The Government's Plan for Brexit — House of Commons, 2016-12-07
Topic: International Affairs
Kenneth Clarke (Conservative, Centre-right): No—only the last few decades can I recall directly. In any previous Parliament—certainly the ones I sat in—the process to be followed would have been regarded as self-evident: the Government would produce a policy statement, a White Paper, setting out their strategic objectives, their vision, for the role they were seeking for the United Kingdom; the House of Commons would be invited to vote on that strategy and to approve or deny it; then, with the approval of the House, the Government would go forward, again with the consent of the House, and invoke article 50; then they would start the negotiations. It is a quite unnecessary performance to try to modify that, but I am extremely worried that people are trying to do so I would echo the comments of the SNP spokesman, the hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins). I do not think that scrutiny and debate are a threat to a Government or to the quality of decision making. It is my opinion that we should return to proper Cabinet government in this country. If a Minister comes forward with controversial proposals, it is useful to have them tested by colleagues and improved in discussion, before they are sent to the House. Every Minister has taken part in debates in the House of Commons, and of course they maintain their course, but every now and then they will have a sinking feeling that their opponent is actually making rather a strong point. In such cases, one goes away and makes improvements. In strengthening their negotiating position, the Government could benefit from such a fit and proper process, particularly given that at the moment it is sadly clear from the constant remarks to the newspapers and the occasional leaks that Ministers have no idea what the strategy is and do not agree with each other anyway The Government have two or three arguments against this. The point about the royal prerogative is a matter for the Supreme Court. The excellent Treasury Devil, James Eadie, for whom I have the highest respect, has apparently argued that the royal prerogative still applies to making war as well as to making treaties. I will wait for the legal judgment but, politically, had Tony Blair decided when invading Iraq to tell the House of Commons that it was not a matter for the House of Commons and that he was invoking the royal prerogative rather than seeking a vote, he would have had even more trouble than he had in any case as a result of the strange way he went about the vote We are told that the referendum somehow overrides the centuries-old tradition of parliamentary accountability. I will not comment on the pathetically low level of debate, as reported in the national media, on both sides during the referendum campaign. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Brexit no more adopted some of the dafter and dishonest arguments on his side than I think I did on mine, but serious arguments were not reported. More to the point, the public voted by a majority to leave the EU. They did not vote for anything on the subject of replacements for the EU; it was not even raised in debate. These choices that Ministers are now struggling with, and for which they should be accountable to us, would have been a mystery to 99% of the people who listened to the debate and voted in the referendum. The issue of whether we should be in the customs union, and the consequences one way or the other, was not decided by the referendum. Brexiteers in the Government do not even agree with each other on the path they should now follow. We should go back to parliamentary democracy and accountability to this House.