders of the House, which will have to be addressed at the time.

The letter continues,

“it remains my intention to bring the deal back to the House.”

That is not a new deal, but the same deal. That is extraordinary, given how the House voted last week. It does not reflect the motion that was passed. Paragraph (2) of the motion clearly mentioned a short technical extension if the deal was passed by today—that was when the Prime Minister had the intention of bringing the deal back for today—or a longer extension if that was not the case.

[Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)]

I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way. He said a few moments ago that there was no point in asking for an extension, particularly a long one, in the absence of a clear purpose. I gather from those remarks that he thinks a long extension is appropriate; can he confirm that? If he does think it is appropriate, will he tell the House what his purpose would be?

[Keir Starmer]

As I said earlier, I will get to purpose a little later in my speech.

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

I wonder whether the right hon. and learned Gentleman can clarify something that he appeared to say just now, which was that the Prime Minister was not following her own motion because she had said in the third part of it that she would seek a longer extension. However, after reading the motion, I can say that it does not appear to say that. The first part says that she will seek an extension. The second part says that if the deal went through by today, she would seek a short extension, and the third part merely notes that if the deal did not go through and a longer extension was sought, it would require participation in the European elections. She did not say that she would seek a longer extension. I should be grateful if he could clarify that for the record.

[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful for that intervention because it allows me to read out what the Minister for the Cabinet Office said on this motion from the Dispatch Box. He was promoting the motion, and he actually voted for it, so perhaps what he said can be taken seriously. He said this at that Dispatch Box last week:

“In the absence of a deal”—

what he meant by that was a deal going through by today—

“seeking such a short and, critically, one-off extension would be downright reckless and completely at odds with the position that this House adopted only last night, making a no-deal scenario far more, rather than less, likely.”—[Official Report, 14 March 2019; Vol. 656, c. 566.]

Those are the words spoken from the Government Benches on the interpretation of the Government’s own motion. In other words, if a deal had not gone through by now, the Minister for the Cabinet Office said that, in those circumstances, simply to go for a short, one-off extension would be “downright reckless” and would make a no-deal scenario more rather than less likely. Members in this House should be concerned about that.

[Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)]

I am very grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend. He is making a powerful case. The motion that the House agreed made it clear that, if there was not a deal by today, the likelihood would be that the European Council would require a longer extension. Is it his view that when the European Council meets tomorrow, they are likely to require that?

[Keir Starmer]

We will have to wait until tomorrow to see what the Council’s response is. It may simply say that it will consider any request, but it does need to know what the purpose is. This is where the Prime Minister may get into some difficulty. If she says that the only purpose is to allow her to keep putting her deal for the next three months, that may or may not be seen as realistic with regard to what will happen in the next three months. None the less, it is a question that the Prime Minister will have to answer.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Keir Starmer]

I will give way twice.

[Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way. Just going back on his point—and he may agree with this—it is apparent that the remarks of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster were made not just out of the air, but in order to explain and justify the Government’s wording of that motion, which came in for a considerable amount of criticism as appearing to be opaque. He may agree with me that the words uttered at the Dispatch Box could be taken authoritatively as the Government’s assurance about what they intended to do.

[Keir Starmer]

I do agree with that. The reputation of the Minister for the Cabinet Office in this House is that he is someone in whom others invest assurance and confidence because of what he says and the way in which he says it. It may also have been some preparation for the meaningful vote to come back this Tuesday with the message, “If you don’t vote for it next Tuesday, then the Government will have to apply for a different extension.” There was at least that dual purpose.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

The emphasis on the word “short” is subjective, because for many people short is long and long is short—[Interruption.] It is by definition subjective. Perhaps the right hon. and learned Gentleman is comparing one statement of “short” with another statement of “long”, but the matter is purely subjective even in that case.

[Keir Starmer]

I suppose that I accept the proposition that one person’s short may be another person’s long, but the words of the Minister for the Cabinet Office did not come in isolation or out of the blue; they came in the middle of a debate, which was quite heated at times, about what the motion meant and how we should interpret it. I do not think that anyone who was in that debate would, in all honesty, doubt what the Minister for the Cabinet Office was saying and what he meant by it, and I took

“a short and, critically, one-off extension”—[Official Report, 14 March 2019; Vol. 656, c. 566.]

to mean an extension for up to three months with a cliff-edge at the end.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman not find it extremely regrettable that the Government’s strategy on such an important issue for the nation is to bamboozle everybody, so that nobody knows what was meant or what was said?

[Keir Starmer]

I certainly agree that this is not the first time that most of the people voting for a motion think it to be pretty clear, only to find that what it meant is disputed within a week.

[Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)]

Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman as confused as I am? Given that we have had assurances from the Prime Minister and other Ministers that they know the will of the people and that the matter has been decided, if they are so sure, why are they so fearful of asking the people again?

[Keir Starmer]

That is really a question for the Government. My point is that we have to find a way through this impasse, and that requires us to come together as a House to consider and vote on the options and to provide a process for that. It is not helpful to put the deal, which has already been rejected, over and over with differing threats. Having accepted a motion last week to take no deal off the table, the Prime Minister is now trying to put no deal back on the table within a week by just changing the date of no deal, so that she can again ram the deal up against the deadline with the old “my deal or no deal,” response. I have no doubt that the three months will be run down and that we will get close to the June deadline with exactly the same strategy, which is the great cause for concern.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that it is absolutely outrageous for the Government to bring back the same deal, just a week later, to see whether MPs have changed their minds, but completely refuse, almost three years later, to give the public the opportunity to say that they have changed their mind?

[Keir Starmer]

That is a powerful point. The argument that we were making last week was that, realistically, the deal had not changed since the first time it was put eight weeks earlier. There was obviously the suggestion that the Government would simply bring it back this week, without even pretending that there had been any changes, and just say, “It’s now a week further on. How would you like a different threat?” to see whether they could get it through. That has to stop.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I am unsure whether the right hon. and learned Gentleman is aware that today is the International Day of Happiness. Does he agree that one way of making both sides of the Chamber happy might be to have a people’s vote on the Prime Minister’s deal that included the option of staying in the European Union? We can then all be happy, including him.

[Keir Starmer]

I am not sure how another day with me at this Dispatch Box and us here discussing Brexit could be considered a happy day in anybody’s book.

[Anna Soubry]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman is being very generous in giving way. I am sure he is aware, though it may have escaped his note, that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster made the purpose of the Government’s motion very clear in his opening remarks on Thursday 14 March, and that it is recorded in column 562 of that day’s Hansard. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman has already told us, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster made it clear that the motion was to deal with this House approving the withdrawal agreement and a short extension, and he then said:

“If for whatever reason that proves not to be possible, we would be faced with the prospect of choosing only a long extension”—[Official Report, 14 March 2019; Vol. 656, c. 562.]

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has said that more than once, and the purpose of the motion was extremely clear to the House.

[Keir Starmer]

I really do think it was clear to anybody who was in that debate. The Minister for the Cabinet Office also went on at least to hint that if the deal did not go through this week, he at least would be open to some sort of process by which the House could come to a different agreement and move forward; I think he indicated that that would be next week. Of course, on Monday we are due to vote and possibly amend the section 13 motion that the Government have to table as a result of the last meaningful vote failing.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that this is about not the length of the extension but its function? The EU will need to see either a change in the process—that is, a vote of the people of this country—or a very different deal. The Prime Minister’s deal is clearly dead and cannot come back to life.

[Keir Starmer]

I agree. Also, it is not very seemly for the United Kingdom to be in a situation in which a deal is simply put and re-put and re-put and re-put. If it eventually got through by just a few votes after many times of trying and with threat levels changing, it would not be a proper basis for the future relationship with the EU because it will have lost all credibility; the meaningfulness is sucked out every time this process is repeated.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?

[Keir Starmer]

No, I am going to make some progress. I will give way in a moment.

We are now acting in the absence of a deal, with the express will of this House to prevent no deal. One of my biggest concerns is that the Prime Minister’s actions make no deal far more likely, not less—and that is the very issue that we were trying to deal with last week. If agreed by the EU, a short extension for the purposes of forcing through this deal would simply push the cliff edge back to 30 June, and we would start down the same track. The Prime Minister is repeating the same flawed strategy that she has been pursuing for two years in order to recreate the binary choice between her deal and no deal that this House rejected last week.

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Keir Starmer]

I am just going to make some progress before I take any more interventions.

After voting as we did in last week’s debate, we recognise that an extension to article 50 is now needed, and it is the failure of the Prime Minister’s approach that has caused the requirement for an extension. Of course, any extension should be as short as possible, but it has to allow a solution to the mess that the Prime Minister has got the country into—to provide a route to prevent no deal, not to make it more likely. It also has to provide a way for this House to prevent the Prime Minister from forcing the same deal on us over and over again. That is why we believe that the focus in the coming days and weeks should be on finding a majority for a new direction—to allow the House to consider options that can resolve the current crisis.

For Labour, that centres on two basic propositions: a close economic relationship with permanent customs union and single market alignment; and a public vote with credible leave options and a remain option. Those propositions, and possibly others, need to be discussed and tested, and we need to come to a consensus to see whether we can move forward. That is what extension should be about, not about the narrow interests of the Conservative party and trying to keep the Prime Minister in post.

Thank you again, Mr Speaker, for allowing this debate today. I look forward to hearing the Secretary of State explain the Government’s approach and how they plan to prevent Parliament from going back to the same place in three months’ time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Keir Starmer]

Mr Speaker, thank you again for granting this debate today. The extension of article 50 is an important issue and this has been an important debate, and it would not have happened but for this Standing Order No. 24 application and debate. I thank everybody who has contributed. There have been some very powerful speeches, and I think that there is a clear theme: a deep concern about the course of action that the Government are pursuing. It is reckless to seek just a short extension for the purposes of putting the same deal back up and to introduce a new cliff edge at the end of the exercise, and it does increase the risk of no deal. That has been the constant theme through so many of the speeches this afternoon. It is not what this House voted for last week, both in terms of the motions that were passed or the spirit of those motions; it is clearly not what this House wants.

I hope that the Government have been listening to the debate, and I hope that they will—even at this eleventh hour—reflect on the course of action and take a different course, which is to recognise that this deal is not fit to be put before the House for a third time, and that the alternative course of providing a process so that the House can come together, find a majority, move forward and break the impasse is needed now more than ever. It is my privilege to close this debate on this important issue.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of the length and purpose of the extension of the Article 50 process requested by the Government.

[Mr Speaker]

I now have to announce the result of today’s deferred Divisions. In respect of the Question relating to consumer protection, the Ayes were 313 and the Noes were 267, so the Question was agreed to. In respect of the Question relating to the annulment of amendments to the Integrated Care Regulations 2019, the Ayes were 216 and the Noes were 317, so the Question was negatived. In respect of the Question relating to organic production and control of imports, the Ayes were 315 and the Noes were 39, so the Question was agreed to. In respect of the Question relating to organic production and control, the Ayes were 315 and the Noes were 38, so the Question was agreed to.

[The Division lists are published at the end of today’s debates.]



Rating and Valuation

Motion made, and Question put,

That the draft Non-Domestic Rating (Rates Retention and Levy and Safety Net) (Amendment) and (Levy Account: Basis of Distribution) Regulations 2019, which were laid before this House on 21 February, be approved.—(Jeremy Quin.)

The House proceeded to a Division.