Parliamentary Scrutiny of Leaving the EU

Nick Clegg Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Nick Clegg (Sheffield, Hallam) (LD)]

Having heard the remarks made by the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), I am reminded how many fixed points in British politics have changed, and changed utterly, over the last few months. When I used to stand at the Government Dispatch Box, I could always rely on the hon. Gentleman and many other fervent Brexiteers to marry their loathing of the European Union to their passion for the traditions and prerogatives of this House. That was their raison d'être: they hated Brussels as much as they loved the House of Commons. They still hate Brussels, but they now appear to be completely tongue-tied, mute, silent, when they have an opportunity to speak up for the traditional prerogatives of the House.

A few minutes ago, my old friend and foe the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone)—it is a pity that he is not in the Chamber now—was reduced, poor man, to presenting an obsequious, feather-duster question to the Secretary of State, rather than taking the opportunity to say that this place, in keeping with the greatest traditions of the mother of all Parliaments, should hold the Government to account for what they are now going to do, because the Government do not have a mandate on how to exit the European Union following the referendum on 23 June, and that is at the heart of today’s debate.

Who would have thought it of a Government of the Conservative party, the party of tradition and the venerable principles of parliamentary representative democracy? As they tiptoe away from the great traditions that they once espoused, they are doing two things: they are reinventing history, and they are wilfully ignoring precedent. I want to say a few words about both, but I shall begin with the reinvention of history.

We heard it today, and we heard it from the Secretary of State on Monday: apparently, the referendum on 23 June produced an overwhelming vote in favour of Brexit. Apparently, everyone—except, of course, for a few misguided members of the liberal elite—voted for Brexit. It was overwhelming. There was no contest. It seems to me, however, that the dictionary definition of “overwhelming” does not conform to a very narrow vote in which one side received 17.4 million votes and the other side 16.1 million. That, in my view, is not an overwhelming mandate.

But the reinvention of history continues. Now, it seems, the Government—unique in this land—have a telepathic ability to tell us all the reasons why those 17.4 million people voted for Brexit. That is extraordinary. It is particularly extraordinary given that they have never deigned to tell a single member of our wonderful country what they think Brexit means, because they could not agree among themselves then, and they still cannot agree. Nevertheless, with astonishing, telepathic hindsight, they can tell us why everyone voted as they did—and apparently everyone voted, en masse, for exactly the same thing.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Will the right hon. Gentleman not accept that the one thing that Brexit means is that we are leaving the European Union, and will he not say on the Floor of the House that he will not try to contravene or subvert that?

[Mr Clegg]

As the Secretary of State said earlier, being outside the European Union, like Turkey, Switzerland and Norway, means a multitude of different things. That is now the challenge for the Government. That is what the Brexiteers cynically withheld from the British people in the run-up to 23 June because they could not agree among themselves, and that is why the House of Commons now needs to hold the Government to account.

But, not happy just with reinventing history in terms of the so-called overwhelming vote, which was actually very close—not content just to have, apparently, this telepathic wisdom, with hindsight, about why everyone voted—the Government have cast aspersions on 16.1 million of our fellow citizens who did not agree with them. I find it quite extraordinary that the Prime Minister of our country, with no mandate of her own, had the gall to get up in front of her own party conference and basically imply that if you believe, as I believe, that we have a natural affinity not just with one another here, not just with our constituents and not just with the communities that we inhabit in this country, but with people living in other countries, other time zones and other hemispheres—if, that is, you feel that there is something called British internationalism, which I believe to be a proud, liberal, British tradition—you are a citizen of nowhere. I do not think that any Government who insult more than 16 million of their fellow citizens are capable of uniting a country that was so starkly divided on 23 June.

[Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)]

There seems to be a developing theme that the people who voted to leave were not clear about exactly what they were voting for. Does the right hon. Gentleman not recall the very clear warnings given by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer and the then Prime Minister that voting to leave meant leaving the single market? Does he not accept that leaving the European Union cannot mean the continuation of free movement and the application of European law that membership of the free market would require?

[Mr Clegg]

Let me answer the hon. Gentleman’s question directly. I personally take the unfashionable view that with a bit of fancy diplomatic footwork and some political intelligence, the Government could negotiate retention of our membership of the single market along with curtailment of freedom of movement. What the Government cannot do—and, funnily enough, the hon. Member for Stone was correct about this—is have membership of, or untrammelled access to, a marketplace of rules and not abide by those rules. That is what is impossible, but it was not a contradiction on the part of the British people; it is a contradiction on the part of the Government, and a self-inflicted one.

Let me now say something about precedent, for precedent is very important. Many people have talked about the history of this place, and the history of the relationship between the legislature and the Executive, but why has no one on the Government Benches cited what is, in my view, the very important precedent of John Major? When he was Prime Minister and was faced with a very tricky negotiation on the Maastricht treaty, he made the courageous decision—and it was not a risk-free decision—to come to the House and say, “This is what I want to negotiate on behalf of the United Kingdom; do you agree or not?” There was a debate, and then a vote, on 20 and 21 November 1991 That was a stance taken with courage and delivered with clarity. Where is the courage now? Where is the clarity? Where is the willingness of this Government to put country before party? It is truly a shame that the example set by John Major is not being adopted by the followers of the present Prime Minister.

[Sammy Wilson]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Clegg]

I shall make some progress, if I may. I want to cite one final precedent, which has not been mentioned in the debate so far but of which I have personal experience, and which I think has a direct bearing on the debate.

When I was Deputy Prime Minister in the coalition Government, a Secretary of State—I shall come to who it was in a minute—came to me and said, “Look, I have to negotiate, on behalf of the Government, a very tricky deal with the rest of the European Union.” It was all to do with the so-called JHA opt-out, on which I am sure the hon. Member for Stone could deliver a great treatise. As he will remember, under provisions negotiated by Tony Blair, the United Kingdom fell automatically out of a bunch of measures on crime-fighting—the so-called judicial and home affairs co-operation measures—and we had to decide, as a country, which ones we were going to opt back into.

There was a great tussle and argument between the two parties in the coalition. I wanted us to opt into more measures, and the Conservatives did not. However, I was told by the Secretary of State that the one absolutely indispensable requirement for that Secretary of State was, at the beginning of the negotiations, a full debate and vote on the mandate on which the coalition would then negotiate with the other member states, and at the end, another debate and vote. Those took place, and I can give the House the dates, which I have here on my scrawny little piece of paper. On 15 July 2013, the House debated and voted on that complex negotiation on the JHA opt-out, and the concluding vote on the final package—which we as a coalition Government were bringing back to the House—took place on 10 November 2014. The House might be interested to learn that the Secretary of State who was so adamant at that time that there should be a debate and a vote on those negotiations was none other than the Prime Minister of today.

That is significant, and my final question for the Ministers is this. If it was justifiable for the House of Commons to have not only a debate but a vote at the beginning and the conclusion of a negotiation on the significant but none the less comparatively narrow matter of the JHA opt-out, why on earth are the Government not coming here today and granting the House exactly the same rights and prerogatives for something that is immeasurably more significant and that will, as so many people have said, have a bearing on life in this country for generations to come?