EU Exit Negotiations — House of Commons, 2017-10-17
Topic: International Affairs
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement No one should underestimate the seriousness of the situation in which we find ourselves. At the first hurdle, the Government have failed to hit a very important target, which leaves EU citizens in the UK and UK citizens in Europe in a continued state of uncertainty. There is insufficient progress on Northern Ireland, and it appears that the deadlock on the financial settlement is such that both sides are barely talking The Secretary of State says he is confident that we are now on the right track. I cannot fault him for his confidence in his own negotiating ambitions. The problem is that most of those ambitions have failed to materialise. One ambition was that the sequencing of talks would be the row of the summer and that he would not agree, but he agreed by coffee time on day one. His suggestion that sequencing and the concept of sufficient progress are EU constructs leaves out the fact that he agreed to them and signed up The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State were right to go to Brussels last night. Obviously, I would like to claim that was in response to the letter I wrote to the Secretary of State last Thursday, but even I recognise that would probably be over-claiming for my letter. Because of the seriousness of the situation, both sides—I include the EU—need to do whatever they can to break the impasse by Friday. More flexibility is needed on both sides by Friday I hear what the Secretary of State says about the Florence speech, which was an important speech, but he would be on stronger ground if what the Prime Minister said in Florence had not been immediately undermined by the self-interested antics of some Cabinet members. I also hear what the Secretary of State says about the statement of intent last night to accelerate the process. Given the glacial speed so far, it is not exactly a high ambition—a car going from 2 miles per hour to 4 miles per hour is accelerating, but it is still going slowly If we want investment in our economy to continue, and if we want businesses to stay here and others to come, we need to start talking about transitional arrangements now. Those transitional arrangements need to be on the same basic terms as now—in the single market and within a customs union. Every passing week without progress on transitional arrangements makes things worse for businesses, not better. We need to make progress this week, before December We also need to drop the nonsense about no deal. Only fantasists and fanatics talk up no deal. No deal is not good for the UK, is not good for the EU and is not what the Secretary of State wants, but he must now realise that the slow progress of these talks raises the risk of no deal We need the Secretary of State to answer these critical questions from the Dispatch Box today. What does he intend to do between now and Friday to deliver on the commitment to accelerate the talks? What words does he want to hear on Friday to evidence that progress? How confident is he, on a scale of one to 10, that he will hear those words? And what does he intend to do if he fails?