Sophy Ridge on Sunday Interview with Hilary Benn MP

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO SKY NEWS, SOPHY RIDGE ON SUNDAY

SOPHY RIDGE: Well just days before MPs vote on the Prime Minister’s plan, the Brexit Select Committee has released a highly critical report on the deal. It says the plan fails to offer sufficient clarity or certainty about the future and Theresa May’s proposals are neither detailed nor substantive. The Chair of that Committee is Labour’s Hilary Benn who joins us now. So what exactly has your Committee found?

HILARY BENN: Well good morning Sophy. We’ve agreed unanimously on the report. Now we are a committee made up of people who campaigned passionately for Remain and for Leave during the referendum but as you yourself have said, we were promised a detailed and substantive political declaration on our future relationship, we haven’t got one. All it offers is uncertainty about the future and the only thing we know for sure is the terms on which we will leave but if you’re a business looking five years ahead, ten years and you ask the question how is trade going to work, what will happen to services which are 80% of the British economy? The honest answer is, you don’t know because nobody knows. We also say that the government has failed to make the choices that it will eventually have to make about how we trade off the different things that we want because the government’s proposals put forward in Chequers were rejected by the EU, we say that Canada wouldn’t work, it wouldn’t solve the problem of Northern Ireland, it wouldn’t ensure the continuation of friction free trade which is so important to the British economy and we know that’s why there’s concern about what would happen at Dover, Calais, Eurotunnel if we were to leave with no deal. We also observe as a committee that we think there isn’t likely to be a majority in the House of Commons for leaving with no deal and that is something that we will test as part of the vote on amendments on Tuesday.

SR: You have been Chair of the Committee for some time now, we are now on to the third Brexit Secretary, we are going to be hearing from one of the former Brexit Secretary’s, Dominic Raab, a little bit later on in the show. One thing that seems to have come out from the previous Brexit Secretary’s is that they feel they weren’t properly listened to, weren’t properly involved shall we say in some of those negotiations. Do you think there has been a problem in how the negotiations have been carried out?

HILARY BENN: Look, I think any Prime Minister is going to want to be directing what have been the most important negotiations that the country has engaged in for decades and the dynamic between a Prime Minister and Cabinet Ministers, as I know from my own experience, in the end the Prime Minister is going to want to decide what is going to happen but I think there is a much more fundamental problem which has been for two years the Cabinet was riven with disagreement, it was arguing among itself about what even to ask for. When we would meet Michel Barnier he would say ‘Could you please tell us what it is you want as a country?’, that’s the first problem. The second problem is I don't think the government is being honest with the British people about the choices we have to make because the other thing we say in our report today is the degree of access we are going to have in future will depend on the extent to which we are prepared to follow the rules of the people with whom we are trading. Now that is a trade-off, that is a choice and I’m afraid the story of Brexit has been for too long the impression was giving ‘Oh don’t worry, we can get everything we want, we can get rid of the things we don’t want’ and now finally people have realised that’s not true and if you listen to those who argued for Brexit, they don’t actually have a plan. Is it Canada, is it leaving with no deal and not paying our bills …?

SR: But to be fair, people who backed Remain hardly have a plan either. Some of them say we should respect the result of the referendum, others say they want a second referendum, others are talking about a Norway option, which one do you want to see? It’s easy to criticise other people isn’t it, for not having a plan?

HILARY BENN: I respected the outcome of the referendum, I voted to trigger Article 50 but it’s quite clear that the deal that the Prime Minister has brought back is not going to succeed. I don't think it offers certainty and the amendment that I’ve put down for next Tuesday, as well as rejecting the Prime Minister’s deal, also says the House of Commons rejects leaving with no deal and I think that is really important. The two pit props of the Prime Minister’s argument have been it is either my deal or it’s leaving with no deal. If Parliament with one vote says well neither of those is acceptable then I think it puts pressure on the government to move. My own view is that it would be more sensible to go for membership of the EAA and a customs union but if we cannot reach agreement on that, if Parliament remains deadlocked, then in the end we are going to have to resolve this one way or another and it is just possible that the only way that can be achieved is by going back to ask the people again but that is a very difficult process.

SR: Do you think there is a parliamentary majority for the EAA, this Norway Plus option, staying in the single market and the customs union?

HILARY BENN: Well that has yet to be tested. The honest answer, Sophy, is I don't know, I don't think anybody does. There are clearly those in the government who would choose to move in that direction if and when the Prime Minister’s deal is rejected. Labour’s policy of course is to want to stay in a customs union, to have a close relationship with a single market which is pretty close to that but none of that is ideal because the fundamental weakness in all of these things is you are following rules over which you have no say …

SR: And also in the EAA you would have to accept free movement of people which is a big driver of …

HILARY BENN: That is true but I said in my speech in the House of Commons last week, in the end either everyone is going to have to compromise because nobody is going to get everything they want out of this process. The trouble is, our politics has become more polarised but there is a strong in-built British desire to seek compromise where it is possible but we’ll have to see if the House of Commons would be prepared to back that.

SR: And I wanted to ask you about your amendment, you mentioned it earlier, which effectively rules out the PM’s deal, rules out no deal but I am right in saying, aren’t I, that if that amendment goes forward people wouldn’t necessarily have to vote on the Prime Minister’s deal at all?

HILARY BENN: Well if it were to be carried then it becomes what’s known as the Substantive Amendment and you can have a second vote on it if you want, but if it is carried it would say that Parliament is rejecting the Prime Minister’s deal, so you wouldn’t be voting on the Prime Minister’s deal.

SR: So you would be letting her off the hook a bit then wouldn’t you?

HILARY BENN: Well no, because if Parliament votes to reject the Prime Minister’s deal, it votes to reject the Prime Minister’s deal. That is not letting the Prime Minister off the hook, that is telling her I’m afraid your deal won’t wash. But at the same time …

SR: But at the same time it would be significantly more difficult for the Prime Minister if she put this motion to the House, a motion she has worked on for more than two years and it was decisively rejected. Wouldn’t that be difficult for her?

HILARY BENN: Well no, I think in the end if Parliament says with one vote on the amendment that’s got cross-party support, people from all parties, if Parliament says we don’t approve your deal but crucially we do not approve of leaving the European Union with no deal, I think we’d have an obligation to …

SR: She would not lose that vote by as many as would lose the …

HILARY BENN: That is possible.

SR: Because a lot of people on her own back benches would not support your amendment.

HILARY BENN: Indeed, because some of them think you can leave with no deal. Now I am very clear and if you look at the evidence, the assessments which have been done, the warnings from Kent County Council – talk to business, never mind what politicians say about the impact of no deal, just talk to business as we have done, taken evidence as a committee, I have done and ruling out leaving with no deal now I think is really important for the future of the country because otherwise you prolong the uncertainty. I don't think there’s a majority in the House of Commons for leaving with no deal, I don’t actually think the government would be foolish enough to say okay, we are leaving with no deal so why carry on pretending, let’s give Parliament the chance to say clearly we reject your deal, we also reject no deal and then other possibilities will open up.

SR: So even if it saves the Prime Minister from a far heavier defeat, you are not going to be withdrawing your amendment?

HILARY BENN: No, I think Parliament should be given a chance to reject no deal because I think a cross-party amendment has a chance. It may be that all of the amendments go down and the Prime Minister’s deal is also defeated, one cannot predict what the House of Commons will decide, we are a democracy.

SR: Well that is certainly true if recent weeks are anything to go by. Hilary Benn, thank you very much.

HILARY BENN: Thank you.