The Government's Plan for Brexit

Michael Gove Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Gethins]

The Secretary of State makes the point. Why not give Scotland—it needs the powers—some of the responsibility for immigration?

On that very point, the Vote Leave campaign, of which the Secretary of State was a member—a full and active member—did not promise much. It is good to see that the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) is in his place, for was it not he who said that Scotland could have control over immigration if we voted to leave the European Union? I would be delighted to hear about their plans when the Under-Secretary winds up.

[Michael Gove (Surrey Heath) (Con)]

indicated assent.

[Stephen Gethins]

I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman is nodding still, and I look forward to his joining us in the Lobby at some point. He can come home to his roots, and we will welcome him on this issue.

Let us not forget the impact this is having elsewhere in the United Kingdom. On jobs and the economy, Nissan has been given reassurances, but what about other industries? What about the food and drink industry? What about our fishermen and farmers, a lot of whose rules and regulations come from the European Union? What will happen to the common agricultural policy, or to the coastal communities fund, which is so important to our fishing communities? [Interruption.] What happens, as the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) points out from a sedentary position, about Horizon 2020? What will happen to universities, which particularly benefit from freedom of movement? What will happen to workers’ rights, which will come back to this House, which has not always been the best place to guarantee those rights in the past? What will happen to the environment, which has also benefited from Europe?

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[Michael Gove (Surrey Heath) (Con)]

It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) and a superb argument against secession from a Scottish nationalist. I thank the right hon. Members for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) and for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) because the challenge they put to the House is one to which we should all attempt to rise: how can we ensure not just that we respect the result that 52% of people voted for, but that we involve the 48% who voted remain for a variety of reasons? While I am grateful to them for their speeches, which I thought were for the most part very constructive, I was disappointed in the Front-Bench speech from the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer). He spoke for nearly 40 minutes, longer than some Pinter plays and many Haydn symphonies, and he spoke on what he referred to as the “defining issue” facing the UK, but he did not reveal at any point what Labour’s position is on our future relationship with the EU. He did not reveal on behalf of the 48% for whom he professes to speak whether he wants to stay in the single market or the customs union. What we had was 40 minutes of pious vapouring—a hole in the air masquerading as an argument.

One of the reasons why it is so important that we hear from the 48% is that we know what the 52% voted for. Some in the course of this debate have tried to complicate and obfuscate, but it was made perfectly clear not just by the Vote Leave campaign, in which I was privileged to play a role, but by the then Prime Minister and Member for Witney; by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr Osborne), the then Chancellor of the Exchequer; and by Lord Mandelson. It was made clear by every single one of the leading representatives of the remain campaign that voting to leave the EU meant leaving the single market. There should be no ambiguity about that point. The public were fully informed and they took their decision in full knowledge.

That is one of the reasons why I am glad our Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer—both, it must be said, among the 48% who voted remain—are very clear that the result must be respected, and that means ensuring that the votes of 17.4 million people and their determination to leave the single market alongside leaving the EU should be acknowledged.

[George Kerevan]

Is the right hon. Gentleman telling us that leaving the single market is the Government’s position?

[Michael Gove]

I am telling the hon. Gentleman that that was the position taken by the British public, including more than 1 million people in Scotland and including many more people in his constituency than voted for the Scottish National party.

Not only do we need to respect the result and what the 52% wanted, but we need to acknowledge some of the concerns put forward by those who articulated the case for remain. There were two powerful concerns that weighed with me. The first was the prospect of an immediate economic shock, should we leave. That was a view put forward by the Governor of the Bank of England and a number of other distinguished economists, but we can now see that, while their concerns were expressed sincerely, they did not come to fruition. The point was made at the time—[Interruption.] I am grateful for the sedentary intervention from the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Chris Leslie), but the point was made at the time that there would be an immediate shock not just to Britain but to the world economy. That shock did not materialise. In fact, since we voted—

[Anna Soubry]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Michael Gove]

Not quite yet.

Since we voted to leave, we have seen increased investment from Nissan, Jaguar Land Rover, Amazon and Facebook—from a variety of both traditional manufacturing and new technology investors. Far from there being an economic shock, we are the fastest growing economy in the G7.

It was also a legitimate concern of some who voted remain that voting to leave the EU would damage the United Kingdom. The truth is that since we voted to leave the EU, support for a second independence referendum has fallen, support for Scottish independence has fallen, support for the SNP and its secessionist sermonising has fallen, and the single most popular politician in Scotland is Ruth Davidson, the only leader of any party who wants to embrace the result.

[Anna Soubry]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Michael Gove]

No, I am not giving way.

So on two of the legitimate concerns expressed beforehand—that our economy would be damaged and the Union would be damaged—the evidence is that our economy is stronger and the Union is more popular.

Of course other concerns were expressed by people who voted to remain. Some of them relate to the fate of EU citizens in this country, some relate to future academic and scientific co-operation, and some, naturally, relate to defence and security co-operation. My point is that it is incumbent on everyone—not just the Government but the 48%—to put forward their propositions in this area.

I have made it clear, and I share this view with my right hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), that I believe that EU citizens in this country should stay and that their role should not be a bargaining chip. I am sure that many of those who voted remain will join me in that call, but where are those who voted to remain, now that power is flowing back to this place for the first time in my life, offering to explain how we can refine regulation and change our laws and rules as we become a self-governing country once more and become freer, more liberal, more prosperous and more creative? I am afraid that, despite some honourable exceptions, most of those people are still looking back in anger, remorse and regret instead of looking forward optimistically. This is a great country. We can achieve great things.

[Anna Soubry]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Michael Gove]

No thank you.

This Parliament has an opportunity to shape an economic policy, an immigration policy and a knowledge policy that can once again make us a world beater, but if we do not take that opportunity and instead concentrate on seeking to dilute the result of the referendum, I am afraid that we will fail the people of this country at this historic moment.

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[Mr Bone]

My right hon. Friend the Member for—I cannot remember what her constituency is—[Hon. Members: “Broxtowe!”] My right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry). It is a juxtaposition for very many people. It is great that people now believe in this place. We should absolutely do what the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) says, and scrutinise the Government as they go through the Brexit process.

[Michael Gove]

May I say, just for the record, that as Chief Whip I had a number of dealings with my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) and she was always vigorously resistant to whipping and the imposition of parliamentary discipline? She remains on the Back Benches, as she was in the ministerial team, a feisty and independent voice whom we should all respect.

[Mr Bone]

I am always glad to be corrected by a former Chief Whip. What my right hon. Friend said is undoubtedly the case.

The important part here is very simple. Tonight we will, I hope, pass a motion that authorises the Government to invoke article 50. [Interruption.] That is what it says. [Interruption.] There is debate about that. Given that there is that debate, the only certainty is through having an Act of Parliament. I therefore look forward to my right hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe and others being here on 16 December to support my Bill—if anyone wants a copy, I have a few spares—because it would satisfy all the Court’s requirements.

The great thing about today is that it is Parliament that is dealing with the matter. It is not a Government motion on the Order Paper but an Opposition one. It is not a Government Bill going through but a private Member’s Bill. It is clearly Parliament speaking. I therefore hope that tonight the amendment and the motion are agreed and we can move forward, and then, in about 10 days’ time, we can give Second Reading to what this House wants: to trigger article 50.

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[Michael Gove]

As a result of the Good Friday agreement and the consent principle, the people of Northern Ireland voted to remain in the United Kingdom and to give foreign policy and treaty-making powers to the UK Government. There is no inconsistency between a UK Government choosing to trigger article 50 and the hon. Gentleman’s constituents having objections to that. There is no breach of a consensus.

[Mark Durkan]

I am afraid the right hon. Gentleman does not know the difference—people in Northern Ireland are very clear about this—between the principle of consent and actually giving consent. He has made a mistake that is consistently made, and it is a mistake that will strain some people’s belief in the Good Friday agreement.

People such as the right hon. Gentleman do not recognise the damage that they are doing. Carefully compacted layers of understanding created the bedrock of the Good Friday agreement, and fissures are being driven into those key foundations. Remember that, as a result of that agreement, the principle of consent is housed in the Irish constitution as well, because the referendum—north and south—changed the constitution. It removed the territorial claim, and two additional clauses were inserted.

If the key constitutional precept of the Good Friday agreement is not housed in any new UK-EU treaty that might result from these negotiations, we shall be in a very serious situation. The promise and the understanding that the people of Ireland, north and south, were given when they endorsed the Good Friday agreement in overwhelming numbers will have been betrayed and damaged. I do not accept, and no Irish nationalist, north or south, who supported the Good Friday agreement has ever said, that the principle of consent that is housed in the Irish constitution can be removed, replaced or surpassed by a vote in England on Brexit or on anything else.

The Good Friday agreement states very clearly that the question of Irish unity will be a matter for the people of Ireland, north and south, without external impediment. That key principle must be reflected in any new UK-EU treaty, making clear that if in the future Northern Ireland votes to become part of a united Ireland, it will do so as an automatic part of the EU, without any change in Ireland’s terms of membership and without the need for any new negotiations on the part of Northern Ireland. We cannot afford, in the Northern Ireland context, the sort of trickery that was used in the Scottish context to raise question marks over whether EU membership would apply. This is a key principle and tenet for those of us in the House who support the Good Friday agreement.

There are other risks to the agreement as well. There are risks to the weight of the rights in strand 1. There is also significant damage afoot in relation to strand 2, which involved a delicate balance of institutional and constitutional arrangements. That strand will be left in complete deficit after Brexit unless someone takes care of it.

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[Geraint Davies]

I am saying that people were misled, so basically now we are going to have another year of austerity.

On market access, everyone is talking about a hard Brexit. It is all very well Nissan, Tata and others being paid billions of pounds under the table to bribe them, to compensate for the tariffs they will inevitably face, but we will have to pay for that in the end, and we do not have proper market access.

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman has made the astonishing assertion that there have been under-the-table bribes to Tata, Nissan and others to continue to locate in the UK. What is his evidence for that assertion?

[Geraint Davies]

Clearly they have come to the Government and said, “The only reason we’re in this country is to platform into the EU market, and if we face tariffs we want the money back or we’re going to move,” and the Government have given them the money. I know the right hon. Gentleman knows nothing about economics and just criticises the Bank of England, but that is the simple business case.

As for the ridiculous arguments the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues put about on trade, what he wants to do is turn his back on 46% of our trade and somehow dream we can make up those relationships, which were always weaker than the EU negotiating new bilaterals. That is fantasy land.

[Geraint Davies]

I will not.

I do not think that people voted for Brexit—

[Michael Gove]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

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[Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)]

I am very grateful to you, Mr Speaker—you have managed our debate—for allowing me to speak, because we have had lots of interventions.

I want to say a few things about this debate. First, nothing could have been clearer than the vote on 23 June. It was the largest vote that has ever taken place in the history of our country, and 17.4 million people—a larger mandate than any ever given to any Prime Minister on any issue—voted to leave the EU. We all know that the one way we can leave the EU—in fact, the only way we can effect the will of the people—is by triggering article 50. It therefore stands to reason that any attempt to delay, frustrate or obstruct the triggering of article 50 is simply to delay and obstruct the will of the people as expressed on 23 June 2016. That is self-evident to any person who cares to think about these things.

The second point is about having a plan. To me, nothing could be clearer than the Government’s position. We have said this many times. [Interruption.] Labour Members find that very amusing. I am glad to see that they find clarity amusing, because they would benefit from some clarity. The Government’s position is very simple: we want to have some restriction on freedom of movement—we want a change in the arrangements—while having the widest possible access to the single market. Those are two very simple principles. [Interruption.] Various Labour Front Benchers are chuntering from their places, but even they should be able to understand that basic position.

The third point is that our friends in the Labour party have got themselves into an awful mess on this particular issue. On the one hand, the people for whom the Labour party was created in the north and the midlands voted overwhelmingly for out, yet the current leaders of the party—the intellectual establishment and many of the Front Benchers—are based in London, and we all know that London’s view on the outcome of the referendum was very different from the view in the traditional heartlands. The two ends of the pantomime cow are pulling apart now, and—to change my metaphors—it is very difficult to see how Humpty Dumpty can be put back together again. This is obviously causing them massive pain, but I hope that they will support the Government amendment and I look forward to seeing many of them in the Lobby in a few minutes’ time.

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is a distinguished historian. Is there any precedent for the fact that the Conservative party is now a more effective representative of the views of working-class Britain than the Labour party?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

There is no precedent for this. One Labour resident of Islington—a friend of mine—said to me, “The one way for the Labour party to commit suicide would be to oppose the triggering of article 50.” That is palpable, and it would be a much shorter version of Labour’s suicide note in the 1983 general election.

We must very clearly say that a lot of the words we have heard are game playing. Labour Members say they respect the will of the people, but we know that they have no intention of doing so. We know that many of them want to frustrate the will of the people as expressed in June. We know that all this obfuscation, all this delay, all the smokescreen and the dust in the eyes—all that sort of thing—is for one end and one end only: they want to stay in the EU at all costs. I say to them very plainly that the horse has bolted and that the ship has left. We are not going back into the EU, and the sooner they accept that very basic proposition, the better it will be for their constituents and for the country as a whole.

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[Jenny Chapman]

Precisely.

We must know more than we do about the Government’s intentions. Surely, on the most important issue facing this country, that is not too much to ask. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) put it well: being clear about our objectives does not weaken us; it strengthens us. It is not just MPs who campaigned for remain who want more information; the British public, including those who voted to leave, want to know more about the plan. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) and the hon. Member for South Antrim (Danny Kinahan) said, this is not leave versus remain; it is Parliament doing its job. Take back control, we were told. This House will have done everything possible after this evening to assure the public that we will not block article 50. We now need to gain some grip on the process. We need to see the plan. If the plan presented is insufficient, we will come back and demand more.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster Central (Dame Rosie Winterton) urged the Government to include a regional analysis in their plan. I wholeheartedly echo that demand. The Government say they do not want to reveal their negotiating stance before they have to and that they do not want a running commentary, but the trouble is that a running commentary is exactly what we are getting. We and our constituents are gleaning clues about the Government’s intentions from leaked correspondence, snatched glimpses of notes and the musings of the Foreign Secretary. This is unhelpful in enabling challenge, scrutiny and contributions from MPs. It is also damaging our prospects for gaining a good outcome. It is not just the British public who are listening to the running commentary; it is being heard with some irritation by officials and parliamentarians in Europe.

[Michael Gove]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Jenny Chapman]

I will not give way.

There has been a vacuum, an empty space where the plan ought to be. As the right hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) said, it is not good enough that acceptance of the need for a plan has been dragged out of the Government by the Opposition. I look forward, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) said, to the debate moving on to the substance of Brexit, rather than the relentless focus on process.

The motion asks for the basic plan, not the fine detail. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Mr Lewis) said, the “we know best” politics has to end. He and my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) warned of the consequences of failing to talk frankly about immigration. It leads to the rise of the far right, and that cannot be allowed to happen. I congratulate them both on their speeches.

It would be profoundly wrong if Members of the European Parliament and officials in Brussels were the first to learn of the Government’s stance. If the British public had to read about the Government’s position through leaks from Brussels, it would be a most inauspicious start to the taking back of control that our constituents have told us they want.

The right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), who has gained admirers on all sides, says she wants a White Paper and a Bill. I hope the Minister is listening to her.

[Michael Gove]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Jenny Chapman]

I have told the right hon. Gentleman that I will not give way.

We all know that there are those who want the hardest and fastest Brexit possible. Conversely, some MPs such as my right hon. Friends the Members for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) and for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), and my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies), will vote against the Government amendment. They are not Brexit deniers; they are people with genuine concerns. The Government would do well to listen to them, because that is what building consensus means.