Jonathan Isaby was Editor of BrexitCentral from its founding in September 2016 until January 2020.
Yesterday afternoon saw the return to the Commons of the Customs Bill, or the Taxation (Cross-Border Trade) Bill, to give it its formal title. The legislation provides for the UK have its own stand-alone customs regime after Brexit with the flexibility to accommodate future trade agreements and allowing for changes to be made to the UK’s VAT and excise regimes – but Jacob Rees-Mogg’s European Research Group (ERG) had spotted an opportunity to box the Government in and scupper aspects of the Chequers proposal through a series of amendments.
The most significant of these was new clause 36 to prevent the UK Government from being able to collect tariffs for the EU if there is no reciprocal arrangement for the EU to do the same for the UK, deemed to destroy the basis for the so-called Facilitated Customs Arrangement set out in last week’s White Paper.
Davis Davis used the opportunity of the debate to make his first Commons speech since his resignation as Brexit Secretary, underlining the importance of the UK having full control of its trade policy since “we’re the country that does least well out of the EU’s trade agreements”. He also explained why the issues around the Irish border are eminently soluble by technical means and cooperation between the UK and Ireland – watch his full speech here.
But the ERG’s amendments were causing the Government a potential headache because even though they were unlikely to pass (given Labour opposition at least to some of them), they were known by the whips to have the support of dozens and dozens of MPs, highlighting a growing unease with the Chequers proposal on the Tory backbenches. I spoke to several further parliamentary aides during the day who were prepared to vote for the amendments last night and be added to the list of resignations (although one resolutely insisted “they’d have to sack me”).
So word began to emerge that the Government would in fact accept the amendments, thereby denying the rebels the opportunity that show of strength, and a whip confirmed to me mid-afternoon that this would indeed be the case. This prompted Labour MP Stephen Kinnock to challenge Theresa May about the amendments while being questioned in the chamber about her statement on the NATO summit, to which the Prime Minister insisted (twice) “they do not change the Chequers agreement” – watch here. It was an unfortunate echo of her “nothing has changed” mantra from last year’s general election – and indeed a missed opportunity to be conciliatory towards those with concerns about the policy.
The debate was at times bad tempered and at the end of it there was the following series of votes:
It will not have escaped your notice that the two ERG amendments which were put to the vote each only passed with the wafer-thin majority of three. New clause 36 was actively opposed by 14 Conservative MPs: Heidi Allen, Guto Bebb, Richard Benyon, Kenneth Clarke, Jonathan Djanogly, Dominic Grieve, Stephen Hammond, Phillip Lee, Nicky Morgan, Bob Neill, Mark Pawsey, Antoinette Sandbach, Anna Soubry and Sarah Wollaston. Until last night Bebb was the Minister for Defence Procurement, meaning that he quit the Government in order to join the anti-Brexit rebels.
But, crucially, the amendment enjoyed the support of Labour eurosceptics Frank Field, Kate Hoey and Graham Stringer – along with Kelvin Hopkins (currently suspended from Labour) – while there were also notable absentees, such as Lib Dem leader Sir Vince Cable and his predecessor, Tim Farron.
On the second ERG amendment on VAT, 11 of the 14 Tory rebels listed above (minus Bebb, Benyon and Pawsey) repeated their rebellion, again with Labour MPs Field, Hoey and Stringer backing the Government (although Hopkins voted against this Government in that division).
The Bill secured its Third Reading by a majority of 33, but will proceed to the House of Lords after the summer recess.
