argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-09-04
Topic: International Affairs
Jeremy Paul Wright (Conservative, Centre-right): I certainly agree with my hon. Friend that minorities should not be dismissed, and frankly, the way in which we conduct this debate should reflect the fact that 48% of the public voted in a different way from the prevailing outcome. I do not think that we have succeeded in that as a Parliament or in a broader national debate. The truth is that that we—Parliament—set out the rules for this referendum in the European Union Referendum Act 2015. As she has just said, many of us participated in the referendum campaign on both sides of the argument, and we stressed that it was the public’s decision to make. When they had made it, we— Parliament—decided to trigger article 50 of the EU treaty As someone who has spent more time than is good for anyone looking at article 50, I can tell the House that it does not require the leaving country to do so with a deal. When we—Parliament—decided to trigger the article 50 process, we knew, or we should have known, that one possible outcome was a no-deal outcome. It was not one that we wished to see and not one that we expected to see, but it was one that could have happened, so I am afraid that on this fundamental point, I cannot agree that we do not have a mandate for no deal and therefore, that we must proceed as the right hon. Member for Leeds Central sets out in the Bill.
European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-09-04
Topic: International Affairs
William Nigel Paul Cash (Conservative, Centre-right): I want to refer briefly to the remarks of the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt). I simply want to explain very simply that I was going to intervene because he referred to the sacrifice that people had made in the last war and I want to put it on record that my father was killed in the last war, and I think I understand not only the issues involved in that, but also the fact that he fought for freedom, and I believe that that is our heritage, and that is what we should fight for—not to be governed by other people. I just leave that on the record I happen also to very much agree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) on what is an extremely rare occasion when somebody has actually explained, as I have a number of times, that there is nothing in this arrangement that has been foisted upon us that would prevent us from leaving without a deal. We can do so if we wish to do so, and there is nothing in the referendum Act, or any question in the Act, which constrains us from that course of action Fundamentally, I simply want to make the following point. I would not call this the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill; I would call it the European Union (Subservience) Bill. We have only to look at the words in the Bill, and in the very short time that I have available I will simply refer to a few of its phrases. Clause 1 says: "The Prime Minister must seek to obtain from the European Council an extension of the period" Clause 3 states: "If the European Council decides to agree an extension…the Prime Minister must, immediately after such a decision is made, notify the President of the European Council that the United Kingdom agrees to the proposed extension" and so on Clause 4 says, in relation to the withdrawal Act of 2018 that, where regulations are to be made, for the definition of exit day "for ‘may’ substitute ‘must’." This is a disgraceful reversal of our constitutional arrangements. We operate in a free Parliament where we have elections that are taken periodically—every five years as a normal rule—and we make our decisions. We have a system of parliamentary Government, not government by Parliament; that is a fundamental constitutional principle. This Bill offends that principle, and that is why I am deeply opposed to its proposals.
European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-09-04
Topic: International Affairs
Antoinette Geraldine Sherratt (Sandbach) (Conservative, Centre-right): I want to put on record what a pleasure it has been to serve my constituents in Eddisbury. I think they would be amazed to know that the purge of the Conservative party that took place yesterday led to their Member of Parliament being expelled from the party, together with eight Privy Counsellors, two former Chancellors, a former Lord Chancellor and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who has been a political inspiration to me for years. The economic arguments are well known, but in my constituency, where the chemicals, car, pharmaceuticals, aerospace and nuclear industries and the food and drink sectors are all key sectors in the north-west, 80,000 jobs are at risk in a no-deal Brexit. I do not regret putting my job on the line to save my constituents’ jobs, but I do regret that the Prime Minister forced me to do it. I want to say to Conservative colleagues that no deal is not the end of Brexit. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely) said yesterday that he wanted Brexit to be over, to focus on other issues that matter to his constituents. I agree; so do I. I voted for the deal three times. However, keeping the threat of no deal on the table does not achieve this. I say this to my Prime Minister: the reason that your negotiations are undermined is not because of a no-deal Brexit, but because the Europeans cannot see the steps that you are taking to build consensus in this House and get any concessions given to you through Parliament. That is what puts you in the weaker position, not a threat of no deal. Without the public and Europe being able to see how you are trying to build consensus in this House, and how this party, this Government, this House and this Parliament are trying to work together to get a solution, you will not get concessions from Europe. It is the people in this House who voted down the compromise—the withdrawal agreement—that have brought us to the brink of a no-deal precipice. I believe in the principle that Parliament should have a say in one of the biggest questions of our times, and tonight we should stand up.
European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-09-04
Topic: International Affairs
Antoinette Geraldine Sherratt (Sandbach) (Conservative, Centre-right): I completely agree. This is a result of the inability of successive Governments to work cross-party across the House to seek common ground, common agreement and common principles. I know many people in this place from all sides of the political divide, and I am certain that there is a will and a way to get through this, but I just have not seen the leadership from the Front Benches to argue for it. That has been my biggest shame in being a Member of this Parliament for the past three years: not seeing proper leadership out there to build our country back together again, to get people to work together and to explain in our constituencies why we should honour the referendum result but do so in a way that will maximise the chances of a positive relationship with Europe and give us the best foundations to build on for the future. That is why I say that Parliament should have a say in the biggest question of our time. If we cannot get that leadership on the Front Benches, Parliament needs to provide that leadership to the country.
European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-09-04
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen Paul Barclay (Conservative, Centre-right): May I begin by paying tribute to the new hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Jane Dodds), who spoke with great distinction on behalf of her constituency As they indicated that they may have been making their final speeches in the House, may I also pay tribute to my colleagues the right hon. Members for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) and for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), who have served with great ability and courtesy throughout my time in the House The central issue before the House is whether the Government’s negotiation is sincere and deliverable. The Opposition have continued to refuse to vote for a deal, while making it clear that they will rule out no deal. As the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) pointed out, there is an inherent contradiction in that position The problem with this Bill is, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) made clear, that there is no incentive for the EU to move, because it gives the EU complete control of the outcome of these talks. Let me remind the House that President Tusk, and others within the EU, have repeatedly said that they do not want the UK to leave. He has said, "If a deal is impossible, and no-one wants no deal, then who will finally have the courage to say what the only positive solution is?" So let us be in no doubt: those on the other side of the negotiation do not want the UK to leave. They do not want to lose the financial contribution of 12% of the EU budget that the UK pays or the £1 billion per month that this extension will mean. So there will be no incentive for the EU to move and this, in practice, will be legislation that will act as purgatory and endless delay.
European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-09-04
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen Paul Barclay (Conservative, Centre-right): The Prime Minister addressed the issue about Royal Assent during his statement yesterday and Ministers abide by the code. The hon. Gentleman says that the negotiation is a sham, yet one should look at what the Commission has said. At Strasbourg, it said that alternative arrangements had merit as an alternative to the backstop. Just last month, the Council pledged, in its official guidelines on Brexit negotiations, "flexible and imaginative solutions." Senior European figures claim the backstop will not be required. For example, a former German MEP and member of the European Parliament Brexit steering group said there was a "99% chance that the backstop would never be used." Indeed, the issue arises because of the sequencing of talks, which was at the choice of the EU itself and left insufficient time for the negotiation. In fact, this issue should be addressed as part of the future economic relationship In addressing issues such as the claim made by those on the Opposition Benches, it is worth reflecting on the fact that the EU position has moved, from the language of "no change" to the withdrawal agreement to now saying that changes can be made if "legally operative text" on alternative arrangements can be found. It is worth contrasting Donald Tusk’s comments in June that "nothing has changed when it comes to our position", with President Macron’s comments last month that he was "very confident" that the UK and EU would be able to find a solution "if there is a good will on both sides".
European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-09-04
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen Paul Barclay (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman says this is about trust in this Prime Minister, but he voted against the deal that the previous Prime Minister brought back three times. The trust is lacking in those who trusted the Labour manifesto that promised to respect the referendum result It is worth looking at the communiqué issued by the Commission at lunch time. I am sure Members will have read it and seen, first, very little detail on the Irish border, and, secondly, that the Commission’s objective in a no-deal situation would be "a more stable solution for the period thereafter." So the Commission’s own communiqué falls short of the demand for an all-weather, all-insurance, legally operative text, which is the condition it has set the United Kingdom. The legal text by 31 October will of course set out the detail, but the test needs to be one that involves creativity and flexibility on both sides. It also needs to reflect the fact that the operational detail will be shaped by the Joint Committee during the implementation period. An illustration of that point can be seen in the response to the detail presented by the previous Government. The right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond) spoke about his concerns about the detail, but he will remember that when the previous Government simply presented detail against that all-weather test, the Commission dismissed it as purely magical thinking.
European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-09-04
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen Paul Barclay (Conservative, Centre-right): There are two issues in relation to that point. First, the Prime Minister has concerns about the rule-taking element of the backstop, under which those in Northern Ireland will continue to take rules on which they will not have a say. Secondly, there is the concern that the element of consent from both parts of the community in Northern Ireland is undermined To address the hon. Lady’s earlier intervention in respect of contact with the Irish Government, the Prime Minister will discuss the issues around the alternative arrangements with the Taoiseach on Monday. That will build on considerable other interaction with the Irish Government—for example, I had a meeting with Simon Coveney in the Irish embassy in Paris last week, and the Foreign Secretary met him in the same week. There has been extensive contact with the Irish Government The Prime Minister’s EU sherpa is in Brussels today. The last round of technical talks was last week and he will have further talks on Wednesday to explore much of this detail. But the detail needs to be in place at the end of the implementation period, which is the end of 2020—or even potentially, by mutual agreement, at the end of a further one or two years. The timescale, therefore, is realistic and negotiable—
European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-09-04
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen Paul Barclay (Conservative, Centre-right): The Bill? I am very happy to talk about the Bill. The issue for the hon. Gentleman is that he talks about voting against no deal, but he should come clean and admit that actually he is opposed to Brexit entirely. The public want Brexit delivered. The business community wants certainty. The Bill will leave our negotiations in purgatory, with a third extension after more than three years. Much has been made about parliamentary time—about the period between now and 14 October—but the EU itself says that a deal would not be struck until the eleventh hour, and that it would take until 17 October for the EU Council to reach a decision. The issue is not the time that is spent in September, but the time between 17 October and 31 October Over the summer, this new Government have narrowed their negotiating asks, as set out in the letter to President Tusk. They have targeted their request on the withdrawal agreement and a best-in-class free trade agreement. This is a Bill that is intended to stop Brexit. I urge colleagues to oppose it.
European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-09-04
Topic: International Affairs
Richard Michael John Ogilvie Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): I beg to move amendment 19, in clause 1, page 1, line 3, leave out subsections (1) to (3) and insert— ‘(1A) After this Act has been passed, but no later than 21 October 2019, the Prime Minister of State must make arrangements for— (a) motion to the effect that the House of Commons has approved an agreement with the European Union under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union, to be moved in the House of Commons by a Minister of the Crown; and (b) a motion for the House of Lords to take note of the agreement, to be moved in the House of Lords by a Minister of the Crown (1B) If the House of Commons decides to approve the motion in paragraph (a), subsection (4) must be complied with.’ The intention of this Amendment is to ensure that debate takes place after the European Council meeting on 17/18 October 2019 on either the existing withdrawal agreement or any new withdrawal agreement that may have been agreed.
European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-09-04
Topic: International Affairs
Richard Michael John Ogilvie Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): I rise to seek colleagues’ patience in proposing something that I believe is a compromise that many Members in this House have long sought and many people have expressed support for. The compromise goes like this. There are many of us on both sides of this House who do not want no deal and yet, as has been pointed out by many Members, including the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), many colleagues have not supported a deal. My simple amendment to the Bill would require the Government to have a vote on Monday 21 October—the first sitting day after the EU Council—on a deal, whether it be a new deal or the previous deal. Should that vote be successful and approved by Members of this House, the Government would be required, if they needed more time, to ask for an extension from the European Union, purely in order to get the legislation through Parliament Whereas other amendments that will be debated today require the Government to ask for an extension and then set about trying to find the deal, mine does the opposite. It gives us all the chance to vote for either the existing deal previously negotiated by the last Government or whatever new deal is successfully negotiated by the new Government. That means that everyone in this House who wishes to prevent no deal would have the chance to do so by voting for that deal. I hope that many colleagues around this House who have been able to prevent making a decision between a deal and no deal would realise that that was the last chance to do that—merely a week before no deal became the default on 31 October I know there are some colleagues for whom the business of asking for an extension is part of the circuit of trying to prevent Brexit from happening at all, and I understand that. However, I believe there may be a majority in this House who have accepted the will of the people in the referendum, and who have said and told their constituents that they respect the referendum result, and a lot of us were elected on a manifesto pledge to do so. This would be the moment when we could put that to the test and vote for a deal.
European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-09-04
Topic: International Affairs
Richard Michael John Ogilvie Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): The short answer to that is almost certainly no. However, we have had not just five days of debate, but weeks and months and years of debate on these issues. The previous deal, which I regarded as a good deal, was debated ad infinitum in this House. I do not believe that we would need five more days of debate to be able to reach a decision about whether we wanted a deal or no deal.
European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-09-04
Topic: International Affairs
Richard Michael John Ogilvie Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point of view. There are 650 Members of this House, all of whom, if we designed the perfect deal ourselves individually, would have differences from each other. However, we are at the stage where I believe the vast majority of people in this country want this issue resolved. Therefore, if we are to decide whether we want to accept a default position of no deal because we cannot reach agreement on a deal, this would be the moment for all of us to ask ourselves what we really want: do we really want a deal at all, or are we prepared to go straight to a no deal My amendment does not call for the Government to have a vote on no deal. It accepts that, if the vote for a deal were lost, this Parliament would have had myriad opportunities to support a deal and would, in that situation, have failed. I believe this amendment is fair to almost every point of view in this House. It gives us all one last chance to vote for a deal if we do not want no deal.
European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-09-04
Topic: International Affairs
Richard Michael John Ogilvie Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): In fact, the hon. Gentleman misreads part of the point of my amendment, which is not to prejudge whether or not the Prime Minister and this Government come back with a deal. I believe the Government are genuinely trying to get a deal, but it is perfectly possible either that they do not succeed, or—this would be the hon. Gentleman’s view—that they are not really trying that hard. In either of those events, my amendment would allow this House to vote on the deal that was put before this House previously. It would give everybody one more chance—the hon. Gentleman’s party says it is against no deal—a chance to vote for a deal. If, in that situation, the House were to say, "We don’t like this deal: it’s not good enough for us", there could be no hiding from anyone in this country about why we had gone for no deal. It would be because this House failed the final opportunity to prevent that. I believe, in that situation, this is fair to everyone.
European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-09-04
Topic: International Affairs
Richard Michael John Ogilvie Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): My amendment suggests that there are three options for this House to vote for on Monday 21 October. The first is the withdrawal agreement as it was presented to the House previously. The second is the withdrawal agreement plus the cross-party agreement that was reached, but was never voted on in this House. The third is any new deal arrived at by the Government. In that situation, Members would have the chance to vote for a deal and prevent no deal, which many of us feel could have dire consequences.
European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-09-04
Topic: International Affairs
Alexander John Gervase Chalk (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is coming up with such sensible provisions. Does he agree that this would smoke out those who claim to want to avoid no deal but, truth be told, vote against every route to avoid it? This would smoke them out. If they vote for this, they will truly be avoiding no deal.
European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-09-04
Topic: International Affairs
Richard Michael John Ogilvie Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): My constituency neighbour is absolutely right, but my aim is not so much to smoke out—to use his phrase—the motives and underlying thoughts of colleagues across this House, but to give all of us the opportunity to say, ultimately, what we really prefer: is it a deal or is it no deal? In that sense, he is absolutely right.
European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-09-04
Topic: International Affairs
Harriett Mary Morison Baldwin (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for the thoughtful way in which he is setting out his case. He and I both just voted against the principle of this Bill on Second Reading, largely because we want the Prime Minister to have the strongest possible hand in his negotiations with the European Union. I shall listen carefully to the Minister’s response, but does my hon. Friend think that by agreeing this amendment tonight the House would in any way weaken the Prime Minister’s negotiating hand?