edited speech

Many people outside this House are losing confidence and trust in us and our proceedings. Tonight is another plunge in how they see us, because we are behaving collectively so badly. My right hon. and hon. Friends who have complained about the lack of time for debating both the Bill and the amendments are quite right. This is a serious constitutional matter. We have not been given time to construct proper amendments and there is no time in this brief hour to do justice to the complex issues raised by the Lords amendments. We had but a short debate on the original consideration of the Bill, when I was able to set out some of the constitutional difficulties involved in groups of MPs seizing the agenda and taking over money resolution and Crown prerogative matters. We are not allowed proper time tonight to consider exactly how all that fits with this Bill.

What we do know, however, is that the very slim majority who have got the Bill this far through this House intend to go against the clearly expressed wishes of the British people in the referendum. All those who voted to leave, two years and nine months ago, had every reason to suppose that all Labour and Conservative Members elected on their 2017 manifestos would see through our exit in a timely way. They should also have expected that from the promises made by both the leave and the remain campaigns in the referendum, the legislation put through in granting that referendum, and the clear statement of the Government at the time, who said that we would implement the wishes of the British people. The Opposition did not dissent from that particular view when the Government put out their leaflet. Indeed, during the remain campaign many Labour MPs endorsed the Government. That is why tonight is another sad night. This Parliament is breaking its word, breaking its promises and letting down 17.4 million voters, but it is also letting down quite a lot of remain voters.

A lot of remain voters are good democrats who fully accept the verdict of the British people. Quite a lot of people in our country were only just remain voters or only just leave voters and are prepared to live with the judgment of the majority. They too are scandalised that this Parliament is insisting on a second needless delay when we have had two years and nine months to prepare for exit and when our Government assure us that they are fully prepared for exiting without signing the withdrawal agreement.

I find it very odd that Members of this House think that the withdrawal agreement is, in itself, Brexit or in any way helps Brexit. The withdrawal agreement is a massively long delay to our exit, with the added problem, which the Opposition have rightly identified, that it entails signing up to a solemn and binding international treaty to undermine our bargaining position in the second part of the negotiations envisaged by the EU’s process.

Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con): My right hon. Friend is making an extremely good speech. Is he aware that, as I have been informed today, the withdrawal agreement and implementation Bill, which is supposed to put this appalling withdrawal agreement into domestic law, is around 120 pages long? That is what we are heading for in the next couple of weeks.

John Redwood My hon. Friend is right. The nature of that solemn and binding treaty will be to lock us in, for 21 or 45 months, to every feature of the European Union without representation, vote or voice. It might mean that we end up in large sections of it—the customs union and single market alignment—in perpetuity, thanks to the Irish backstop.

It is a massive delay, and I say to my hon. and right hon. Friends on the Front Bench that, if they are offering the public either a guaranteed delay under the withdrawal agreement or a shorter delay that they wish to negotiate, a lot of leave voters would rather have the shorter delay. All of us leave voters do not want any delay at all. That is why people will be scandalised by what this House is rushing through again this evening.

The shortage of time is completely scandalous. This is a massive issue that has gripped the nation for many months. It dominates the news media, it sucks the life out of this House on every other issue and now, when we come to this big crunch event and when leave had been led to believe that we would be leaving the European Union without an agreement if necessary, they are told at the last minute, for the second time, that all their hopes for their democratic outcome will be dashed again. This Parliament does that with grave danger to its reputation.

I urge all those who wish to get this lightning legislation through again to ask themselves what they are going to say to all their leave voters, and what they are going to say to their remain voters who are also democrats and who join leave voters in saying, “Get on with it. Get it over with. Why do we have to sit through month after month of the same people making the same points that they put to a referendum and lost?”

This Parliament needs to wake up and get real. It needs to move on. It needs to rise to the nation’s requirements and deal with the nation’s other business, and it needs to accept that this was decided by the public. It is our duty to implement it. Leaving without this agreement is going to be just fine. We are prepared for it. Business is ready for it. Business has spent money. Business has done whatever it needed to do and, in many cases, feels very let down that it is not able to use all its contingencies, on which it has spent good money.

I would say this to all Labour MPs, particularly those with a majority of leave voters in their constituency: understand the damage you are doing, understand the damage you are doing to this institution, understand the damage you are doing to our democracy and vote for us to leave the European Union.

Before the referendum pro Remain commentators and MPs delighted in telling us we were a free and independent country whilst still in the EU. They explained that the EU did not have much power over us, just a few necessary details to allow trade to take place. Since we voted to leave some of these same people have explained how crucial EU laws and controls are, and how they penetrate most features of our public life and law codes. They now claim the control is so wide ranging we cannot live successfully without it.

The supremacy of EU law over domestic law has been at the centre of recent disputes over the matter of delaying our exit. The Prime Minister requested a delay of Brussels at the last Council. She wanted to leave on 30 June. The EU Council instead gave her the ultimatum  of a delay until April 12th, unless she could carry the Withdrawal Agreement which could hold up  our departure  until May 22nd. These different delays had not been agreed by Parliament or even explained to Parliament. As soon as the PM said Yes to the Council we were told they were good EU law which trumped all that Parliament had enacted to get us out on 29 March. After a legal wrangle the government decided to put it beyond doubt by legislating in the UK as well, whilst claiming the supremacy of EU law.

The upcoming Council on Wednesday raises the same difficult issue again. The Prime Minister is requesting a delay until June 30th for a second time. If the EU grants it she will tell Parliament we have to put up with it whether we like it or not. Treaty law is superior to UK law, and apparently a mere written statement by the EU Council can flex this Treaty.

The question is how will the EU want to respond this time to a request for yet more delay? The EU minus the UK has big plans to press on with greater political, monetary and economic integration. Many of its members will be pleased to see the end of UK resistance to these centralising plans, as the UK has for years been trying to slow down the movement to greater integration. France may be tempted to get rid of the UK more quickly so she can press Germany harder for a closer union. Germany may be more attracted to delay so the UK has to pay in money for longer which helps Germany most as the biggest paymaster, and dilutes French and other centralising influences as well.

What will be clear is that once again our future will be settled by the rest of the EU, probably under the influence of Germany and France.They will decide whether the UK can delay, and if so on what terms. They after all have encouraged the Commission to settle the penal terms for long delay that are represented in the Withdrawal Agreement at great cost to the UK.  The UK public has been too wise to fall for thar so the EU does need to think again. The UK government us humiliating our country by putting us through this repeated begging to the European Council.

When I fought the last election as a Conservative candidate I believed in the words of our Manifesto, echoed  by our Leader. We said we would leave the EU 2 years after sending the notification letter. We said No Deal is better than a bad deal. We said we would leave the single market and customs union. We set out a new UK trade policy. We pledged to take back control of our borders, our laws and our money.

Now the Prime Minister tells us we can either support a Withdrawal Agreement which does none of these things for at least 21 months or maybe for 45 months, or support a delay which puts off all these things. Indeed, there is little difference between the two options, save that the Withdrawal Agreement makes the delay a minimum of 21 months and takes away much of our bargaining position as we try to negotiate a future partnership and some kind of exit from a position of weakness. The Irish backstop is but one of the dreadful features of the Agreement. It means we might never get out of the customs Union  or shake off alignment with all the laws they deem to be related to the single market. There are clearly those in government who have wanted to stay in the  customs union and much of the single market all along, and have been looking for ways to achieve this.

I do not agree with being faced with this pair of options which offers no real choice. I have no wish to tear up the promises I made along with the national party in 2017. I think we should try harder to implement what we promised. The way to do so is as I have often set out, to leave on April 12th (needlessly delayed from March 29th), and aim to initiate trade talks with the EU as we exit.  There is a big backlash from party members and Conservative voters to what the Prime Minister is trying to do.The country has decided by a large margin according to the polls that the Withdrawal Agreement is a bad Treaty to enter. Far from allowing us to sort out Brexit after signing, it would lock us into massively expensive financial and legislative commitments and prejudices our future badly.

The government needs to keep its word. From day to day now we do not know what the government is going to say next, nor who in the government is going to push a different line from the Prime Minister. We wait to see what more of our election  promises are discarded  by the Cabinet.  We are on running 3 line whips all this week including Friday in case the government wants to do something. It is clearly making it up as it goes along, and failing to tell the MPs who are meant to support it what the government  wants or why. I am all for  going to Parliament to do good things for our constituents, but so far there are general debates on Wednesday and Thursday. As there are  no votes on those two days in the current business  and nothing to do on  Friday why the 3 line whip? If you want to get MPs to respect the whip more, it has to be applied for good reason.

My criticism of much mainstream media journalism about just leaving the EU is the lack of neutrality or objectivity in the reporting.

Many of them just assert leaving without a deal is “falling off a cliff edge” or will result in “cataclysm, or disaster”. This is the extreme language of some Remain MPs.

A neutral commentator should use neutral language to describe such an exit .  “Just leaving the EU without signing the Withdrawal Agreement”  would do it.

They could then expand on how the two sides view that –

“Remain thinks this would be like falling off a cliff. They think it would  be disastrous for the UK economy. They think the UK does owe more money to the EU and has to settle the bill.  Leave on the other hand think it means quickly achieving their aims of taking back control of our laws, our borders and our money. They say it  would enable the government to boost the UK economy by spending  the money saved from EU contributions  on improved public services and tax cuts at home ”

That is as far as a reporter might wish to go. A commentator might go on to explain why he or she favoured the Remain or the Leave view, placing more information and criticism on the table. Where the media is using so called experts it would be helpful for them to reveal whether they are Leave voting or Remain voting experts, given the intensity of feeling on this issue.

 

 

Some are still writing to me saying the referendum was advisory, that it could have been the first of two, that it did not entail leaving the single market and customs union etc. Let’s have another go at explaining it.

 

The government leaflet said

“A ONCE IN A GENERATION DECISION    (in bold, decision not advisory, once only)

This is your decision. The government will implement what you decide”

 

It could not have been clearer

 

Much of the text was about trade and economics. It made clear we would be outside the single market, and set out why it thought that would be negative.

It also was based on the premise that  we would be outside the customs union, though it did not say that directly. It went on at length about the need to negotiate a trade agreement with the EU after leaving, saying it would take time and be partial. You would not be able to and would not need to negotiate a trade deal with the EU if you were still in the Customs Union!

It was made clear by Remain in the campaign that leaving meant leaving the single market and customs union. Leave understood this and talked about the advantages of the UK being able to strike tariff free trade deals elsewhere which you could not do if still in the Customs Union.

The Conservative Manifesto of 2017 expressly ruled out staying in the single market and customs union. The Labour Manifesto set out a detailed independent UK trade policy which you could not do from within the single market and or customs union with the EU.

A number of constituents have contacted me about a second referendum. If I thought another vote could produce an answer the majority were happy with and which the rest would accept I would be tempted.  I have given this considerable thought but  have come down against supporting one for a variety of good reasons. A second referendum would increase divisions and undermine trust in the democratic process.

This issue was raised prominently in the 2017 General election by the Lib Dems. Both nationally and locally they argued for a second referendum. The national Conservative party, the national Labour party, the local Labour candidate and myself argued against. I do not normally change my mind on a promise made to my electors in a General election, and would need a very good reason to do so. In some cases where a voter was keen on a second referendum and said they could not live with the referendum result I told them they should not vote for me because I did wish to honour the national referendum result and thought a second referendum would be divisive.

It is difficult to know what question would be asked in a second referendum. Leave voters would resent the idea that they had to answer the same question twice. Nothing has changed since 2016. The arguments today are still the same as they were during the long and detailed referendum campaign examination. I was made to spend much of the time during the referendum debating customs unions, Norway and Swiss models, regulatory alignment and all the other matters that have dominated Parliament for 3 years now. The government leaflet to all households explained that leaving the EU meant leaving the single market and customs union, and the government forecast in graphic detail why it thought that would be a bad idea. Its short term economic forecasts for the first couple of years after a No vote proved to be wildly too pessimistic. I suspect Leave would win the same referendum again. If by any chance they did not, why would Leave voters be any more accepting of the second vote than some Remain MPs have been of the first vote? It would add more rancour and division to an already difficult situation. The cry would go up from many Leave supporters ” Let’s make it the best of three. ”

Some say they want a referendum on the question of accepting Mrs May’s Withdrawal Agreement or staying in. That is clearly a different question to Leave or remain. The problem with that is it does not offer the 17.4 m Leave voters anything to vote for, as most of us do not regard the Withdrawal Agreement as leaving. It is a Delay Agreement, keeping us in the EU without vote or voice for 21 to 45 months with a very uncertain future still to be negotiated. Were that to come about I suspect most Leave voters would simply write Leave on their ballot papers, resulting in a likely win for spoilt papers and a massive problem for Parliament trying to interpret the result.

You could have a second referendum asking the public to say would they want to sign the Withdrawal Agreement or leave without singing it. That is a new question, respects the results of the first referendum and gives Leave voters a clear choice they will like. I suspect that most advocates of the second referendum would not favour that choice, as they usually tell me they want Remain on the ballot paper.

That leaves the possibility of a three way choice between Leave without the Agreement, sign the Agreement or Remain with full EU membership. This does not fully respect the results of the last referendum. It makes it very likely that the winning proposition has considerably less than 50% of the vote. Given the passions on this issue I would not wish us to implement a minority decision disliked by two of the three groupings in such a referendum. The organisation of a three way campaign with three official teams would also be more complex than the usual binary choice approach.

For these reasons I do not recommend a second vote on this topic. I think we need to move on. I want to concentrate on the issues of schools, social care, planning and highways that have a daily impact on my constituents lives. I want to help lift the indecision and uncertainty the delay of Brexit is causing.

The debate on Wednesday failed to get to grips properly with the constitutional revolution some Remain MPs are trying to unleash on the UK. The approach was based on  lightning legislation with insufficient time to consider and propose amendments. A  majority of one vote from a coalition that have never stood together on a platform before sought to impose their will on the government. The result is a Bill that rushed on to the Lords, where they wish to do the same, with the government against. If the government had itself tried to put legislation through like that many of the advocates of this Bill would have been protesting strongly. MPs were having to cobble together handwritten amendments to give in just a short while before the debate, whilst also listening to proceedings. It is not a good way to behave.

The government now has to decide whether it wishes to try to get back control or not. It should assert that the Bill has large financial implications. It should refuse to move a Money resolution to cover the costs. Ministers should remind the House that international negotiations are vested in the government of the day to handle as they see fit. Only the passage of a motion of no confidence in the government should be able to stop their handling of these matters. The government in its turn where an international negotiation requires legislation to implement it needs to be fully aware of what the House will and will not pass before striking an agreement in principle.

The crucial votes on the Bill and the wish of the new coalition to control the Order paper again on Monday were knife edge with around 310 on each side. They lost the Monday business but won the Bill. Two of the other votes tell us more about the views of this Remain dominated Parliament.

Anne Main proposed that no delay should be permitted beyond the 22 May deadline for our exit. 123 of us voted for this, with a massive 488 against. This demonstrated that more than three quarters of the House are against a timely Brexit three years after the decision was made. It shows that a May/Corbyn coalition could have a large majority to railroad things through against the wishes of the minority who speak up for the 17.4m Leave voters.

The government proposed an amendment that in effect would have made delay easier for Ministers to arrange. That was defeated by 400 to 220, when many Conservatives voted against the government in favour of less delay. The Opposition decision to vote against was curious given their clear wish to delay.

What Wednesday showed in the Commons is the fate of Brexit hangs more in the hands of Mrs May than of Parliament. Despite the serious efforts to wrestle power from the government, it is still in Mrs May’s capacity to allow us to leave on April 12 without signing the Withdrawal Agreement, or in her power to do a deal with Mr Corbyn to wound and delay Brexit for as long as they like subject to EU approval.

Yesterday the Commons by a majority of one on the Speakers casting vote rejected the idea that we need another day of indicative votes . The last time we did this   we were only offered Remain options and rejected them all .

Then it voted by a majority of one to approve a bill requiring the government to ask for an unspecified delay in Brexit. In so doing the Commons showed its contempt for the referendum and for the  clear feeling in the country  that they want Brexit over. Parliament and the EU has wasted three years  now from the decision. They tell us they have prepared for a no deal exit. It is time  to just get on with it.

There is no good reason for a delay. There is no obvious compromise between Leave and Remain. For 47 years we have lived with Remain with nothing offered to us who wanted out. You are either in or out. Many successful countries who trade a lot with the EU are out.

The next few days will once again be important in settling whether we leave the EU or delay it again.

According to the EU’s timetable the UK government would need to send a letter on Friday of this week requesting a further delay , as the EU needs two working days to consider it before the European Council on April 10th. The letter would need to set out how long a delay the government was seeking, and for what purpose. The context is the EU’s clear statements that it will not re open negotiations on the Withdrawal Agreement, and that the UK has to sign the Withdrawal Treaty and implement it in UK law to be able to enter talks about a so called future partnership agreement. Mrs May’s idea of a close and wide ranging partnership, or the ideas of a customs union, Common market 2.0 and other close alignments would only be feasible if the UK has signed the Withdrawal Treaty.

The added complication driving the current timetable is the European Parliamentary election. April 12th is the last date for the UK to set up an election to that body. The UK would be required by EU Treaty law to elect new MEPs if its EU membership is going to extend beyond May 22nd, the date of the election. There is a reluctance on both sides of the Channel to allow this for obvious political reasons.

The EU has said it would only consider a long extension if the UK promised a second referendum or a General election. They have no wish to renegotiate the Agreement, which is take it or leave it.

Mrs May’s statement was unacceptable. There must be no more delay. Labour’s policy of  trying to stay in the Customs Union is against the Conservative Manifesto and all Mrs May’s promises to date. She did not take no deal off the table in her address to the nation but let it be briefed she will take it off for her talks with Labour. It cannot be taken off  the agenda as it is the default position. It is also the preference of a majority of Conservative MPs and of most Leave voters. Mrs May could only get her Agreement through if Mr Corbyn promises to vote for it and to vote for the subsequent legislation to implement it, as the DUP and many Conservatives will not vote for the Agreement with a Customs Union and single market laws added on to it.

Remain leaning MPs dream of all kinds of delay. Some would accept a short delay, hoping it would lead to another short delay. Some want a long delay. Opposition MPs want a delay for a General election or a second referendum. It is difficult to see the Conservative party in Parliament voting for either a General election or a second referendum A small number of Conservative MPs want a delay effectively for a renegotiation which the EU has not offered. In the recent free vote on delay 200 Conservative MPs refused to back the Prime Minister’s short delay until April 12th, which passed on Opposition votes.

Parliament’s indicative votes about a different future from either leaving without the Withdrawal Agreement or leaving with it imply negotiation of a delay. The problem with this approach is that the things they want relate to the second part of the negotiation with the EU as defined by the EU.The EU has made clear the UK has to sign the Withdrawal Treaty Parliament has three times rejected before such talks take place.

The wish of a lot of MPs to have a customs union relationship could only happen after signing the Withdrawal Agreement which they rightly refuse to do. The EU has said they would consider a long delay as long as the UK participates in the European elections in May. This is a  very uninviting prospect for either of the two main political parties, who could expect a strong challenge from pro Brexit parties angry at the delay.

Yesterday Parliament was offered just four choices for the future, as the number of propositions was whittled down. Because it is a Remain dominated Parliament there was no Brexit option left to choose from. Leaving without signing the Withdrawal Agreement was removed and my preference for a WTO/Free Trade offer exit was not available either. We had a Customs union proposal. We were offered a plan to create Common Market 2.0 with a customs union and single market membership, implying freedom of movement, some financial  contributions and acceptance of single market laws.  We had a motion to require a confirmatory public vote for any exit plan, which would mean a referendum running any final deal against staying in, with no proper Brexit option on the ballot paper. There was finally a motion to secure a delay or failing that to revoke our notice to leave.

The government should have asked all Conservatives to vote against all four options, which all pro Leave MPs were willing to do. All four were against the Conservative Manifesto of 2017. It was good to see there was a majority against all of these ways of stopping Brexit. The Cabinet should take note and agree our exit on 12 April without the Withdrawal Agreement.