European Economic Area: UK Membership — House of Commons, 2017-11-06
Topic: Foreign Trade
Geraint Richard Davies (Labour, Centre-left): It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry). She mentioned Margaret Thatcher, who I recall quoting Attlee saying that referendums were the instruments of "dictators and demagogues" because Hitler used them to assume supreme power, militarise, invade and commit atrocities. Of course, the EU referendum—an advisory referendum—was full of misinformation, and every day people are saying, "This isn’t what I voted for." We are here to talk about market economics. If the UK leaves the single market—the most developed free market in the world—the EEA and the EU, which has 66 bilateral trade agreements, it will be the greatest withdrawal from free trade in UK history. The reality is that we are not turning towards free trade; we are turning away from free trade and proper trade for the good of our economy Hon. Members have talked about the need to restrict migration, but they should know that the EU has enormous powers in its rules to restrict migration. For instance, people are thrown out of other EU countries when they have stayed for three months without getting a job, and there is no automatic right to benefits. What is more, EU migrants contribute to the economy 35% more in tax than they consume in public services. Migration is good. If we can salvage some of the benefits by staying in the EEA, all well and good; it is second best to staying in the EU People say that we can turn away and have our own trade relations with, for instance, the United States, but as we have already seen in the case of Bombardier, the United States will not think twice about imposing tariffs. We have heard Donald Trump saying that foreign countries are taking his jobs, making his products and stealing his companies, so we know that we would be hammered. By being in the EEA, we could trade with the US through the single market. We will not get the same terms as the EU has with the US. The firms which have their headquarters here will move into the European zone to trade, because there is no prospect of having any sort of deal with the US in the next five or six years We have seen the benefits of migration. If we turn our backs on the EU and the EEA, as people are suggesting, higher-value individuals—people in finance, lawyers, and doctors from our NHS—will continue to move out. All the studies show that the retention will be among the so-called lower-value people. If we swapped the people from Britain who migrate to retire in Spain for Polish workers, for instance, we would be swapping people who take money out of the NHS for those who make a contribution. It makes no economic sense My view is that this place should ultimately have a vote on the exit package, and that that vote should be at least three months before exit day. Before that, the people should be given a vote—a final say—on the exit package. The simple reality is that we continue to hurtle towards this cliff edge, and people say, "Tell you what, we’ll give you some rubber shoes to jump over the end", but an economic and social nightmare is emerging. A few fundamentalists think we should carry on, but the people should have the final say because they are simply not getting what they thought they would get. The ideas about migration were completely misconceived: we may have to turn our back on the EU and open up our trading borders to India, but India is demanding more visas; China does not want us to penetrate that market; and the US will demand much higher terms. We are heading for a major economic downturn Being part of the EEA is the last opportunity to save ourselves from some of these problems. If we ultimately decide to leave the warm house and our friends, and to live in the garden, it is better to live in the shed than in the open air. I will leave it there.