European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Simon Clarke Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

That is what is laid out in the proposal, but the transition will then come to an end, and at the end of that, we will still have to make a decision on where we are going, backstop or no. I am afraid that we are always in, and the point is that it is at the behest of the European Union, not at our behest. I have nothing against the European Union, but it is the negotiating partner that may gain an advantage from delay.

[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

May I reassure my right hon. Friend on that point? It is clear from article 3 of the protocol that it is not necessarily a right for us to have that extended transition. We can only ask for it, and that is a different thing.

[Mr Davis]

Yes, that is also true, but the general point is that the overall timetable is not in our control; it is in the other side’s control. As we have seen throughout this entire negotiation, the moment we gave away sequencing at the beginning, we gave an advantage to the other side. My right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones), the former Minister of State, is nodding: he remembers it.

There are essentially three emblematic conclusions to this. The first is the World Trade Organisation, which we have talked about already—I doubt whether it will be a deliberate conclusion, but it is a possible one—the second is Norway, which a number of Members on both sides of the House have suggested might be the best outcome, and the third is Canada plus, plus, plus. There are compromises between them; there are mixtures of them; but those three essentially capture the possible outcomes.

Let me start with the issue on which I disagree with pretty much everyone who has spoken so far: the World Trade Organisation deal, the so-called no deal. The Chancellor called it a strict no deal, because he knows full well all the preparations that have been made in the Government to create a basic no deal, or basic negotiated outcome. There is a whole stratum, a whole spectrum, of possible types of no deal. Some of them deal with the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston) raised earlier—aviation, data and so on. If this deal goes down, as I think it will in a few days, there will be a scramble in London and Brussels to start putting those one-on-one, unilateral negotiations together. So there is a range of possibilities.

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[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

Reflecting on the recent debate in this House and in the country, I wish to open with the words of Sir Winston Churchill from 1934:

“all down the centuries, one peculiarity of the English people…has cost them dear. We have always thrown away after a victory the greater part of the advantages we gained in the struggle. The worst difficulties from which we suffer do not come from without. They come from within…from the mood of unwarrantable self-abasement into which we have been cast by a powerful section of our own intellectuals. They come from the acceptance of defeatist doctrines by a large proportion of our politicians… Nothing can save England if she will not save herself. If we lose faith in ourselves, in our capacity to guide and govern, if we lose our will to live, then indeed our story is told.”

Sadly, what has characterised these negotiations has been exactly that spirit. The Government have approached Europe as a supplicant, accepting a series of conditions that have led inexorably to this place. At the heart of that lies the backstop, but I will not rehearse arguments that have been well echoed this afternoon about why it simply does not work. Our own Ministers, the Irish Government and the EU have all made clear that under no circumstances will there be a hard border in Ireland. If this is a prison, it is one into which we will lock ourselves if we sign up to this deal.

Despite the Government’s best efforts to convince us otherwise, the EU clearly wants us in the backstop—why wouldn’t it? It would have total control of our trade and customs policy; it would have our £39 billion. It would have ensured that we cannot out-compete it through level playing field provisions, and it could offer unilateral access to our economy and its trade negotiations with third countries. That must be rejected. It may be that our doing so will finally prove to the European Union that, as the Prime Minister long insisted, no deal is better than a bad deal. I continue to believe there is a better deal to be done, but we must face the possibility that that may not be possible.

In such a case, I am clear that we should leave on 29 March next year on World Trade Organisation terms, in accordance with the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. I do not say that lightly. It will require courage and resolution, as well as a dynamic policy response that should include exciting ideas such as free ports. For reasons that are bewildering to me, the Government have failed to initiate serious preparations for that scenario when there was good time to do so. That was not due to negligence; rather it was a conscious policy lest—God forbid!—the Europeans understood from our making such preparations that we really were resolved to leave in earnest. That has been a lamentable failure and must change now, for every day is of value.

That must be accompanied by a wider change of policy. If the deal is rejected by the House, as I hope it will be, the ghosts of “Project Fear” must be exorcised. They have offered bad counsel for far too long, seeking always to reduce the path of negotiation to a minimalist and apologetic legal separation, rather than a great nation setting forth into the world.

My final words are to those colleagues who seek to prevent a clean Brexit through amendments tabled to that effect. I say simply that they should think well upon it, because without a clean Brexit we truly would be hostages to fortune, choosing only between the Scylla of a bad deal and the Charybdis of a second referendum, and that latter scenario would do untold damage to people’s faith in democracy. People in forgotten parts of Middleborough and East Cleveland voted to leave. They still want to leave, and they want to leave properly, preferably with a good deal agreed in honour, but if necessary, by trusting in our strengths, and with resolve to succeed as a global free-trading powerhouse.

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[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell).

Members will have noted during this week’s business a most sincere and clear lack of pleasure from the Democratic Unionist party in what is happening. I was not pleased to learn that the legal opinion of the Attorney General was not to be made public; I was not pleased to learn that the Attorney General shares my concerns about the undesirable features of the backstop; and I had no pleasure in the vindication of our demand for the legal opinion, as it backed up my biggest fears.

The legal opinion is clear that the protocol is

“binding on the United Kingdom and the European Union in international law… NI remains in the EU’s Customs Union, and will apply the whole of the EU’s customs acquis… Northern Ireland will remain in the EU’s Single Market for Goods and the EU’s customs regime, and will be required to apply and to comply with the relevant rules and standards.”

It is little wonder that constituents in my fishing village of Portavogie have always been clear that they want fewer restrictions and they want to be less encumbered and less prevented from fishing in their own waters. In Portavogie, Ardglass and Kilkeel we have been on the frontline of EU aggression and bureaucracy.

About the insurance policy, Ministers have told us, “We don’t want it and they don’t want it.” Well, if none of us really wants it, why is it there? That is the question I ask myself.

[Mr Simon Clarke]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jim Shannon]

No, I will not give way.

Why is the insurance policy almost the only thing that has been agreed? If it will not be necessary, why have we spent 18 months discussing this and little else? I am not a fisherman by nature, but I know codswallop when I see it, and that is what this is. And for good measure there is the £40 billion. My goodness, who in their right mind would do that? It is unbelievable.

What rational person would think that Europe, which has fought so hard for this and which has pinned all its bargaining and all its red lines on this one insurance policy to ensure there is no legal form of leaving this international treaty unilaterally without consent, will ever decide to allow us to walk away when there is no mechanism legally to compel it to come to an agreement? Not me and, let us be honest, not anyone in this House. Please forgive me for expressing some disgust in a promise made by some in this House that has then been denied us—those Members, and the Government, know exactly who I am referring to.

We are small but we are part of this wonderful United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I sincerely believe that we can and will survive the Brexit process, but only if we stand together. The Belfast agreement clearly says that Northern Ireland remains in the UK until a majority vote to leave is plain. It states:

“Northern Ireland in its entirety remains part of the United Kingdom and shall not cease to be so without the consent of a majority”.

Yet the Attorney General clearly states that we are now a third country. So can that be legally acceptable? I say no.

The red line that my party has—I have heard Members referring to this—is not in red pen; it is in the blood of family members, people such as my cousin Kenneth Smith, of neighbours, of colleagues and of constituents—of your constituents and mine. They have shed blood to defend the right to democracy and to determine that nothing can enforce a united Ireland other than the will of the people. The Government have created the potential for an all-Ireland. Members must be very clear about what I am saying here, as I mean this. They must see the mistrust I have for the Government at this moment in time. They have drawn a dust sheet over the lines drawn in the precious blood of so many I loved. This Government are proposing to allow my beloved Northern Ireland to become a violated, voiceless, vetoless victim of Europe’s desperate grasp for control over our UK.

So next Tuesday, I am going to stand up for my people, and I urge others to do the same. I will stand up for our own nation and for our own good. I urge the Government to go back to Europe with the courage of their conviction that this UK will be no one’s vassal state and that Northern Ireland’s blood-bought birthright is not for sale.

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[Dr Fox]

My right hon. and learned Friend is right. It is certainly true that the draft political declaration was not as favourable to an independent trade policy as the final declaration is, given the changes that the United Kingdom insisted on in that negotiation. I was much heartened by those changes, not least because the declaration talks of building on and improving customs co-operation, not just building on it, and it cross-references the other elements of that to include protection of our independent trade policy.

[Mr Simon Clarke]

On the subject of forecasts and scenarios, may I refer my right hon. Friend to Open Europe’s excellent report, published this week? It is clear that the gains from artificial intelligence over the next 10 to 15 years will more than outweigh any conceivable loss from any scenario surrounding our exit.

[Dr Fox]

Indeed—my hon. Friend is right to say that that was correct in all scenarios. The doom and gloom pushed in some quarters is not consistent with the reality of Britain’s economic performance.

Now is the time to raise our sights and acknowledge that there is a world beyond Europe and there will be a time beyond Brexit. The referendum settled the question of our departure from the European Union. This House voted overwhelmingly to hold that referendum. The British people voted on the understanding that we would enact the result.

In 2016, we did not have a consultation with the British public; we were given an instruction to negotiate this country’s withdrawal from the European Union. That point was made in powerful speeches by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald) and my hon. Friends the Members for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin), for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan) and for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), among others. They all come from different parts of the political debate—a clear indication that we have to find a compromise that makes this workable. The withdrawal agreement achieves just that. Most importantly, it enacts the democratic will of the British people.

I remind the House that this is the only deal on the table. It has been painstakingly negotiated by both sides and of course we do not have every single thing that we wanted—but then again, neither did the EU. That is the nature of international agreements. The deal is a compromise, as was pointed out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) in an outstanding, personal and passionate speech, the likes of which we would love to hear more of in this House. That message was echoed by my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green).

Do I think the agreement is perfect? No, I do not. Did I think it would be? No, I did not. But does it do enough to get us out of the European Union? Yes, it does. For those who want another referendum, let us be very clear: the one thing that will not be on offer in any further referendum, just as it was not in the last one, is the status quo. The status quo has never been on offer; this is a dynamic progression in the European Union. The EU is committed, as it has been since the treaty of Rome, to ever closer union. We wish our European friends well in that endeavour, but it is not the right course for Britain. We must be free from the one-way ratchet of federalism, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) said in his powerful intervention.