“It’s the inflexibility of the EU which is why we voted to leave” Michael Fabricant tells Michael Gove
In Cabinet Office questions this morning (11th June) in the House of Commons, discussing the state of negotiations between the UK and the EU, Michael Fabricant told Michael Gove it is the EU’s very lack of agility and flexibility which caused us to Brexit in the first place.
And he highlighted Unilever’s decision announced today – and Nissan’s a couple of weeks’ back – to centre their operations in the UK in preference over the EU.
In the House of Commons, Michael Fabricant asked: “Is not the real problem that Michel Barnier has got absolutely no room for manoeuvre at all because he has to do what has been agreed with the other 27 countries?
“And isn’t this very lack of agility, this lack of flexibility, the very reason why we have decided to leave the European Union, and why companies like Nissan, and Unilever, who have announced today that they are centering their operations, here in the United Kingdom?
Michael Gove replied: “My Honourable Friend puts it perfectly, and his question is its own answer. I don’t think that we’ve heard from any sage of Lichfield since Dr Johnson, who has put things quite so well!”
Fabricant now adds “It is this intransigence over fishing rights in UK waters for European Union fishermen, their insistence that we continue to abide by all future EU regulations, and continuing to pay into the future EU budget why seeking to extend the transition period beyond 2020 will be so costly and unbeneficial to the UK.”
This is the exchange and you can hear the Speaker’s lovely comment about Lichfield.
Later, I also asked Michael Gove about bringing in expertise into the civil service and Government agencies from the private sector and why it is needed.