Proceeding with Brexit involves difficult choices. On the economy: EITHER we distance ourselves from the EU (our neighbours and main trading partners), causing huge damage to our economy, losing thousands of jobs and hurting our public finances. OR we stay close to the EU, especially the customs union and the single market (both of which have non-EU countries participating), but then have to follow the rules without having a say on them anymore.
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Neither is good for Britain, although the second is less economically damaging. On security:
EITHER we leave the joint police databases, the shared criminal records, the common efforts to find and catch cross-border gangs, traffickers and terrorists, etc.
OR we ask the EU to let us stay in them anyway, but we’d not have a say anymore on how they’re run or the rules and safeguards that apply.
Richard Corbett (S&D). – Madam President, this Parliament is right to debate this today ahead of its vote in two weeks’ time on the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement. It’s right to do so because from the very start of this process, the Conservative Government has made things difficult for citizens of other EU countries in Britain. First it used them as bargaining chips in the negotiations, and now it is unwilling to provide a system that gives them full guarantees. Let me take just one example: the refusal to give a physical document. That seems designed to make it difficult for citizens to prove their status to prospective employers or to landlords. It seems designed to make life difficult for them. And now, Boris Johnson has an increased majority, won, let us recall, on only 43% of the vote. Won despite 53% voting for parties offering a new referendum on Brexit. But he will use this majority to harden his Brexit.
We have already seen him put in British law a refusal to extend the negotiating period beyond a year. The UK Government wants the shortest possible transition period, making it impossible, frankly, to solve the plethora of problems that Brexit will throw up, this included. Instead, the UK Government must listen to this Parliament and remember that the European Parliament also needs to approve the Withdrawal Agreement and, above all, it should use the transition period to reflect again on the question of freedom of movement and let another generation enjoy the rights that our generation had the privilege to have.
(The speaker declined a blue-card question from Robert Rowland)
