UK’s Withdrawal from the EU — House of Commons, 2019-02-27
Topic: International Affairs
Hilary James Benn (Labour, Centre-left): We need to begin by acknowledging that we have made a little bit of progress. Yesterday the Prime Minister finally acknowledged that there is no support in the House of Commons for leaving with no deal. It was interesting that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was in most difficulty in his contribution when he was trying to avoid answering questions about how the Government will vote if we get to that point. I will make a prediction to ease his pain: if we do get to that point, I think the Government will vote against us leaving with no deal. How could they do anything other than that given the document released yesterday, which predicts £13 billion of cost to British businesses? For what? To fill in customs declarations, with no benefit to their trade whatsoever. It also predicts rising food prices and delays at the ports. At the moment, French customs officials say, "Go on, go on," but the moment they put their hands up and say, "Arrêtez"—"Stop"—the chaos will begin At the industrial coalition meeting to which the right hon. Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) referred, the most striking moment for those of us who were there was when representatives of two major parts of manufacturing industry said simply, "If there’s a no-deal Brexit, it will be catastrophic for us." The thing I always find it hard to understand is why people who do not run things and make things for a living think they know better about the consequences of a no-deal Brexit than people who do The other truth that has finally hit home—I hope the Government understand it—is that it does not matter when we are asked to vote against a no-deal Brexit. We will do it in March, we will do it in June and we will do it in October of whatever year, because the House will not allow that to happen If the Prime Minister’s deal is defeated when it comes back, there will be an extension to article 50, and the question that has not really been addressed yet is: for what purpose will we use the time? The amendments that probably will not be pressed to a vote today will be very important in the weeks to come, because they will provide us with the means to answer that question I think that only three options will face us in those circumstances. The first is to try to reach a consensus on a different kind of Brexit deal. The second is again to extend article 50, to enable us to negotiate the future partnership. The third, if we remain deadlocked, is to take the question back to the British people. None of them will be easy–there are no benefits to the British economy from Brexit. I will turn to each of those options The first—Norway plus or Common Market 2.0—would at least minimise the damage to our economy. It would represent a painful compromise for many people, but it would be a much better way forward than the Prime Minister’s deal. Do I think that she will ever agree to it? Sadly not, because she has shown herself to be completely inflexible The second option, which is really the obvious thing to do, is to go to the EU and say, "Why don’t we negotiate the future relationship now and extend article 50 for that purpose?" The House refuses to vote for the Prime Minister’s deal because each of us, for different reasons, says that we do not know what the future will look like, and therefore we are not prepared to take this enormous step of leaving the European Union on the basis of a prospectus that is completely vague and uncertain. How do we answer that question? We negotiate the future partnership.