Customs and Borders — House of Commons, 2018-04-26
Topic: Foreign Trade
Dominic Charles Roberts Grieve (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to participate in this debate, but I do not want to repeat what was said by the proposing Member, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), or my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke). I agreed with every sentiment they expressed My desire to participate stems, first, from my continuing frustration that every time, as a Member of Parliament, I want to come and participate in such a debate, I get told by roundabout means that I should not, because it might somehow put the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) into Downing Street. My experience in politics is that when it comes to fantasticals, wherever they may come on the political spectrum, the greatest chance of getting them into Downing Street is if people of a moderate and sensible disposition stop debating important issues, and I am absolutely determined that they will be debated Today’s debate offers us an opportunity to look at the possible merits of staying in a customs union. Of course a customs union is not perfect, particularly, I might add, a customs union when we are outside the EU. I agree with some of the comments that have been made that, by being outside the EU, we lose some of the influence that we have in creating and managing the customs union. That, I am afraid, is the price that we are paying for the folly of the decision in the referendum of 2016. Just because one has imposed one calamity on oneself does not mean that one then goes to inflict greater calamities simply on the basis that one has to do it in order to prove the theory—the mistaken theory—that one has espoused I am also a lawyer. I cannot deny the fact that it is noteworthy that we appear to be a gaggle of lawyers on these Benches who find an irrationality in the approach that some of our Conservative friends adopt and in which the Government sometimes appear to be mired Free trade agreements are wonderful things to have—I am a great believer in free trade agreements. I can see that, by being members of the EU, we have lost something in terms of being able to do our own free trade agreements, but not one single Government analysis suggests that they outweigh the advantages of participating in the best free trade arrangement that we have with our EU partners What is the point of having a free port in Middlesbrough —forgive me—if it is only going to be used to trade with the United Kingdom? Assuredly, it will not be to trade with our EU partners because they will not allow any of the goods in between Middlesbrough and the European continent. Why is it that pharmaceutically related businesses in my constituency tell me that they will be going if there is not frictionless trade with the European Union, which implies participation in the customs union? Why is it that the deputy ambassador of Japan has us all in and says, "You do realise that every Japanese company will be gone in 10 years’ time if they cannot have frictionless trade into the European Union." We are behaving in the most extraordinary and blinded fashion as we blunder around, ignoring the realities. In any case, free trade agreements come with strings attached, as I said earlier. If we have multiple free trade agreements, they will very quickly start to look like customs unions. That is what happens when people get together. This idea of "customs union bad" and, somehow, "free trade agreement good" simply does not stack up, and it is time for a reality check In fact, we need more than a customs union, because it is also obvious that we will not be able to trade without regulatory alignment. I was over in Dublin for a very interesting conference called by the Institute of International and European Affairs. The Irish border is just a microcosm of the bigger problem. It just so happens that, on the Irish border, people are trading constantly on a very intimate scale. A person sends their milk to the dairy over the border. If we do not have regulatory equivalence, we will not be able to do that. People will buy products, going backwards and forwards all the time. It absolutely highlights at that level the problem that we will have at a wider level if we persist with this idea that we can somehow get out and still enjoy the benefits of the frictionless trade that we say we want The extraordinary thing is that the Government know that, otherwise my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister would not be slaving away and being denounced as "cretinous" by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) for trying to square the circle. She is entitled to be commended for trying to do something really difficult. The trouble is that, unless we start injecting a note of realism into what we are doing, she will fail, this House will fail and our country will be failed.