Thank you for contacting me about my position on the proposed EU Withdrawal Agreement.
The forthcoming vote on the Agreement is undoubtedly the most important decision that I have had to make as your Member of Parliament since my election in 2015. I have therefore taken every step I could to ensure that my decision is an informed one.
To outline the actions I took, I reviewed the Withdrawal Agreement, and met with the Attorney General to discuss my concerns in person. Prior to my election, I was a lawyer, and therefore I was keen to explore the legal ramifications of the proposed Agreement before voting upon it. Further to this, I attended a briefing with the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff, and on Thursday I privately met with the Prime Minister herself in 10 Downing Street.
I have also met with the Brexit Secretary of State Steve Barclay MP, and the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris MP in the Department for Exiting the European Union. In Colchester I held a series of meetings with local businesses, and on Friday 30 November I met with over 60 representatives of Colchester’s largest private sector employers along with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss MP, to hear their views on the impact of the agreement upon our local economy.
I have also listened to the views of my constituents. I have consistently received hundreds of emails and letters every week asking for information or urging me to adopt one position or another. I have been asked to support the deal, ditch the deal, walk away, remain, support the Prime Minister, ditch the Prime Minister – I fear I cannot please everyone, but I cannot dismiss that 87% of residents who have contacted me from both Leave and Remain camps are against the Withdrawal Agreement.
While I may not be able to please everyone with my decision, I do believe it to be the right one. I would now like to offer a full explanation as to why I have come to the decision I now hold.
I will not be voting for the Agreement as it currently stands.
Adopting this position requires that I resign from my position within the Ministry of Defence, and I sincerely wish that this were not the case. Yet ultimately I must do what I believe to be right for Colchester, and consequently I resigned on Saturday 8 December.
The reason for my resignation from my Government role is that this deal risks undermining the national interest and prolonging the Brexit negotiations indefinitely.
The Brexit negotiations are comprised of two rounds. The first round of talks is coming to a close, and this Withdrawal Agreement establishes the legal parameters that will set the course for the second round of negotiations, which may never end.
As this second round of negotiations will set the course for Britain’s future relationship with Europe for many years to come, these talks are expected to be profoundly more challenging than the first were. They will be hard, and they will be protracted.
I believe that if this deal is approved by Parliament, we will be accepting an inherent position of weakness in this second round of negotiations as a matter of law, and I cannot accept that.
The source of this weakness is the proposed Backstop. Under this Agreement, any stalemate in talks between the UK and the EU would force the United Kingdom to form a customs union with the EU, and therefore maintain regulatory alignment with EU rules. This is necessary to ensure a soft border in Northern Ireland.
This would mean that Britain would have surrendered its seats in the European Parliament, and therefore while having no say in the formation of EU rules, we would still be bound by them, particularly Northern Ireland.
If Parliament chose to legislate alternative regulations domestically at any point, our rules would diverge from EU law which must, according to the Withdrawal Agreement, apply to Northern Ireland. A divergence between British and European law would mean that any goods passing between any part of the country and Northern Ireland would be subject to a declaration process, similar to an international trade. How could we claim to be a United Kingdom under such terms?
I do not believe we should abandon Northern Ireland in pursuit of a hasty Brexit.
Some have argued that the Backstop is intended to be a temporary measure, until any stalemate in negotiations has been resolved. I have consulted the Attorney General’s legal advice upon the matter, and I am afraid the reality is somewhat less optimistic.
As the Attorney General’s legal advice makes clear, we would not have a unilateral right to leave the Backstop under any circumstances. The legal advice explicitly states that “In the absence of a right of termination, there is a legal risk that the United Kingdom might become subject to protracted and repeating rounds of negotiations”. There is no end date for such negotiations, hence why I fear that the second phase of Brexit could last indefinitely if the Withdrawal Agreement were to receive Parliamentary approval.
For a moment, entertain the notion that this motion passes. We proceed with negotiations over the coming years, they prove difficult, we refuse to back down, and the Backstop is triggered. The UK conforms to EU rules over which we have no say, and we put forward a set of proposals to break the deadlock. The EU then consistently rejects our proposals. Where do we go? What is Plan B? We cannot abandon Northern Ireland, and as the Attorney General made clear, we would be stuck in that Backstop indefinitely as a matter of law.
In what way could we apply pressure upon the EU in such a situation? They would only argue that Brexit was the United Kingdom’s decision. While the EU is required to show good faith in negotiations, the Attorney General has clearly stated in his legal advice, and I quote, that all the EU “would have to do to show good faith would be to consider the UK’s proposals, even if they ultimately rejected them. This could go on repeatedly without such conduct giving rise to bad faith or failure to use best endeavours.”
How would this deliver upon the 2016 Referendum result? Tied to the negotiating table as a matter of law, the United Kingdom would have lost control of the negotiating timetable and Brexit would be indefinitely postponed.
It could become a regular occurrence for EU negotiators to meet in Brussels, ponder our proposals, and then reject them out of hand until, after a number of years, we are so desperate that we will accept whatever terms they offer, terms significantly worse than are on offer now.
I do not want to be asked why Brexit is still not over, and why we are still obeying EU rules in the early 2020s or beyond.
I do not want to have to justify why I voted to give up our right to walk away as a matter of law and the United Kingdom is now trapped in a Brexit-limbo, purely because I received a number of emails telling me to ‘get on with it’. Unless and until the Backstop is reasonably amended, the Withdrawal Agreement cannot receive my support. After all, how could we realistically expect to secure a good deal under such circumstances, with such a power imbalance?
None of us want more uncertainty. The country is crying out for certainty, but I fear the only certainty that this deal can offer is that our negotiating position will be irrevocably weakened as a matter of law.
As for the Prime Minister’s position, I do not believe in undermining her or playing party politics. That is why I have not called for her resignation, and do not intend on doing so. I will support her through current events, but I cannot vote for a motion that I believe will irrevocably weaken the United Kingdom for years to come.
Some of my colleagues have argued that this deal should be accepted so that we can deliver Brexit now and ‘just get on with it’. I do not believe that this deal does deliver Brexit, I do not believe in passing legislation out of impatience, and I do not believe in blindly supporting any Treaty put in front of me. The United Kingdom is not impatient, and Members of Parliament should not be either.
We are a proud nation, respected around the globe, one of the largest economies in the world – we do not rush the acceptance of international treaties if they are wrong for us. We do not sign away our ability to walk away. We do not surrender our negotiating position to a ticking clock. We do not give up our national interest under any pressure, foreign or domestic.
Conclusion
I did not come into politics to only talk about Brexit. It is an important issue, but it is one of many. I would rather concentrate upon the issues which matter to me and my constituents: the economy, schools, hospitals, and the environment.
I believe my role is to familiarise myself with the facts, to attend the meetings on your behalf, to consult, to do the due diligence, and to use my judgement to decide what I believe is in the best interests of my constituents and our country.
Having done so, I cannot support the Withdrawal Agreement as it stands.
I remain pragmatic on this issue. I wanted to support this Withdrawal Agreement, and I still want to support it, but unless the backstop is addressed to include either an end date or a unilateral exit mechanism, I cannot support it. As an indication of the seriousness of my concern, I resigned from the Government as a Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Ministry of Defence.
I have implored the Prime Minister to go back to the European Union and find another way, to make this Withdrawal Agreement something we can all support. I will watch her negotiations with the European Union with interest.