Afternoon summary
- Boris Johnson, the Conservative mayor of London, has dismissed Cameron’s “Project Fact” claim as “baloney”.
Speaking on a visit to Northern Ireland, Johnson said people had “everything to gain” from leaving the EU.
I think there is absolutely nothing to be concerned about, indeed everything to gain. We have a real opportunity to get out from under the encumbrance, that constricting force which is the European Union and the bureaucracy that’s involved.
I think for Northern Ireland it would be good news from the point of view of fisheries. I think the farming community, the subsides would be better tailored to their needs and, as for exports around the world, we should be so positive.
We need to lift our eyes to the horizon, we need to think globally. The European Union, of course it’s a hugely important market for us, but as a share of world trade it is diminishing and they are going in a very different direction from the rest of the world in the sense they are trying to create this political union based around the euro which is not really where we want to go.
- Sir Jeremy Heywood, the cabinet secretary, and Matthew Hancock, the Cabinet Office minister, have defended the government’s decision to stop pro-Brexit ministers seeing government papers relating to the EU referendum. Speaking in the Commons, where some Tory MPs strongly complained that this could make the referendum unfair, Hancock said the rule was the “best way to manage” an “unusual situation”. He told MPs:
All ministers can ask for factual briefing and for facts to be checked in any matter.
All ministers can see documents on EU issues not related to the referendum question, as normal. So the guidance is clear, it’s published and the process was agreed at cabinet as the best way to manage the unusual situation of ministers who disagree with the government remaining in post.
Giving evidence to a select committee, Heywood defended the rules.
Sir Jeremy Heywood tells PAC it's the civil service's 'constitutional duty' to support govt's position on EU
— Daniel Martin (Mail) (@Daniel_J_Martin) February 29, 2016
Heywood says his letter was just putting 'flesh on the bones' of the PM's letter of 11 Jan saying govt will have a position
— Daniel Martin (Mail) (@Daniel_J_Martin) February 29, 2016
- Ministers arguing over the role of mandarins in the run-up to the EU referendum have been warned by the leading civil servants’ union that this could cause lasting damage to relationships across Whitehall. As Rajeev Syal reports, Dave Penman, the general secretary of the the FDA (the main union that represents senior civil servants) said government splits over access to documents may have long-term repercussions for the way in which ministers and their officials interact. In the short term, it could stop government functioning properly, he said.
- Peers have again defeated the government over plans to cut £30 a week from some disabled people’s benefits. As the Press Association reports, the Lords voted by 289 to 219, majority 70, to delay the cut pending a parliamentary report on the impact on claimants. Coming after the clash between the elected Commons and the unelected Upper House over tax credits, the vote sets up another bruising constitutional confrontation between the two chambers. It came after work and pensions minister Lord Freud offered concessions to try to head off a revolt and warned peers against supporting a “wrecking amendment” to the Welfare Reform and Work Bill. MPs last week overturned an earlier Lords vote rejecting ministers’ plans for the £30 cut despite misgivings among some Tory backbenchers. The clash centres on proposals to cut employment and support allowance (Esa) for people in the work-related activity group (Wrag) from £103 to £73 for new claimants from next year. The bill will go back to the Commons in another round of “parliamentary ping pong”.
- Yvette Cooper, chair of Labour’s refugee taskforce, has urged ministers to use their powers to stop hundreds of children from the Calais migrant camp falling into the hands of human traffickers who could use them for prostitution. In a Commons urgent questions, she said asylum applications for unaccompanied children were taking nine months in France and that 400 are at “serious risk” of disappearing as the “Jungle” camp in Calais is dismantled and new shelters fill up. Immigration minister James Brokenshire told her that the best way for a child to get help is to lodge an asylum claim in France but admitted it should not take anywhere near nine months to process them.
- Legislation aimed at clearing up Wales’s devolution powers has been delayed. As the Press Association reports the draft Wales bill which sets out the UK government’s plans to create a “clearer and fairer” settlement for the nation was first published last October. But Welsh Secretary Stephen Crabb said the bill would not be ready until the summer because “significant changes” were needed. This includes removing the so-called “necessity test” which critics said would cause further rows between the Welsh and UK governments over whether the Assembly had the power to pass a specific law. Rival parties have welcomed the news - saying a rethink was desperately needed.
That’s all from me for today.
Thanks for the comments.
Updated
Pawel Swidlicki, an analyst at the Open Europe thinktank, has written a blog assessing how realistic are the claims in today’s government report on withdrawing from the EU (pdf).
He includes these charts showing how long it has taken to negotiate other free trade deals.
Here are the figures for some EU trade deals.
And here are the figures for some other trade deals.
And here is Swidlicki’s conclusion.
Given all the above, it is clear that post-Brexit negotiations would be complex and take a significant amount of time – though no-one can really be precise about how long they would take. Generally, striking an FTA takes anywhere between four and ten years. When it comes to the UK-EU negotiations the importance of the deal and the extent of the links between the two sides could cut both ways. On the one hand, given that the two sides are each other’s largest single trading partner, there could well be significant pressure to move swiftly ahead with the negotiations, while the existing cohesion might make this possible.
However, on the other hand, the deal will be incredibly complex to negotiate and will encompass not only a free trade deal but also tying up all the other lose ends from Brexit – ranging from the status of UK nationals in the EU and vice-versa to tricky issues around Gibraltar and Northern Ireland. Furthermore, as our EU Wargames simulation showed, there may be a desire to drag out the negotiations in order to ward off those who may want to follow the UK’s lead.
Updated
The Labour MP Kate Hoey, who wants to leave the EU, asks Lidington why the government ignored the letter from the first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland saying the referendum should not be held in June. They complained because they did not want the referendum campaign to overlap with the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland elections.
Lidington says the government did take notice of what the first minsters were saying.
But the government also took the view that it was important to get on with the referendum, he says.
And he says it would be “disrespectful” to voters to suggest that they could not focus on more than one campaign at the same time.
Updated
In the Commons David Lidington, the Europe minister, is just opening the debate on the regulations that will set 23 June as the date for the EU referendum. It is the last piece of legislation needed before the referendum can go ahead, he says.
Here’s another picture from Boris Johnson’s visit to Northern Ireland.
Is he trying to make the cover of Private Eye?
The psephologist Prof John Curtice has written a blog for What UK Thinks looking at what has happened to the EU referendum polling over the last week. He says the figures suggest that David Cameron’s EU renegotiation has done nothing to boost support for Remain.
Here’s an extract.
A week on from the announcement that the Prime Minister had concluded what he regarded as an acceptable deal with the rest of the European Union on Britain’s terms of membership, it does not look as though that in practice there has been a swing to Remain. None of the now six polls that have been wholly or mostly conducted since the conclusion of the talks in Brussels has detected a significant movement towards Remain, including, not least, amongst Conservative supporters.
Of the six polling companies in question, five of them also polled – using the same method – in the fortnight or so before a draft of the eventual deal was published on 1 February. At that time those five polls (four of them conducted over the internet and one by phone) on average put Remain on 52.5% (once Don’t Knows are left aside) and Leave on 47.5%.
The equivalent figures for those five polls during the last week have been Remain 51%, Leave 49%. In other words, if anything, support for Remain appears to be slightly weaker now than it was before the details of the renegotiation first became public knowledge.
The sixth poll conducted since the conclusion of the renegotiation – a poll conducted by Survationover the telephone rather than over the internet (as had previously been the company’s practice) – does not disturb this picture. At 59% its estimated share for Remain (once Don’t Knows are left aside) is in line with the average for all other telephone polls conducted since the New Year.
The urgent question is still going on, and more Tory Brexit MPs have been complaining about Cameron’s rules relating to what ministers can and cannot see.
Here is my collleague Rafael Behr’s take on the row.
'constitutional outrage' is very often, usually in fact, a synonym for 'of no interest at all to most of the public'
— Rafael Behr (@rafaelbehr) February 29, 2016
Lord Lawson, the former Conservative chancellor and Vote Leave chairman, told the World at One that all ministers should be able to see government papers relating to the EU referendum. He told the programme:
They should be able to see all documents. They’re still ministers, they should be able to see it, and I think that Bernard Jenkin’s concern [is] for preserving the reputation of the impartiality of our civil service, that it is not a political civil service, it is a non-political civil service. I think that that is being jeopardised by this and it’s a matter of considerable concern and he’s right to raise the matter.
Richard North, the anti-EU campaigner, has been in touch to say the Leave Alliance has already produced a plan for Brexit that addressed the concerns raised by the government in its report today. The Leave Alliance call their plan “flexcit”.
@AndrewSparrow We've already published our response .... https://t.co/F02EkfjzCh ... Flexcit answers all the issues raised.
— RichardAENorth (@RichardAENorth) February 29, 2016
On his blog North writes:
The government has today published a report on the implications of leaving the EU. This is a modest document (28-pages) which would have it that leaving would create a decade of uncertainty.
In fact, released from the dead hand of Brussels, we could look forward to a decade and more of unprecedented opportunity. But, on one point we do agree. Withdrawal from the EU is a process, not an event – that is the title of the booklet: “The process for withdrawing from the European Union”.
With that, the government is saying that: “a vote to leave the EU would be the start, not the end, of a process”. We wholeheartedly agree, and have been saying so for years in Flexcit, adding: “If we see “Brexit” as a process rather than a single event, the act of leaving becomes an enabler rather than an end in itself. In our view, the primary objectives of those managing the withdrawal are to set up the structures and strategies which will provide a sound foundation for the governance and development of a post-exit Britain.”
On the World at One Lord O’Donnell, the former cabinet secretary, defended the rules introduced by David Cameron about limiting the right of pro-Brexit ministers to see certain government papers. He told the programme:
I think [Sir Jeremy Heywood, the cabinet secretary, has] got it pretty well right to be honest. I mean, it’s worth remembering the civil servants are there to support the democratically elected government and the government’s position is to remain in. Therefore civil servants will support that. If the government’s position were to leave, then the civil servants would be supporting that position.
The truth is, and ministers may be a bit sad about this, unfortunately nearly all the pieces of paper they’ll have to read they’ll still have to read. So if you’re a minister going to Europe on a European Council meeting or whatever, you will be supported by your officials, you will have all the background papers. There’s only one respect which is to do with the referendum, the arguments for and against. In that respect the government and civil servants will be supporting the Government in their position, which is to remain in a reformed Europe. So, those papers will be kept away from dissenting ministers.
O’Donnell said what was happening now was what happened in 1975, when Harold Wilson also allowed cabinet ministers to campaign on either side in the referendum.
Boris Johnson dismisses Cameron's 'Project Fact' claim as 'baloney'
Boris Johnson, the Conservative mayor of London who made the surprise decision to come out for Brexit eight days ago, has dismissed David Cameron’s claim that he is only interested in “Project Fact” as “baloney”.
Boris Johnson's reaction to the PM's claim that he is only interested in Project Fact: "Baloney"... More with @IainDale at 5.15pm.
— Theo Usherwood (@theousherwood) February 29, 2016
Michael Fabricant, the Conservative MP, says Cameron’s decision to stop pro-Brexit ministers having access to some government papers is “a huge blunder”.
Hancock says the rules only became necessary because Cameron gave ministers the freedom to oppose the government on this issue.
Tom Watson, the Labour deputy leader, is responding to Hancock.
He says he is not in the best position to lecture Hancock on splits within his party. But he has questions to raise, he says.
He asks how many special advisers will campaign for an Out vote. If they travel, will they have to pay their own expenses.
They are not supposed to campaign for Brexit “during office hours”. What are office hours?
He says the Out campaign are attacking the referee, not the captain of the opposing side.
But Cameron can either give ministers free rein to run their departments, or sack them, he says. Cameron cannot have it both ways, he says.
Hancock is replying to Jenkin.
He says it is the duty of civil servants to support the government of the day.
He says in 1975 ministers who wanted to oppose the government’s position had to inform Number 10 whenever they appeared on TV or radio. That rule has not been applied this time, he says.
Bernard Jenkin says government ministers are accountable by law for what their departments do.
He says the current guidance goes much further than the rules that applied in 1975.
And he quotes from a Q&A document saying ministers may not see any papers that “have a bearing” on the EU referendum.
The Daily Mail’s Tamara Cohen has more details.
The memo to civil servants: #Brexit ministers can't see any papers with 'a bearing' on EU referendum pic.twitter.com/awRKoAydLT
— Tamara Cohen (@tamcohen) February 29, 2016
Matthew Hancock, the Cabinet Office minister, is replying to a Commons urgent question from Bernard Jenkin about the rules governing what government papers pro-Brexit ministers are and are not allowed to see.
Hancock says ministers may depart from the government’s position on the specific question of whether or not Britain should stay in the EU.
But on other matters ministers have to support the government’s line.
Pro-Brexit ministers may not commission work challenging the government’s line, or see papers relating to the EU referendum, he says.
Ukip hit back at Cameron over 'Project Fact'
Ukip figures have hit back at David Cameron using the #ProjectFact hashtag. Here are some examples.
Here are some tweets from Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has called for a full EU Army. #ProjectFact
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) February 29, 2016
Earlier this month Bosnia officially submitted its application to join the European Union. EU is still expanding. #ProjectFact
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) February 29, 2016
Government say 257,000 EU nationals arrived last year, but 630,000 registered for NI numbers. #ProjectFact
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) February 29, 2016
In the House of Commons in October, @David_Cameron reaffirmed his support for Turkey joining the EU. #ProjectFact
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) February 29, 2016
This is from the Ukip MEP Louise Bours.
Under Article 8 of the EU Treaty, EU must act as a good neighbour to a newly independent UK: #ProjectFact pic.twitter.com/QtSiMz8NfL
— Louise Bours (@LouiseBoursUKIP) February 29, 2016
Cameron's EU Q&A - Summary
Here are the main points from David Cameron’s Q&A.
- Cameron insisted that it was perfectly fair to stop pro-Brexit ministers seeing government papers relating to the referendum. It was just the same as his being denied access to their campaign briefing material, he said. The row had “got slightly out of proportion”, he claimed.
As for this issue of government papers and government documents, I think this has got slightly out of proportion. We have a situation where the government isn’t neutral on this question. The government has a clear position, which is that Britiain is better off in a reformed European Union. And ministers are allowed, in a personal capacity, to campaign against that position.
So it’s not as if the government, the civil service, is just sitting their neutral. The government and the civil service are supporting the position that Britain is better off in. So it is only documents like things to do with the in/out referendum that those ministers can’t see, just as I can’t see the documents drawn up by ministers supporting the Out campaign who will want to be publishing their own information.
- He rejected claims that the In campaign was running a version of “Project Fear” (the nickname for the No campaign in Scotland that stressed the downsides of Scottish independence). He said:
The only project I’m interested in is Project Fact. And I can tell you what life will be like if we stay inside a reformed European Union.
- He admitted that a vote to leave the EU could increase the chance of the UK breaking up. This was “a concern”, he said. He said that the UK as a whole was voting on the EU and that the Scots had settled their future in the independence referendum. But some figures in Scotland did not accept that, he said.
It is quite clear that there are politicians in Scotland saying that a referendum to leave the EU could put that under question again.
So I would say if like me you care about keeping our United Kingdom together, that is yet another reason to vote for staying in a reformed European Union rather than having uncertainty and instability in the relationships inside the United Kingdom.
- He rejected Iain Duncan Smith’s claim that those in favour of Remain had a low opinion of the British people. Asked if he agreed with Duncan Smith’s claim, he said:
Not at all. I have the highest possible opinion of the British people. I’m a huge believer in our country ... We will be a great country whether we stay in the European Union or leave the European Union. The only thing that I think that matters is the question how are we most prosperous.
- He said the “membership fee” for being in the EU was about one penny for every pound paid in tax, but that it was worth it. Asked about the net cost of being in the EU, he said:
We do pay in more than we get out. In terms of the extent of that, every pound paid in taxes, one penny of that, effectively, goes to the EU. That is the fee, as it were, the net fee that we pay. I would argue that, given that we get the trade, given that we get the cooperation, given we get the strength that it brings us in the world, this is worth the membership fee.
- He sidestepped a question about whether he thought Boris Johnson was backing Brexit partly in the hope of increasing his chances of becoming prime minister. Cameron said the questioner would have to put the question to Johnson himself.
Leave.EU has issued its own response to the government’s “dangers of Brexit” report. This is from Richard Tice, the Leave.EU co-chair.
It’s incredible to see EU supporters suggesting that we’ve enjoyed forty-six years of certainty and stability since signing up to the European project.
What certainty has Brussels offered to our public services, subject to stresses we cannot plan for because we cannot control EU immigration? What certainty has Brussels offered to the steel industry, which we cannot protect from export dumping or assist financially without permission? What certainty has Brussels offered to our shattered fishing industry, deprived of the lion’s share of our marine resources?
If we remain in, we have no way of knowing when the EU is going to dump something like the clinical trials directive in our laps, stunting medical innovation and increasing costs for the NHS. We can’t be sure it won’t suddenly decide we have to start applying VAT to food, books and children’s clothes, as it did for fuel bills. We won’t be able to protect ourselves from deals like TTIP, or even scrutinise their development. That doesn’t look like ‘certainty’ to us.
Despite crisis after crisis, the EU sticks to same old song: “We Didn’t Start the Fire” – except they did. Brexit gives us the chance to put it out.
Q: You talk about a leap in the dark. It has been said [by Iain Duncan Smith on the Andrew Marr Show] that you have a low opinion of the British people. Is that right?
Not at all, says Cameron. He says he has a high opinion of Britain. But the issue is what is best for the country.
He says you can turn this around the other way. He has huge confidence that Britain can get things done in the EU.
He says rushing off and signing trade deals with other countries sounds great.
But those countries want to sign trade deals with the EU first, because it’s a market of 500m people.
If we leave, we would have to wait for the EU to sign those trade deals first.
Britain has got a great deal of heft. But not as much as the EU overall.
Cameron says he cannot think of any country that wishes Britain well that wants it to leave the EU.
Cameron is wrapping up now. He says he hopes that the person who collapsed earlier (more details here) is okay. He hopes people think he was right to carry on.
And that’s it. I will post a summary soon.
Q: Will there be further change in the EU?
Cameron says he wants to continue with the model the EU has, which is one size does not fit all.
Q: Why didn’t you give 16-year-olds the vote in the referendum?
Cameron says the Commons voted on this. He backed having 18 as the cut-off. He thinks that is the age of majority for many things. But he has seen how this issue has become more important to people in recent years.
Q: Michael Gove said your reforms could be undone. Is that true?
Cameron says he does not think that is right. The deal could only be reversed if all 28 prime ministers who agreed it decided to reverse it.
All the legal advice he has is that it is legally binding and irreversible.
But is is not claiming it is perfect.
Almost every institution we are in, almost every relationship we have, is not perfect, he says.
Q: How can you all sit around the cabinet table with ministers opposing you on this, when you have questioned each other’s judgements in such strong terms?
Cameron says for the last six years the government has been a strong team.
But on this issue people have strong views. They do not necessarily agree.
He says he is spelling out the Remain case.
Q: Will you resign if Britain votes to leave?
No, says Cameron.
He says this referendum is not about one politician’s future.
Updated
Q: Do you think Boris Johnson is backing Brexit in the hope of increasing his chances of replacing you as prime minister?
You’ll have to ask Boris, says Cameron.
He says he wants to focus on the issue.
He urges people not to make up their minds on the basis of one person.
Cameron says the only project he is interested in is “project fact” - showing what would happen if Britain left the EU.
It would take two years to negotiate exit from the EU. After two years, even if no deal had been achieved, Britain would be out.
He says people arguing for Brexit are beginning to say that there would be some uncertainty or difficulty at first.
Q: So what are you doing to prepare for an Out vote?
Cameron says the government will be publishing a document showing what the alternatives would be.
Britain could decide to go for a free trade deal like Canada’s with the EU. But that has taken seven years to negotiate, and it is still stuck, he says.
Switzerland took more than nine years to get its trade deal, he says.
And if Britain did not have a trade deal, manufacturers would have to pay tariffs.
Updated
Q: Do you worry that leaving the EU would trigger a second independence referendum in Scotland?
Cameron says Scotland has had a referendum.
But, if you care about keeping the UK together, that would be another reason for voting for Britain to remain in the EU.
Q: The east of England is often described as being a Eurosceptic region. Does that concern you? And do you appreciate those concerns?
Cameron says he does appreciate them. That is why he addressed them in his renegotiation.
Someone appears to have fallen over at the back of the room. Cameron asks if they are okay, and walks over to see for himself.
Q: How disappointed are you that most Essex MPs are on the Leave side? And what do you say to MPs like Priti Patel who want the civil service to be impartial?
Cameron says a majority of MPs from the eastern region are in favour of staying in the EU.
As for the issue of government papers, “I think this has got slightly out of proportion”, he says.
He says there is a government position on the EU. But ministers can campaign to leave in a personal capacity.
It is only documents to do with the EU referendum that ministers supporting Brexit cannot see. He says that is just like the fact that he does not see the documents the Brexit ministers are drawing up to make their case.
Q: You must have reservations about the EU. What are they?
Cameron says one is that Britain pays a membership fee. He thinks it is worth it, but it is frustrating.
And negotiating with 27 other countries can be frustrating. But it is better to be negotiating than not negotiating, he says.
He says the UK has a good relationship with the US, but the US is not buying any British lamb at the moment. If you are negotiating with a country, you can resolve issues like this, he says.
He says leaving the EU would give the illusion of sovereignty.
But it would be an illusion. If Britain left, and it wanted access to the single market, it would have to obey EU rules. That is what happens to Norway. The Norwegian prime minister just gets rules from Brussels from the fax machine and has to implement them.
What matters more than the illusion of sovereignty is the ability to get things done, he says.
Q: Is there a net benefit to staying in the EU? If we stayed out, would there be more money for universities?
Cameron says Britain pays in more in cash terms than it gets out.
Of every pound paid in tax, one penny goes to the EU.
Given we get the trade, the cooperation and the strength in the world, it is worth the membership fee, he says.
And he says he has ensured the EU budget is coming down.
We will only have a good university system if we have a growing economy, he says.
He says the government took difficult decisions over universities. But more people from low-income families are going to university now.
Q: If we stay in the EU, will there be pressure to join the euro?
No, says Cameron. It is clear that Britain would be able to keep the pound.
But it is also important to ensure British businesses using the pound are not discriminated against. He says his renegotiation has achieved this.
We can keep the pound forever, he says. And we can make sure we are not discriminated against.
Updated
Cameron is now taking questions.
Q: If we vote to stay in the EU, will you get more involved in EU issues?
Cameron says Britain is engaged in EU affairs. Different countries take the lead on different issues. But Britain has led on free trade, and on imposing sanctions on Russia.
Cameron's Q&A
David Cameron has just started his EU Q&A.
He is in Ipswich, speaking to students.
He starts with a short speech making his usual points claiming that Britain would be better off, stronger and safer by staying in the EU.
Vote Leave dismisses government's Brexit report as a 'dodgy EU dossier'
Matthew Elliott, the chief executive of Vote Leave, has dismissed the government report on withdrawing from the EU as a “dodgy EU dossier” littered with errors. In a statement he said:
The government’s dodgy EU dossier has no credibility given the errors and wrong assumptions that litter the document. The prime minister is using taxpayers money for a dishonest scare campaign. When we Vote Leave we will negotiate a new UK-EU deal based on free trade and friendly co-operation, but not the supremacy of EU law, and we’ll spend our money on our priorities. The government’s claim that sorting this out will take twice as long as World War Two is silly.
Vote Leave also issued a rebuttal taking issue with 12 of the claims in the report. It is too long to post in full (although it may turn up on the Vote Leave website later), but here are four of the main points Vote Leave is making.
- Vote Leave says Britain would not have to start withdrawal proceedings straight after a Brexit vote. It says:
There is no legal obligation in the European Union Referendum Act 2015 for the government to trigger article 50 immediately after the vote. This is based on pure assertion and does not reflect the view or material produced by those advocating a ‘leave’ vote.
The British people will expect the government to maximise its flexibility during negotiations to get the best deal for Britain, not to arbitrarily commit to one exit mechanism on an arbitrary date.
- Vote Leave says the government is wrong to claim that it would have to use the article 50 procedure to negotiate withdrawal. Greenland and Algeria were both able to leave the EU without using article 50, it says. That was before the Lisbon Treaty (containing article 50) came into force, it says.
Greenland left the EU by what is now article 48(2) of the Treaty of European Union. This allows any amendment to EU law to be made (including ending the application of the EU Treaties to the UK). This could be used again and is a tried and tested method
In addition, article 54(b) of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties provides that a party to a treaty may withdraw ‘at any time by consent of all the parties after consultation with the other contracting States’ (Vienna Convention, May 1969, art. 54(b).
- Vote Leave says the government is wrong to claim Brexit could lead to a decade of uncertainty. It says it took the EU just one month to negotiate a trade deal with Ukraine.
- It says other countries would not have to wait until the UK had a trade deal with the EU before negotiating their own trade deals with the UK.
Other countries are perfectly capable of negotiating multiple trade agreements at the same time. The United States has spent the last few years negotiating two major trade agreements: the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.
Updated
Lunchtime summary
- Downing Street has become embroiled in a row with Chris Grayling, the leader of the Commons, following the publication of a report saying Brexit could lead to “a decade or more of uncertainty” for British business. Grayling said some of the claims in the report were “clearly ludicrous”. (See 8.41am.) But Number 10 rejected this. (See 12.36pm.) The report itself says:
The countries with which we currently have preferential trade agreements through the EU are likely to want to see the terms of our future relationship with the EU before negotiating any new trade agreements with the UK. In addition, many of our trading partners, including the United States, are already negotiating with the EU. Before they start negotiations with the UK they are likely to want those deals to conclude.
It is therefore probable that it would take an extended period to negotiate first our exit from the EU, secondly our future arrangements with the EU, and thirdly our trade deals with countries outside of the EU, on any terms that would be acceptable to the UK. In short, a vote to leave the EU would be the start, not the end, of a process. It could lead to up to a decade or more of uncertainty.
Secretaries of state are responsible for their departments. For an unelected official to prevent them being aware of the information they need for their duties is wrong.
But Number 10 rejected this charge. The prime minister’s spokeswoman said:
The role of the civil service is to support the government’s policies and positions of day. Ministers who choose to take a different view are opposing that government position.
- Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, has said she does not want Scotland to become independent as a result of UK withdrawal from the European Union. In a speech in London she also called for an “uplifting” and “positive” campaign to stay, cautioning that the Remain camp cannot afford to lose support with a message based on fear, as happened in Scotland in 2014.
I hope that the debate that we engage in over the next few months is a thoroughly positive debate, because one of the undoubted lessons of the Scottish experience is that a miserable, negative, fear-based campaign saw the No campaign in the Scottish referendum lose over the course of the campaign a 20-point lead.
I don’t have to point out to anybody here that the In campaign in this referendum doesn’t have a 20-point lead to squander.
- Kezia Dugdale, the Scottish Labour leader, has said that May’s Scottish parliamentary elections will be Scotland’s first “tax and spend” election. Defending Labour’s plan to raise income tax in Scotland, she said:
Unlike any previous election, it will not be the constitution which is the centre of this Scottish election but rather how we use our powers. 2016 will be the first Scottish tax and spend election.
Scottish Labour will never look for an excuse not to act. We will use the new powers we hold and grasp with both hands the possibilities they provide.
Updated
No 10 lobby briefing - Summary
Here are the main points from the Number 10 lobby briefing.
- Number 10 rejected Chris Grayling’s claim that the government was engaged in a “relentless campaign of fear” over Brexit. (See 8.41am.) The prime minister’s spokeswoman said that David Cameron did not accept Grayling’s claim and that Cameron thought he and the government had a responsibility to “speak plainly about what the government believes is right for the country”.
- The spokeswoman dismissed complaints that there was anything unconstitutional about the way pro-Brexit cabinet ministers are being denied access to some EU papers. This claim has been made by Bernard Jenkin, the Conservative MP who chairs the public administration committee. The spokeswoman said that no complaints have been raised so far with the cabinet secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, or his office about how these rules are being enforced. When it was put to her that it was unconstitutional for a secretary of state, who is responsible for what his or her department does, to be denied access to information about what it is doing, she said: “I’m not going to get into speculation about what conversations may or may not have been had by the cabinet secretary.” She went on:
I do not think the public would expect the resources of the civil service, which is there to serve the government of the day, to be used in a way that was opposing the government of the day.
- The spokeswoman suggested there was no need for Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, to start commissioning work on how the “emergency brake” will work. It has been claimed that Cameron wants to stop Duncan Smith doing this work, or having access to it, because he does not want Duncan Smith getting information that shows how costly or ineffective the “emergency brake” (which limits in-work benefits for EU migrants) will be. Asked if Duncan Smith could commission this work, the spokeswoman replied:
The focus of the government’s work at the moment is on the referendum and whether or not the UK remains or leaves. The issue around the welfare brake - the [European] commission themselves have been clear that this is a question for after the referendum.
When pressed on whether Duncan Smith could commission this work, the spokeswoman said case by case decisions on what was appropriate would have to be made by civil servants, in consultation with Heywood.
- David Lidington, the Europe minister, will give a statement to MPs at 3.30pm on today’s government paper on the process for withdrawing from the EU.
- The government is planning to publish at least three further papers covering issues relating to Brexit, the spokeswoman said. They will cover: the costs and benefits of EU membership; alternatives for the UK if it leaves; and the rights and obligations of membership.
I’m just back from the Number 10 lobby briefing. It took much longer than usual because there was a fire alarm in the House of Commons, and so we had to decamp to Number 10.
I will post a summary shortly.
In the meantime, Priti Patel, the employment minister, is criticising Sir Jeremy Heywood, the cabinet secretary, over the way pro-Brexit ministers are reportedly being denied access to certain papers, the BBC reports.
Jeremy Heywood’s unconstitutional act threatens the reputation of the civil service says @vote_leave Priti Patel
— norman smith (@BBCNormanS) February 29, 2016
Here is more from the Nicola Sturgeon event.
Nicola Sturgeon has picked this guy to ask a question because he "spookily looks like Ed Miliband" pic.twitter.com/tWmntKwyM8
— Emily Ashton (@elashton) February 29, 2016
I’m just off to the Number 10 lobby briefing now. I will post again after 11.30am.
Swiss bank UBS has just piled into the Brexit debate, saying there is a 40% chance that Britain will vote to leave the EU in June.
In a new report, UBS predicts that sterling would be hit hard if Britain left the EU.
It estimates that the pound would hit parity with the euro, which would help UK exporters but make trips to the continent much pricier.
Currently, sterling is trading around €1.27, meaning one euro is worth roughly 78p.
UBS reckons it will weaken to around 84p by June, and could then either sharply recover, or weaken, depending on the result.
There is more on this on our business live blog.
Updated
John Howard, the former Australian prime minister, has said that if he were British, he would vote to leave the EU. Howard, who led the centre-right Liberal party, told Australian TV yesterday:
The European Union is an affront to the sovereignty of its member countries.
Britain can’t really control her borders, and she can’t really exercise the sort of authority when it comes to negotiating free trade agreements.
It went too far, and once you set in motion the process towards political integration it either becomes unstoppable, or it begins to fall apart and I think on either ground there is a case for Britain leaving.
Alan Johnson, chair of Labour In For Europe, has welcomed the Cabinet Office report.
This report raises important questions on how Britain will disentangle itself from 40 years of co-operation with our closest allies, neighbours and biggest trading partner.
The case put by those looking to wrench Britain out of Europe looks flimsier by the day. The leave campaign need to answer the tough questions on trade deals, rights for British citizens living and working in Europe, and access to the single market.
Cabinet Office publishes its 'cost of Brexit' report
The Cabinet Office has now published the full text of the government report that the Guardian splashed on this morning, arguing that Brexit would lead to 10 years of economic disruption.
It is 28 pages long. Here it is in full (pdf).
Nicola Sturgeon has rehearsed some of her arguments for Britain staying in the EU in this article for Comment is free (or Opinion, as we’re now supposed to call it).
Sturgeon says Remain could lose if it runs fear-based campaign
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, is delivering her speech on Europe in London now.
She says that in Scotland the No camp saw its lead cut during the independence referendum campaign (although it still won in the end) because it ran a negative, fear-based campaign. Pro-Europeans cannot afford to make the same mistake in this campaign, she says.
This is from the SNP MP Drew Hendry.
@NicolaSturgeon "Miserable, negative, fear based campaign cost 20% lead for 'no' in indyref. No such lead to squander in #eureferendum"
— Drew Hendry MP (@drewhendrySNP) February 29, 2016
I’ll post a summary of the speech when I’ve seen the text.
Yesterday YouGov published a Eurosceptic map of Britain, showing which areas are most in favour of leaving the EU and which are most opposed. The details are here.
Here is the map.
Here are the most Eurosceptic and most Europhile areas.
The Economist’s Jeremy Cliffe has a good commentary on it here. And here’s an excerpt.
The map caveats one of the Out campaigns’ doughtiest arguments: that voters are fed up with the union because of immigration. To be sure, the subject is extremely salient. As I report in the column, voters “intensely concerned” about it are 15 times more likely to vote for Brexit. But its effect on the nation’s political outlook is also complicated. Note that the most Europhile areas include places with lots of experience of immigration (Lambeth, Southampton) and fairly little (the Scottish Highlands, the Wirral). The most Eurosceptic places are similarly varied: from relatively monocultural Cumbria and Somerset to Lincolnshire and Peterborough with their many eastern European newcomers.
All of which belies to the notion that Euroscepticism is merely a protest about the burden placed on public services and labour markets by European immigrants, who pay into and take out of the state (though more the former than the latter) in (pro-EU) Brent and Sheffield just as they do in (anti-EU) Lincoln and the Fens. What seems to matter more is the economic and cultural environment into which they move. In places used to heterogeneous populations (say, Leicester) and/or inhabited by liberal minded university-graduates (say, Newcastle) and/or prosperous enough that residents do not feel threatened by cheap, if often relatively unskilled, newcomers (say, York) the immigration-Euroscepticism transmission belt seems broken, or at least less effective than in places where locals feel threatened and overlooked. It is no coincidence that London, where all three of these conditions are in place, appears to be the capital of British Europhilia.
Grayling says sorting out trade deal with EU post-Brexit would be 'relatively quick'
On the Today programme Chris Grayling, the leader of the Commons, repeated his claim that the government’s assertion that it could take 10 years from a Brexit vote to negotiate new trade deals was implausible. (See 8.41am.) Here are some of the other points from the interview.
- Grayling claimed that sorting out a new trade deal with the EU after a Brexit vote would be “relatively quick”. That was because it was in the EU’s interest to get a deal, he said.
We have a £50bn-plus a year trade deficit with the European Union. We buy far more from them than they buy from us. The jobs at risk if we do not rapidly move to a new trading arrangement are in Bavaria and in France and in Italy and in Spain. Nobody seriously thinks that the French government is going to turn round to its farmers, who sell plenty of produce to us at the moment, to say, ‘Guys, you’re not going to be able to sell that anymore because we haven’t reached a new trade deal.’ They would be out on the French motorways blockading them and burn hay bales ...
What will happen when we vote to leave the European Union, there will then be a process of negotiation to sort out a new relationship we will have with the European Union. It will be relatively quick because it is in their financial interest to do that ...
People tend to move pretty quickly when they themselves are going to lose out financially.
(The interview did not address the issue of how long it might take to negotiate trade deals with countries outside the EU.)
- He ridiculed the recent claim from easyJet’s chief executive Dame Carolyn McCall that Brexit would be a threat to lowcost air travel. He said:
The truth is lowcost air travel emerged from the United States. It was about airlines changing the way they do things. And there are lowcost airlines all around the world. Nothing to do with what happens in Brussels.
- He said he thought government ministers opposed to staying in the EU should still get access to government papers about EU business. But he accepted there were some papers they should not see in advance, like today’s report making the case against Brexit. He was asked about this because there is a controversy about what papers pro-Brexit ministers are getting. Grayling said:
The important thing is that while we have this debate the government can carry on working as normal. That is really important. So nothing that happens can prevent a minister running a department – whether they’re on the side campaigning to stay in, or campaigning to stay out – from being able to do the job for this country and for this government. And of course business in Europe continue as well because we are still right now members of the European Union, and therefore ministerial colleagues need to be able to do the work.
I’m probably not expecting advance notice of the dossier that was published this morning but I think, yes, of course, if there is an important European meeting coming up, the substance of that meeting needs to be across the desk of every minister involved.
Matthew Hancock, the Cabinet Office minister, was on the Today programme earlier defending the government document saying that if Britain voted to leave the EU, it could take 10 years go negotiate new trade deals. If anything, that was a “cautious” assessment, he claimed. When it was put to him that the government was scaremongering, he replied:
On the contrary this is a cautious assessment. Some Leave campaigners say we should follow the example of Switzerland – their negotiation for their relationship with the EU took 16 years – the government assessment is we should be able to do it a bit quicker than that.
He also said it was incumbent on those arguing for Brexit to explain what would happen after a Leave vote.
What would happen to the two million Britons who live in other places in the EU? Would they still have access to free healthcare, for instance the million people who live in Spain?
It will take two years in which we go through the first part of this, which is renegotiating our relationship with EU countries ...
The first thing that will happen is that businesses will not know what their future arrangements will be and so when they are making their investment decisions, when they are deciding where to create jobs, they will not know what our relationship will be and that will have an immediate impact.
Here’s a Guardian analysis of what would happen if Britain voted to leave the EU.
As Anushka Asthana and Heather Stewart report (they’re the Guardian’s new political editors, who start today on a jobshare - welcome), the government is publishing a reporting that if Britain votes to leave the EU, it could take a decade to resolve the multiple problems this would generate. In particular, negotiating new trade deals could take ages, the report says.
Here’s an extract.
Car manufacturing, farming, financial services and the lives of millions of Britons living in Europe will all be affected as the UK takes 10 years to extricate itself from the EU, an official report says.
The government’s first official analysis into how Brexit would unfold in practice says a decade of uncertainty would hit “financial markets, investment and the value of the pound”. It also warns that the rights of 2 million British expats to work and access pensions and healthcare in EU countries may no longer be guaranteed.
Written by civil servants in the Cabinet Office, and seen first by the Guardian, the document says that it would not be feasible to leave the EU within the two-year time frame stipulated by existing treaties. “A vote to leave the EU would be the start, not the end, of a process. It could lead to up to a decade or more of uncertainty,” they concluded.
The 10 years cited in the report includes the time it would take for Britain to exit the EU, to set up a new trade and related agreements as well as negotiate fresh trade deals with the US and other countries elsewhere.
And here’s the full story.
This morning Vote Leave has just put out a statement from Chris Grayling, the leader of the Commons, saying that at least one of these claims is “clearly ludicrous”. He says:
People will not be impressed with this relentless campaign of fear. Claims that it will take twice as long to sort out a free trade deal with the EU as it did to win World War Two are clearly ludicrous. There’s a free trade zone from Iceland to the Russian border and Britain will still be part of it after we Vote Leave.
The In campaign claims we have no real choice other than giving away more power and money to the EU every year. It isn’t true. The real uncertainty is voting to stay in an EU which is already struggling with the Euro crisis, the migration crisis, and a youth unemployment crisis. It is safer to take back control and spend our money on our priorities.
David Cameron allowed ministers to campaign for Brexit in the hope that, if they kept their disagreements cordial, Tory colleagues would be able to unite again after the referendum on 23 June. Perhaps that will be possible, but every time we hear one group of ministers saying the other group are talking nonsense, it becomes harder to believe. And we’ve got four more months of this.
Grayling has just been on the Today programme. I will post more from the interview shortly.
Here is the agenda for the day.
10am: Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minster, gives a speech on the EU to the Resolution Foundation in London.
11am: Number 10 lobby briefing.
Around 1pm: David Cameron holds a Q&A on Europe.
3.30pm: MPs begin a debate on the regulations setting the date of the referendum.
I will be focusing a lot on Europe today but, as usual, I will be covering other breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I will post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon.
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