argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: International Affairs
Alexander John Gervase Chalk (Conservative, Centre-right): Of course there is a risk with the backstop —it would be infantile to suggest that there is not—but does my right hon. Friend not agree that there is also a very great, if not much larger, risk in respect of a no-deal outcome? Would he at least recognise that point?
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: International Affairs
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): I will come to that, but I am grateful to my hon. Friend for conceding that it was always infantile to pretend that there was no risk of getting into the backstop, because that was, for a long time, the contention of those who proposed that the backstop should be instituted I am afraid that this deal has now reached the end of the road. If it is rejected tonight, I hope that it will be put to bed and we can all face up to the reality of the position and the opportunity that we have. What we need to do then—now—is to behave not timorously but as a great country does. We have broadly two options. We can either decide, if the EU is unwilling to accept the minor changes that we propose, that we will leave without a deal—yes, I accept that that is, in the short term, the more difficult road, but in the end it is the only safe route out of this and the only safe path to self-respect—or we can decide to take a route that will end in humiliation by accepting arrangements with the EU that seem to limit disruption in the short term but will leave us as an EU protectorate with many important rules set elsewhere Members have asked, "What’s the worst that could happen?" I will give two examples, but there is any number of rules and regulations. The financial services industry would be subject to laws set by its leading competitors, which is emphatically not what the City wants. The Commission has already made clear that it wants to use the passerelle clause of the existing treaty to bring in qualified majority voting on taxation. We would be subject to that, under a qualified majority vote in which this country would not participate. I urge Members to think hard and to see that that predicament would be democratically intolerable. We would have to tell our constituents that they had no power or influence in setting some of the rules that govern our country.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: Foreign Trade
James Roger Cartlidge (Conservative, Centre-right): I have huge respect for my right hon. Friend, but he said that there were two choices. In terms of WTO rules, which he has advocated, there are two choices; that is correct. We can either have tariffs that hit our consumers, or we have no tariffs on imports, which would leave our exporters and industry at a terrible disadvantage. Which of those two options would he go for?
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: International Affairs
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): In any circumstances, we would have the freedom to decide what our tariffs were going to be, and under this—[Interruption.] Under this deal, we would lose the power to decide what tariffs we levied on the perimeter of the UK The most powerful argument that has been made this afternoon is the threat that some Members are apparently ready to hijack the long-standing rules of the House in order to take our constitution hostage, with Parliament to direct the Executive in international relations. That upends hundreds of years of constitutional practice and makes a nonsense of relations between Parliament and the Government. I believe it would lead to an even greater gap between people and this place. Let us abandon that project of dismantling our constitution in the name of making this country an effective colony of the EU Instead, we should take what now seems to be the more difficult route but is, in the end, the only one that preserves our self-respect, which is to leave as we are required by law on 29 March and to become once again an independent country able to make our own choices. I am not in favour of crashing out, as many call it. The Malthouse compromise indicates the way forward—the UK observes single market rules and customs duties and restrains our right to compete for a period of three years while we negotiate a free trade deal. I believe the EU would be open to that As we come to the final stages, it is vital that we retain our freedom of manoeuvre and do not rule out no deal. A delay will achieve nothing except to compound the uncertainty for business. Now is the time to behave as what we are—the fifth biggest economy in the world, the second biggest military power in NATO and, by many counts, the most influential cultural and intellectual force in Europe—and not to accept what I believe would be a humiliation and the subordination of our democracy.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen Crabb (Conservative, Centre-right): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), my colleague on the Brexit Committee. She and I agree on some things; we disagree profoundly on others I will be brief. I rise to say that I will be supporting the deal this evening. I supported the deal the last time we voted on it, and I supported it for a number of reasons. Parts of it represented compromises for me and did not reflect fully what I would have wanted at this stage of the Brexit process. However, overall, it represented a reasonable, pragmatic approach to the article 50 process The other reason I supported the deal last time was that I supported the original backstop. I did not support the subsequent vote on the so-called Brady amendment—I did not support the strategy of trying to knock the backstop out of the withdrawal agreement. I actually think that the backstop is there for good and right reasons, which reflect noble purposes. I am sorry, but colleagues on whichever side of the House who say that Brexit has nothing whatever to do with the Good Friday agreement and the peace process in Northern Ireland display an ignorance about what has been achieved in Northern Ireland in the last 20 years. Peace in Northern Ireland is simply the biggest achievement of our politics in the United Kingdom in the last 50 years, and it should be incumbent on all of us to defend it. I am afraid that, back in 2016, the way in which Brexit would affect Northern Ireland and the difficult, complicated border issue there was an afterthought; we did not invest enough time in thinking that through and coming up with a solution. The backstop is there for a very good reason I never accepted the narrative that has grown in recent months on the Government side of the House and among some on the Opposition Benches that the backstop is some kind of entrapment mechanism. I regard that as a conspiracy theory. I tested this view with Ministers in Europe when I visited with the Exiting the European Union Committee, as well as on individual visits. I talked to independent trade and legal experts here in the UK who also reject the conspiracy theory that the backstop has been cooked up as an entrapment mechanism between a tricky Irish Government and a malevolent EU Commission to somehow lock the UK long term into an arrangement that we do not want.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: International Affairs
Richard Michael John Ogilvie Graham (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. Friend is making a series of very good points. The former head of the Legal Services Commission said that the new arrangements give us a legal way of ensuring that we are not locked into a customs union indefinitely if we do not want to be, because the unilateral declaration allows us to suspend obligations. Does he not agree that it cannot be right that both my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip and the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) believe that turning down the deal is a good idea—one because they want no deal and the other because they do not want any Brexit? Surely both of them cannot be right.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen Crabb (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes an important point. The fact is that being in the backstop is not a happy or comfortable arrangement either for the EU side or for our side. It is not the long-term objective of the negotiators on the EU side—I genuinely believe that. Again, I return to what I described as the conspiracy theory of entrapment—that somehow we are being lured into an arrangement that we will never be able to get out of. This is just one more stage in a very long process to come I recall one particular leaflet that was delivered to every household during the referendum campaign. One of the warnings in it, among some of what many of my colleagues would regard as scaremongering, was a prescient one of the potential of 10 years or more of negotiation and wrangling over what Britain’s future relationship would be with the EU. It feels very much as though here we are in year three, and we are still in the baby steps of quite a long process. If colleagues of mine want to see quicker, more purposeful progress, they will support the deal this evening Finally, I do a lot of mountain climbing in Scotland and in Wales. Every year, people set off on a sunny day up mountains wearing a pair of trainers, armed with a slice of Kendal mint cake, thinking that they are going to get to the summit. They get up there, the weather is not as good as they wanted, they do not have a map and they are not equipped properly. They might argue among themselves about what the right direction is, and eventually they need rescuing off the mountain. It feels a bit like that is perhaps where we are heading, but mountain rescue is not going to come for us. The solution to get off the mountain is in our hands, and that solution is to pass the deal tonight.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: International Affairs
Nick Herbert (Conservative, Centre-right): I will support the deal tonight, as I did before. I welcome the further agreement that was struck in Strasbourg in relation to the backstop. We now have far greater legal certainty about our ability to exit it. The focus of this debate, and of most of the debate in the past 24 hours and previously, has been the legalities of the backstop and of our exiting it. Ultimately, we should care about the real-world risk of being trapped in the backstop, but that has been discussed very little. What are the actual chances that we will be trapped in the backstop, not from a legal point of view but from a political point of view? Is it likely that we will find ourselves in that position? I think it is perfectly possible to argue that it is highly unlikely First, I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) that our being in the backstop would not benefit the EU at all. The EU would not want us to remain in the backstop because, for instance, while we were in it, we would have many of the benefits of the single market without paying into the EU. The idea that the EU wishes to trap us in the backstop is simply a wrong analysis Secondly, we would have several hurdles to jump before we ever got into the backstop. We would only start to consider it as a possibility if a trade deal were not ready. We now have further legal certainty about the efforts to ensure that the trade deal will be ready. It would only start to become a possibility if the implementation period were not extended. That is an alternative. It would only start to become a possibility if alternative arrangements were not completed. Again, we now have more certainty about the preparations for those alternative arrangements. We should stop talking about the backstop as though we are certain to get into it and certain to be trapped.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: International Affairs
Edward Julian Egerton Leigh (Conservative, Centre-right): I voted Brexit, and so did my constituency, by 62% to 38%. It always seemed to many of us that our job was to try to deliver the decision of the people, but we were aware that unfortunately we were in a minority in Parliament and might have to compromise. It became clear to many of us months ago that the EU was unwilling to unpick the agreement. It also become abundantly clear that we could not get the deal through Parliament. So, what was the way forward? It seemed to me that there was some sort of logical way forward, because the two parties themselves had agreed that the backstop should only be temporary. If the backstop proved not to be temporary, could we not, under the Vienna convention or international law, unilaterally escape from it? I took legal advice—I am grateful to Professor Peter Willetts, the emeritus professor of global politics at City, University of London—and eventually suggested to the Government that they use the device of a conditional unilateral declaration. It was met with some scepticism at first, but the campaign continued, and I am delighted that the Government have now issued a unilateral declaration The shadow Brexit Secretary and the Leader of the Opposition made it clear today that they believe the unilateral declaration is not watertight because the EU has not signed up to it. That is simply not true under international law. We are perfectly entitled under international law to interpret the treaty in the way that the parties appear to want to interpret it, which is that the backstop should be temporary. Once one of these conditional interpretative declarations—that is the term of art used—is issued, it can cease to have effect only if the other party to the treaty refuses to ratify that treaty. Not only has the EU not refused to ratify the treaty, but it has not objected to our declaration Our declaration makes it absolutely abundantly clear that there is nothing to stop us exiting the backstop if discussions break down. We do not have to prove a lack of good faith by the EU; we have simply stated in our unilateral declaration that there is nothing to stop us exiting the backstop if discussions break down. In paragraph 14 of the Attorney General’s report, he says that this is "a substantive and binding reinforcement" of our rights Now, of course there is a risk, but life is full of risks, and against the minimal risk of our being trapped in the backstop, which I believe to be minimal because we have issued the unilateral declaration and because of the stated desire of the parties, there is a much greater risk for us Brexiteers that tomorrow Parliament will block no deal, and that the next day Parliament will vote to extend article 50. For those of us who believe in Brexit and in delivering the will of the people, that is a far greater risk than the fairly small risk of our being trapped in the backstop forever. I appeal to my fellow Brexiteers: you may not like the deal, and it is not perfect, but it delivers Brexit. Let’s go for it.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen Daniel Double (Conservative, Centre-right): I think it is probably an understatement to say that we are not where we want to be today, and that we are not where we should be. I do not believe that the 17.4 million people who voted to leave the EU expected that, just 17 days before our scheduled leave date, the question of whether we are going to leave on 29 March would still be in the balance This House voted to trigger article 50, which gave a two-year notice period for us to leave, and it passed the European Union (Withdrawal) Act, which had the date when we leave in it. It is a failure of our politics and of leadership that we are in this position today where the choice before us tonight is, as far as I am concerned, an impossible choice: a choice between the deal, which is not a deal and does not deliver on our promises to the people of this country, and voting down a deal and risking all sorts of alternatives from those who want to thwart and delay Brexit and prevent it from ever happening It will only be when the history books of this period are written and the real truth comes out that we will fully appreciate what happened. All the people who have sought to undermine the Prime Minister in her negotiations, and the hindrance that that has caused, are directly responsible for why we are here today. There are also those who have maintained that no deal should be taken off the table, which has completely undermined our negotiating position, and those who have supported a second referendum, which has sent a message to the EU, saying, "If you give the UK a terrible deal, it will vote it down in another referendum and decide to stay in the EU." The truth will come out one day, and then we will know exactly what has gone on to undermine these negotiations, but we are where we are tonight Here we are, 20 minutes before the vote, and I still do not know how to vote; I am still in a quandary. The choices before us tonight are between two wrongs—two things that I do not want to happen. It is an impossible choice. I will make a decision and vote tonight, but it is a choice that I do not want to make. One option—if you will excuse my language, Mr Speaker—is a turd of a deal, which has now been taken away and polished so that it is a polished turd, but it might be the best turd that we have before us. The alternative would be to stop Brexit all together, as some propose, and the risk of that happening is very real. That would be a complete denial of the people. When this House voted for a referendum, we put the decision in the hands of the people. We said, "You will make this decision and we will implement it." The fact that we are where we are today is a failure of our politics, and every one of us needs to take responsibility for the British public’s view of this place today As I am faced with this impossible choice tonight, I just trust that we will deliver on the referendum and keep our word to the British people, and that—one way or another—we will leave at the end of this month.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: International Affairs
Kenneth Clarke (Conservative, Centre-right): What I put to the Leader of the Opposition was that the only things we are settling today with this vote are the deal we have on citizens’ rights, the money we owe and the Irish backstop. Those are the only things that will be resolved if we pass this withdrawal agreement today. I still cannot understand what the Labour party’s objection is to any of those three.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen Paul Barclay (Conservative, Centre-right): The right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) began his remarks by paying tribute to the officials across Whitehall who have put so much work into the negotiations on which we will vote tonight. On behalf of the Government, I join him in paying tribute to them for that work Eight weeks ago, Parliament made it clear that, despite the benefits delivered by the deal, the deal must change. The Government have listened to the concerns of the House, and they have done that. They return to present a revised package, which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General and I are putting to the House, that signals a moment in time when we can move forward and when the country can move forward. It delivers the certainty our businesses need, the guarantees our citizens seek and the protections requested across the House on workers’ rights and environmental standards. On Gibraltar, as the Chief Minister himself has said on many occasions, the Prime Minister has been absolutely clear that we stand behind British sovereignty for Gibraltar and that will never change. Above all, a vote for the deal tonight will deliver a wider global message that, when this country votes, respecting strongly held differences of opinion, its Parliament acts on that public vote In recent weeks, the Prime Minister and senior members of the Government have engaged widely: from trade unionists such as Len McCluskey to businesses, EU leaders, many colleagues across the House and even—on one occasion, when he finally got round to it—the Leader of the Opposition. Tonight, the Government present a package of measures that will extinguish the risk of no deal and remove the democratic threat posed by no Brexit. The fear of being trapped in the backstop and of the EU using its leverage in negotiations have been repeatedly raised in previous debates. I do not believe that the EU ever intended to approach our future relationship in bad faith. Indeed, it is a slight irony that those who say they are European suggest that the backstop and the EU acting in bad faith is a concern of theirs. It is certainly not my experience of dealing with them. We share values and we want to trade together, but we have to address that risk.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen Paul Barclay (Conservative, Centre-right): I am very happy to address the point that my hon. Friend has raised. Before I do, I was going to come on to the wider point that the Attorney General made clear in his comments this evening— that the documents laid before the House reduce the risk on which he previously gave advice to the House on 13 November However, I think the issue to which my hon. Friend alludes is the exceptional circumstances that might change the basis on which the UK might enter into an agreement. For the clarity of the House, if the United Kingdom took the reasonable view, on clear evidence, that the objectives of the protocol were no longer being proportionately served by its provisions because, for example, it was no longer protecting the 1998 agreement in all its dimensions, the UK would first, obviously, attempt to resolve the issue in the Joint Committee and within the negotiations However, as the Attorney General said in the House today, it could respectfully be argued, if the facts clearly warranted it, that there had been an unforeseen and fundamental change of circumstances affecting the essential basis of the treaty on which the United Kingdom’s consent had been given. As my hon. Friend will know, article 62 of the Vienna convention on the law of treaties, which is reflective of the customary international law, permits the termination of a treaty in such circumstances. It would, in the Government’s view, be clear in those exceptional circumstances that international law provides the United Kingdom with a right to terminate the withdrawal agreement. In the unlikely event that that were to happen, the United Kingdom would no doubt offer to continue to observe the unexhausted obligations in connection, for example, with citizens’ rights. I hope that addresses the concern that was raised.
European Union (Withdrawal) Act — House of Commons, 2019-03-12
Topic: International Affairs
Dominic Charles Roberts Grieve (Conservative, Centre-right): I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. I just want to understand the implications of article 62, because it seems that what he is actually saying is that that would be a ground for voiding the entire treaty. That is a rather different thing from being able to pull out of the backstop. Doubtless, some Members of this House would be only too delighted to see the entire treaty voided, but it is a rather apocalyptic scenario, or have I misunderstood something?