EU Membership Referendum: Impact on the UK Debate
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Mike Wood
Main Page: Mike Wood (Conservative - Kingswinford and South Staffordshire)Department Debates - View all Mike Wood's debates with the Cabinet Office
EU Membership Referendum: Impact on the UK
Mike Wood Excerpts(1 day, 8 hours ago)
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Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)
More than seven in 10 voters in my constituency voted to leave. That was not an accident, it was not confusion, and it was not because they were lied to.
Having spent seven happy years working in the European Parliament, I was not unfamiliar with the EU’s strengths, as well as its faults, but if there was one thing that caused me some hesitation before I decided to campaign for leave, it was knowing that it would be a huge undertaking. Unpicking 50 years of legislation and regulation would clearly be disruptive for many businesses, including many in my constituency, and would use up a lot of Government time for at least a decade. Of course, a global pandemic, a once-in-a-generation energy crisis and the shockwaves of war in Europe have added to the disruption. But to attribute every headwind to Brexit, as some Members have done, may be politically convenient, but it is economically simplistic.
Some Members have spoken about a £90 billion hit. The reality is that, since Brexit, UK GDP has grown at about the same rate as Italy’s, and above that of France and Germany.
Mike Wood
No, I only have five minutes.
For that £90 billion to be credible, one would have to imagine that we would have vastly exceeded the growth of every large European country if only we had stuck to what we were already doing, closer to the framework that those countries with lower growth are still in.
Carla Lockhart
I think the hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Ben Coleman) has had his say, quite significantly.
The EU is a failing entity and we got out at the right time. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is the continued capitulation of this Government and other UK parties, and a failure to accept the democratic outcome, that has led us to this point—especially the problems we are experiencing in Northern Ireland? Joining the EU is not the solution; it is about a strong Government leading this United Kingdom as a whole.
Mike Wood
The hon. Lady raises an important issue. Last summer, the Federation of Small Businesses in Northern Ireland said that two thirds of the SMEs in Northern Ireland that moved goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland had ceased to do so because of the way EU checks were being conducted. The Northern Ireland protocol says that if the UK experiences diversion of trade, we can take unilateral action. If two thirds of small businesses does not count as diversion of trade, what does? As the record shows, exports to the EU grew more in the five years since we left in 2021 than they did in the six years before the referendum.
The Opposition have set five clear tests for any renegotiation with the European Union: no return to free movement; no new payments to the EU; no loss of fishing rights; no dynamic alignment with EU rules; and no compromise on NATO’s primacy in European defence. Those tests are not ideological; they are the minimum requirement for respecting the 2016 mandate. Dynamic alignment may sound technical, but it means accepting rules that we no longer shape. Budgetary contributions may be dressed as programmes, but they mean sending money back without membership—often far more than can be fairly attributed to the costs caused by our participation. A customs arrangement that restricts our trade autonomy undermines the very sovereignty that voters endorsed.
Brexit was never about isolation: it was about independence. It was about being outward looking on British terms. We now have the ability to strike trade agreements globally. We have joined the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership, helping to open access to markets in 11 high-growth economies, from Canada to South Korea and Australia. Many of the bilateral trade deals that we have signed go far beyond the proceeding EU trade agreements, with deeper digital trade and data chapters that are important to so many of the sectors in which Britain is strongest.
Financial market reform has reduced the risk margin for life insurers, meaning that we can promote long-term growth and divert more to long-term infrastructure and green technologies. In agriculture, the UK has moved to environmental land management schemes, based on the principle of public money for public good, to support environmental outcomes instead of just paying landowners to own land. Our duty is clear: to honour the mandate, to defend the sovereignty the people voted for, to work with our allies as equal sovereign partners where we can, and to protect our country’s ability to take its own decisions in our nation’s interest.