EU Exit Negotiations

Peter Grant Excerpts

Monday 15th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

In relation to the UK-wide customs arrangement, we set out when we published our proposals in June that we would expect that to end by December 2021. My right hon. Friend asked me what I want to see and what I think in relation to this arrangement. I do not want to see the backstop having to be used at all. I want to ensure that we deliver for the people of Northern Ireland through the future relationship and that that future relationship comes into place on 1 January 2021, when the implementation period ends, so that we do not have to see this backstop arrangement being used at all.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am grateful to the Prime Minister for advance sight of her statement. First, may I apologise on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford), who, as is often the way when coming from a remote location, has been delayed in transit?

This morning, Scotland’s First Minister launched “Scotland’s Place in Europe: Our Way Forward”, which is the latest in a series of analyses on the ongoing negotiations and sets out the best—or least worst—possible future for Scotland. The first of these Scottish Government analysis papers came 18 months before Chequers and, to date, has not led to a single resignation from the Scottish Cabinet. The sense of unity and the responsibility being demonstrated by the Government in Edinburgh could hardly be in more marked contrast to what we see from the UK Government here today.

Last night, the negotiations collapsed again. Did the Secretary of State go dashing off to Brussels just to fail? Or did he go because his officials had told him a deal was close? If that is the case, surely this House is entitled to know what, yet again, went wrong at the last minute. The Government’s official explanations only make sense if the Prime Minister has decided that the proposal she signed up to last December is unworkable.

The reality of all this weighs heavily across communities, particularly on the island of Ireland. We are three days away from the EU Council summit, and the UK Government continue to show at best disdain and at worst open contempt for the people of Ireland and for the Good Friday agreement. The Government clearly have no real understanding of what communities on both sides of the border are feeling about these negotiations. As long ago as last December, the Brexit Select Committee, despite an over-representation of hardliners, made it clear:

“We do not currently see how it will be possible to reconcile there being no border with the Government’s policy of leaving the Single Market”—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am trying to hear the hon. Gentleman. Let’s hear the fella. [Interruption.] Order. I know that there is much noise. The hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) was pointing out that there is a lot of noise. I am well aware of that fact, and he does not need to conduct the orchestra.

[Peter Grant]

We can see how the Prime Minister’s Back Benchers have responded to her appeal for cool, calm heads. We can understand why she struggles to keep her party together when there are hard questions to be answered.

What was striking was the contrast in reaction from the Tory Back Benchers: when the Prime Minister committed to defend the Good Friday agreement, there was at best a lukewarm response, but there were then three hearty cheers when she said that we were taking Northern Ireland out of the customs union. It tells us where the Tory party’s priorities lie. A Conservative party playing politics with people’s lives for the sake of its own political survival is nothing short of disgraceful.

There is a better way. It is time for the Prime Minister to disown the extreme hard-line minority in her own party. She has the chance to resolve the question of the Irish border to protect jobs, to prevent the economic catastrophe that we face and to respect the result of the referendum in 2016. Will she now accept that she got it wrong? Will she now commit to a damage limitation Brexit and accept that there is a significant consensus in this House in favour of remaining in the single market and the customs union? I say to her to ignore her own career prospects, to ignore the career ambitions of those behind her and to look instead at the hundreds of thousands of people whose jobs are at risk if this goes wrong. Will she take her head out of the sand and work with those on all Benches in this House to ensure that a United Kingdom stays in the single market and in the customs union?