I represent a fairly finely balanced constituency. Many of my constituents voted leave and many voted remain. In view of that, I approached the election in June with some trepidation because I thought, “How do you bring people together in an area where many have opposing views?” But it turned out to be fairly straightforward. I told them what I thought we could do to get a deal done. The priority of those who voted leave was to get it done, so that we could move on. They want to leave the European Union but they do not want the process to be dragged out. Those who voted remain just want stability, and I think new clause 22 would provide that, as others have said.
Of course, the nub of new clause 22, which I will focus my remarks on, is not whether we ought to remain a member of the EEA or not; it is who has the right to choose whether we should stay in the single market or not. The Minister said earlier that this discussion was not about policy; it was about powers. Well, I know that, but the problem is, I am worried about what the policy will be unless we make sure that the powers reside in this House.
I want to make a couple of remarks about just how crucial that membership of the single market is. I do not really belong in this debate—I am not a lawyer; I am not from a legal background. I tend to focus my thinking on the economic fortunes of my constituents above all else. But the problem is that the legal discussion will govern the economic fortunes of my constituents above all else, and that is why we have to focus on the kind of Brexit we actually want. Do we want to remain in a European family of trading nations, or not? Do we want to keep our terms and our trade with our partners, or not? This is the choice before us. Do we think that some kind of free trade agreement will offer us enough to keep our constituents in their jobs, or do we need the surety of the single market? Let me make three brief points about why it is obvious that the EEA is the answer, and why we must have the power to decide.
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People say that we would be a rule-taker and not a rule-maker: that we would lack influence if we stayed in the single market. The problem is that in a global world, we should worry about a lack of influence in almost any trade deal we make. Imagine making a trade deal with America at this moment. Do we really think that we could do anything other than ask the Americans what terms they wanted, and be forced into signing up to them, if we wanted that deal? The single market is a
much better arrangement, because it is about raising standards, not driving them to the bottom, and I know that that matters to my constituents.
Whatever kind of international agreement we enter into, we sacrifice some of our day-to-day sovereignty, but we choose to do it, for the following reasons. The legal arguments must always been seen in the light of the economic reality, which is that trade requires equivalence. The right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) made that point earlier. Imagine operating in a free-trade environment with no standards. Well, that is actually happening in the world right now. In developing countries that cannot afford to police standards, we see the impact on business all the time, because they cannot trust their trading partners. That is what we will sacrifice, for the sake of some kind of idea that we can diverge from European standards and somehow do better economically. We are putting our ability to trade with trusted partners at risk, and that is not the right thing to do.
We must not think of this in purely legalistic terms. We need to think about what it will do to the parts of the country that depend most on trade with our European partners. If we have no deal, 50% of our manufacturing output will be at risk. People will say that that is okay because 80% of our economy consists of services. To them I say, “Go to the high street in a manufacturing town, and ask the shopkeepers on that high street whether they care whether the local factory shuts down. Ask the woman who cuts the hair of the people who work in the factory in my constituency whether they care if manufacturing is put at risk.” Of course they do, because the split between services and manufacturing is just an accounting matter. What really matter are local economies, and whether we should pull the rug from under them by deleting manufacturing industry from this country once again. Let me remind Ministers that some of us lived through the 1980s and 1990s, and I worry that Brexit will finish what Thatcher started.