Gove: I back May’s deal
EXCLUSIVE: In run-up to crucial Commons vote, a bombshell intervention from ‘brains behind Brexit’
MICHAEL Gove today warns Tory MPs that Brexit is ‘by no means guaranteed’ if they vote down Theresa May’s deal.
The architect of the Leave campaign says the 100 Tories threatening to reject the plan on December 11 are putting Brexit itself ‘in peril’.
Writing in the Daily Mail, Mr Gove says: ‘Does [the deal] deliver 100 per cent of what I wanted? No. But then we didn’t win 100 per cent of the vote ... you can’t always get everything that you want.’
His comments came as Sam Gyimah, the universities minister, quit over the plan, claiming it would ‘set us up for failure’.
Mr Gove, the Environment Secretary, fears Remainers could force a second referendum in the chaotic aftermath of a defeat for No 10.
MICHAEL Gove today warns mutinous Tories they will put Brexit at risk if they vote down Theresa May’s plan in ten days’ time.
In a powerful intervention, the former Vote Leave chief tells Eurosceptic MPs that Brexit is ‘under greater threat than at any time since the referendum’.
The Environment Secretary admits in an article in the Daily Mail that Mrs May’s withdrawal agreement is not ‘perfect’.
But he adds: ‘Does it deliver 100 per cent of what I wanted? No. But then we didn’t win 100 per cent of the vote on 23 June 2016. In politics, as in life, you can’t always get everything that you want.’
He dismisses those accusing the Prime Minister of betrayal, saying that her plan ‘delivers in crucial ways which honour the vote to leave’.
Downing Street will hope the intervention by the Cabinet’s leading Eurosceptic – and architect of the Brexit campaign – will prove pivotal in the campaign to gain a seemingly impossible Commons majority on December 11 and safeguard the PM’s job.
Mr Gove makes it clear he is ‘uncomfortable’ with parts of the withdrawal agreement, but argues it is much better than either a second referendum or a no-deal exit.
He warns his fellow Eurosceptics that those pushing for a second vote ‘might well succeed’ if Mrs May’s plan is voted down – a move he says would cause ‘disillusionment on a scale never seen before’.
And in a direct appeal to the 100 Tory MPs threatening to side with Labour to block the PM’s deal, he urges them to reconsider ahead of the ‘momentous’ vote: ‘Get this wrong and we may put in peril the Brexit the British people voted for and want us to deliver.’
His intervention throws a lifeline to Mrs May, who spent yesterday trying to persuade world leaders at the G20 summit in Argentina to back her proposals. In other developments: EU president Donald Tusk revealed Brussels is preparing for the possibility that Britain may stay in the EU if the Prime Minister’s plans are voted down;
International Trade Secretary Liam Fox claimed Parliament risked a ‘schism’ with the public if it jeopardised Brexit;
The Prime Minister said Labour was guilty of a ‘betrayal of the British people’ in opposing her plan;
Labour MP Ian Austin said his colleagues needed to ‘think carefully’ or risk an electoral backlash from Leave voters.
A YouGov poll found public support for Mrs May’s deal has almost doubled in a week, with most preferring it to no deal;
Remainers in Parliament launched a bid to seize control of Brexit if Mrs May’s deal is voted down, potentially opening the door to a second referendum;
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said Labour would put remaining in the EU on the ballot paper in any second referendum;
Last month Mr Gove came close to following Dominic Raab and Esther McVey out of the Cabinet after Mrs May agreed with Brussels a plan that fails to give the UK a unilateral exit route from the Irish backstop, which its critics say could keep the UK in the EU customs union indefinitely.
He spent 36 hours wrestling with his conscience before deciding to stay on.
Today he rallies firmly behind the PM, declaring that he will be supporting the withdrawal agreement ‘for all its flaws’. He says it will end free movement, meaning ‘future governments will now be free to implement immigration policies which they think best for the country’. The package will also mean an end to ‘sending huge sums of money to the EU every week’ – an issue he says was ‘a huge concern to a great many Leave voters’.
And he says it will finally right the ‘great injustice’ done to our fishing industry by entry into the EU 45 years ago. The fallout from the Brexit vote fractured Mr Gove’s close friendships with both David Cameron and Boris Johnson, who he helped persuade to lead the Leave campaign. He acknowledges that the against-theodds referendum victory in 2016 came at a ‘personal cost’, adding: ‘The impact of my decision on my family and friendships has been impossible to ignore.’
However, he insists the UK is right to leave the EU.
‘For too long, this over-bearing, undemocratic and profligate bureaucracy has told us what to do, protected vested interests, stood in the way of innovation and inflicted economic and social harm on its citizens,’ he writes.
‘The referendum offered us the chance to break free, to become the authors of our own national story, to bring democracy home. I believe in Brexit, I campaigned for it heart and soul. And now I want to see it through. And we should be in no doubt, seeing it through is by no means guaranteed.’
Condemning calls for a second referendum, he warns: ‘It would prove right all the criticisms we made of the EU and the Westminster establishment during the campaign – that they never listen; that they only answer to the people when it suits them; that they will simply never change.’
Mr Gove acknowledges that he is ‘uncomfortable’ with the backstop plan, which is designed to prevent a return to a hard border on the island of Ireland.
But he says the EU is determined to prevent the backstop ever being invoked for fear it would give British firms ‘many of the benefits of EU membership, without most of the obligations’.
‘I would prefer to have had a mechanism to exit the backstop unilaterally,’ he writes.
‘But it’s important to look in detail at what the backstop entails – and to appreciate that however uncomfortable it is for the UK, it actually creates major problems for the EU.’
Mr Gove also takes a swipe at hardline Brexiteers who claim the UK can make a painless exit from the EU without a deal.
‘I know some of my colleagues would prefer a clean break – that we should walk away from the negotiating table and move towards a relationship based on World Trade Organisation rules,’ he writes. ‘I respect their position but I can’t share it. It is undeniable that no deal would cause considerable dislocation and disruption in the short term.’
And he warns those pushing for a soft Brexit, such as his ally Nick Boles, to think again and back the PM’s proposal.
Mr Gove warns that a Norwaystyle deal, inside the single market, ‘would mean less freedom to decide our laws, less control over our borders and we would still be sending significant sums to Brussels every year.’ He adds: ‘It’s better than EU membership, but worse than this deal.’
In an article for the Guardian last night, Mr Austin, who is Labour MP for Dudley North, said: ‘It is clearly not a perfect deal, but there was never going to be a perfect deal. My constituents voted to leave. They expect us to sort this out and we in the Labour party need to think carefully before rejecting it.’
He added: ‘It is very unlikely that voting the deal down would bring about the general election Labour members desperately want to see.’
‘Dislocation and disruption’
Universities minister sam Gyimah last night became the seventh member of the Government to resign in protest over the Brexit deal.
the tory MP, who campaigned for remain in 2016, said theresa May should not rule out a second referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU.
Announcing his resignation in the Daily telegraph, Mr Gyimah said continued uncertainty over the state of the EU Galileo satellite project had prompted his resignation.
Mr Gyimah, whose brief also includes science, claimed the ‘frustrating negotiations’ were ‘only a foretaste of what’s to come’, saying: ‘i have seen firsthand the EU stack the deck against us time and time again’.
seen as a potential future tory leadership candidate, the minister announced he was quitting as Mrs May attends the G20 leaders’ summit in Argentina.
Parliament is due to begin formally debating the Brexit withdrawal agreement on tuesday. Mr Gyimah said: ‘i am saddened, as an early and vocal backer of her leadership, to have reached a crossroads where i cannot support her on this crucial issue.
‘it is, therefore, with deep regret that i have tendered my resignation.
‘We shouldn’t dismiss out of hand the idea of asking the people again what future they want, as we all now have a better understanding of the potential paths before us.’
the 42-year-old was elected MP for east surrey in the 2010 general election.
His resignation comes just a day after Mrs May was warned that up to 100 Conservative MPs could rebel against the Government to vote down her Brexit withdrawal agreement when it comes before MPs on December 11.
environment secretary Michael Gove and Liam Fox, the international trade secretary, became the latest Cabinet Brexiteers to come out in support of Mrs May’s deal ahead of the so-called meaningful vote. the Mail revealed earlier this week that Andrea Leadsom, the Leader of the Commons, had also backed the agreement.
Mr Gyimah said: ‘the Government is finally pulling out of frustrating negotiations over Galileo, the EU’s strategic satellite navigation system. the PM is right to call time on a negotiation that was stacked against us from the very beginning. But Galileo is only a foretaste of what’s to come under the Government’s Brexit deal.
‘Having surrendered our voice, our vote and our veto, we will have to rely on the “best endeavours” of the EU to strike a final agreement that works in our national interest. As minister with the responsibility for space technology i have seen first hand the EU stack the deck against us time and time again, even while the ink was drying on the transition deal.
‘Galileo is a clarion call that it will be “EU first”, and to think otherwise – whether you are a Leaver or remainer – is, at best, incredibly naive.’
Urging the Government to take a ‘clear-eyed view on the strength of our position’, he said any ‘off-the-shelf’ deal offered by Brussels was likely to be ‘materially worse than staying in’. Mr Gyimah, whose parents are from Ghana, was a parliamentary aide to David Cameron and was eventually promoted to his position as universities and science minister at the beginning of 2018. it came as Britain is set to abandon plans to claw back £1.2billion from the EU over the Galileo satellite navigation sys- tem. Ministers agreed a strategy of trying to demand a refund from the satellite scheme in May after Brussels said the UK would be locked out of some future developments after Brexit.
But last night sources said the claim would be dropped after warnings British firms could be ruled out of future EU contracts.
the news came as Mrs May confirmed the UK would now develop its own rival system. At the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, she said: ‘Given the european Commission’s decision to bar the UK from being fully involved in developing all aspects of Galileo, it’s only right we find alternatives.
‘ i cannot let our armed services depend on a system we cannot be sure of. that would not be in our national interest. And, as a global player with world- class engineers and steadfast allies around the world, we are not short of options.’ Galileo was conceived as an alternative to America’s GPs satellite navigation system on which we currently rely for both military and civilian applications.
‘I have seen EU stack the deck against us’