Strengthening the Union — House of Commons, 2018-07-23
Topic: International Affairs
Ian Murray (Labour, Centre-left): I was not here for the urgent question, so I cannot clarify those figures, but I can say that in my eight years in the House the Opposition have won three votes, so breaking those pairing arrangements has obviously not affected the operation of Parliament, and I do think it important to maintain the pairing arrangements Then we get on to the way the Government have dealt with the Brexit process in terms of devolution. It has not been the Secretary of State for Scotland’s finest hour. I am sure that if we could wind the clock back to April, May or June and have those debates again, the Government would have dealt with it differently. We had promise after promise at the Dispatch Box from the Secretary of State, and all those promises were wiped aside. I intervened on the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) at least nine times, if not more—maybe he can tell us during his contribution—to ask when it was all going to happen, what his objections were and how they were going to resolve those devolution problems, and I am still waiting to hear the answers. I look forward to him telling us when I intervene on him during his speech later Then we have a Government in chaos, with resignation after resignation after resignation: the Secretary of State in charge of the negotiations to take us out of the EU, gone; the worst Foreign Secretary in history, gone; and all just a few parliamentary weeks away from having to agree the final EU deal Then we have the question of a hard Brexit. Everyone is going, "What’s a hard Brexit? What’s a soft Brexit?" However, when we look at what the Government are doing, we are hurtling towards a no deal Brexit. The Government put together—cobbled together after two years—what they now affectionately call the Chequers agreement. The following week, they undermined that very same agreement by accepting amendments to the Trade Bill and the customs Bill that have driven a horse and coaches—a "corse and hoaches" if you have been drinking the same whisky as the Minister who opened the debate—right through that agreement. Not only did those changes undermine the agreement, but the EU had already ruled out the agreement in its original form. We are heading for a hard or no deal Brexit, and all that is happening in the Government at the moment is that people are trying to fight for the keys to No. 10, rather than for what is in this country’s interests Everyone in this House, to a person, will absolutely agree that there should be no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. However, the Government have set red lines in the Brexit process that make that completely and utterly unachievable, which undermines the fabric of the United Kingdom. I keep asking Ministers this question, but I cannot get an answer, so it would be interesting to hear an answer from the Scottish Conservative MPs this evening. If the Government can argue, with the red lines that they have set, that they will no longer require any kind of border equipment on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, if the UK and the Republic of Ireland are in two different trade and customs arrangements, how could they possibly argue, in the event of another independence referendum, that we would require a border between Scotland and England?