Chairman’s Interim Report—Sir Bill Cash MP
Completing Brexit: A Democratic Necessity
31st January 2023

Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven LG OM
“The work of the European Foundation in researching and publishing information about European issues is vital both to the Conservative Party and the country”

I founded both the European Foundation and the Maastricht Referendum Campaign in 1993 with the help of valiant volunteers and MPs as part of the Maastricht Rebellion in the Commons. We supplied MPs with essential briefs explaining how the Maastricht Treaty was creating European government and must be opposed. The objective was to protect UK sovereignty, which had been abandoned when we entered the European Community in 1972. I became a member of the European Scrutiny Committee in 1985, and put down my first amendment in 1986 to reverse the erosion of our sovereignty in the 1986 Single European Act, but was refused even the right to debate it.
Sovereignty is the right whereby a nation can govern itself through laws made by the electors’ own MPs in a free democracy. Sovereignty is therefore democracy. The real effective and definitive decisions and laws are made in Parliament.
I insisted upon this Referendum route to obtain the vote of the electors to bypass the collusion between the front benches who were determined to stay in Europe at any price. A referendum could only be done by a sovereign Act of Parliament. Margaret Thatcher, our former Patron, voted with us on in her last Commons vote on one of our Referendum Bills. We succeeded with the Referendum Act in 2015, and achieved victory in 2016, despite the misrepresentations and lies of Project Fear, which never materialised. In 2019, the 28 Spartans voted against May’s Third Withdrawal Agreement, forcing her resignation, and ending parliamentary paralysis, leading to Boris Johnson’s premiership and the Conservative victory with a massive majority in 2019, endorsing the 2016 Referendum result.
I negotiated the passage of Section 38 of the Withdrawal Agreement Act 2020 with Boris, guaranteeing in law UK sovereignty and expressly provided for overriding the Withdrawal Agreement and the Northern Ireland Protocol, through the now famous “notwithstanding” formula, which binds the judiciary, precisely because it is express wording. There remains unfinished business. However, I am glad to say that, with strong whipping by this Government and Prime Ministers Johnson and Sunak, the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill and the Retained EU Law Bill (REUL) passed at Second Reading by a majority of 74 and 55 respectively, following intense discussions and advice offered to both of them in No.10, with no amendments in Committee. Both Bills will be attacked by Remainers in the unelected Lords, and with our majority, we must use the Parliament Acts to override Lords amendments. We support every Prime Ministerial policy to fulfil our manifesto commitments and Brexit.
Regarding the REUL Bill, the laws made by the EU when we were Members, will be disposed of, including by the sunset provisions, and with the removal of the principle of supremacy of EU law and of the European Court. Remember that these were imposed on us by naivety and foolishness when we abdicated our right to veto these laws and under Section 2 of the European Communities Act 1972. This was despite the White Paper preceding that Bill, which categorically guaranteed we would never give up the veto “in our vital national interest”.
Not one single law since 1972 was ever rejected by our Parliament before we left the EU. Never forget that we were ahead of the world in our vaccine, which saved hundreds of thousands of British lives, because we were not in the EU. They even passed a regulation to prohibit these vaccines. Another glaring example was the Ports Regulation, which was fruitlessly opposed by all the employers, unions and the Government at the time, to no avail.
The British people will never revert to being governed by 27 other countries, and bear in mind that many of the current Member States are themselves seeking greater national identity, such as Italy, Poland and Hungary.
The Northern Ireland Protocol Bill can, and must, be progressed immediately, using the express override of Section 38 of the Withdrawal Agreement Act 2020. It is clear from the greatest judicial authorities, such as Lord Denning and Lord Diplock, that international treaties can be overridden by Parliament. One fundamental issue is that the Protocol allows direct EU law-making to subjugate the citizens of Northern Ireland without any veto or participation, which applies to no other Member State or indeed to any other truly democratic nation in the world. Imagine the USA agreeing to allow Canada and Mexico for example to override Congress or the Supreme Court! There are now around 400 of these laws recently imposed on Northern Ireland voters, passed behind closed doors by majority vote of the Council of Ministers by collusion without even a transcript.
This is how the laws were made over the whole of the UK when the rest of the UK was in the EU. It could not continue for us, and must not for them.
We are besieged by Remainers, including highly organised editorial propagandists in the BBC, paid for by our own taxpayers. But it is not just the BBC, but also those in high places in the Civil Service and members of the Diplomatic Service, who are increasingly openly resisting the democratic will of the British people expressed in 2016 and 2019. This includes REUL, and now, we hear, the Prime Minister’s proposals to stop illegal immigration.
The BBC charter is in its midterm renewal and the BBC’s blatant bias will, I trust, be addressed, in that review. One of the main purposes of the BBC charter, which I negotiated with DCMS, is the legal impartiality requirement – and David Keighley and Newswatch are doing great work on all this. As yet, legal impartiality has not yet been enforced, and we need the Government to create an independent enforcement system.
The constant negativity and bias permeating our society creates a false narrative that it is Brexit causing the current problems. In fact, it was the pandemic, Putin’s war on Ukraine and external global factors which generated understandable concerns among voters in the rise in the cost of living, taking a vast amount of time and money which could otherwise have been spent on completing Brexit more speedily.
We must look to the future. We need growth, productivity and true Conservative economic policies. The removal of REUL creates new and exciting opportunities for competitiveness, new technologies and innovation. But talking is not enough. We are now engaged in a counter- attack on the “false and shallow assertions”, as Margaret Thatcher put it, of those who wish to revert to the EU, who have embedded themselves in critical and unelected parts of our national life.
We will continue to expose, fight back and win. We have proved that we can persuade and coordinate inside and outside Parliament with likeminded others. We are creating seminars, research publications, and extending our reach into the media. We can, and must, succeed in our sovereign national interest.

Rt Hon David Jones MP— Deputy Chairman of the European Foundation, former Secretary of State for Wales and Minister of State for Brexit

The essential purpose of Brexit was, and is, to recover sovereignty: the abil- ity for the United Kingdom to make its own laws in its own Parliament and for questions on those laws to be adjudicated by British judges in British courts.
Brexit, in essence, is about freedom: the freedom to organise our national affairs in the interests of our people. It was significantly curtailed during our half century of EU membership. The Vote Leave slogan “Take Back Control” encapsulated the desire of the British people to regain that freedom, and over 17 million voted for it in June 2016.
National sovereignty is the constitutional state of affairs that prevails in most countries of the free world. The European Union is an outlier, in that it subordinates the sovereignty of its member states to the overarching sovereignty of the Union itself. Laws that bind all the members are frequently made by qualified majority voting, often contrary to the wishes of individual states, and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) is the supreme judicial authority. That is an arrangement that may suit many of the member states, but it manifestly did not suit the UK, with its long history of independence, reflected in the character of its people.
The United Kingdom left the European Union three years ago. However, restoration of national sovereignty is not yet complete. An important step toward completion was taken with the recent passage through the Commons of the Retained EU Law Bill, which will rid the domestic stature book of almost 4,000 items of EU legislation. The Bill, however, now goes to the Lords, where it will almost inevitably encounter opposition. Invoking the provisions of the Parliament Act to override the Lords may well be necessary.
The Withdrawal Agreement’s Northern Ireland Protocol, sadly, deprives the UK of the complete restoration of sovereignty. Under its provisions, Northern Ireland effectively remains part of the EU’s Single Market in goods. That means that laws made in Brussels (over 430 since we left the EU) are automatically absorbed in Northern Ireland without any input from local elected representatives. For the purposes of the Protocol, the CJEU retains jurisdiction.
It is unacceptable that any region of the UK should be partially governed by a foreign administration and subject to the jurisdiction of a foreign court. It is the negation of sovereignty. That is why the British Government is right to seek to legislate a way out of the problem. The Northern Ireland Protocol Bill is also currently in the Lords. It remains to be seen whether it will be necessary to use the Parliament Act to push it through.
Brexit was hard won in the 2016 referendum. Whilst it attracted huge popular support (the greatest shown for any cause in British democratic history) it was also bitterly opposed, especially by many in positions of power. That opposition, though abated, continues.
The revolution, in short, is still being fought. There is a clear need for those who value the restoration of British independence to continue to make the intellectual case for Brexit; and that is why the role of the European Foundation is so important.

Rt Hon Sir John Redwood MP—Former Secretary of State for Wales and pre-eminent economist

We voted for Brexit because we once again wanted to live in an independent country. We want our laws and taxes settled in Parliament by MPs that we can vote out of office if they do not please. Elections empower voters to get change. A sovereign Parliament can do what it takes to promote the freedoms and prosperity of the British people.
In 2019 we had to vote again to get Brexit through owing to the obstructions of all too many MPs. The voters showed they knew the way to get their will done by removing many of the MPs who were thwarting Brexit. Now we are legally out of the EU the government needs to do more to exercise the Brexit freedoms we have gained.
There have already been some good wins from exit. We no longer have to make large contributions to the EU. As promised NHS spending has increased, by more than the savings from Brexit so far. We no longer have to accept the accumulating debts and liabilities of the EU. Since we left the EU has started to borrow large sums in its own name to spend mainly in the financially stressed countries of the Union. All that debt becomes a burden on the taxpayers of all the member states, the only source of money to pay for it.
Out of the EU we were able to pursue our own vaccine and covid strategy, getting to a vaccine earlier than the EU and allowing us to get out of lockdown before many continental countries. We are pressing ahead with different approaches to the regulation of science and medical advance, to assist in the development of UK excellence in those fields like gene editing. Faced with a shortage of drivers over lockdowns, we were able to flex our regulations temporarily to help solve the problems. We cancelled VAT on female hygiene products and suspended it on green investments for five years.
The wild pessimism of Remain forecasts for the economy did not come true when we voted to leave. We did not see a rise in unemployment, a fall in house prices, a rise in interest rates in 2016 on the vote nor in 2020 on departing. Our trade with non EU countries is expanding, and we have completed a series of new trade deals with non EU countries. We may well soon join the very large Trans Pacific Trade Partnership, something we could not do as members of the EU.
We have been able to rebuild old valued friendships and alliances. The UK damaged important links with Australia, New Zealand and Canada on joining the EEC. Today we are building a wider relationship on the back of our 5 Eyes Intelligence grouping and with new trade and investment links possible.
Many of us are far happier now we are out. We are impatient to show more Brexit wins by changing laws and repealing taxes the EU imposed. Our happiness resides in the knowledge that our Parliament can now make the right decisions and laws for us if it wishes, and we can change the Parliament if it refuses.

Rt Hon Theresa Villiers MP—Former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and DEFRA

Whilst much has been achieved since the UK left the EU, we will not truly have “Got Brexit done” until Northern Ireland has left the EU’s single market.
The amended withdrawal deal secured by Boris Johnson opened up a viable path to a great future. However, the earlier concessions made by the May Government, and the relentless pressure from Labour MP, and others determined to thwart the result of the referendum, mean the agreement has significant drawbacks.
The Northern Ireland Protocol needs to be dismantled, or radically amended, if we are to restore power-sharing at Stormont. History tells us clearly that the key to progress in Northern Ireland is to find an approach which both sides of the unionist-nationalist debate can accept.
Yet not a single unionist MP or MLA supports the Protocol. Imposing it departs from the core principle of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement that important decisions should be made on the basis of consensus, meaning that the agreement of both communities is needed.
The Protocol not only means that people in Northern Ireland are subject to thousands of single market rules over which they have no say, it also disapplies key aspects of the Articles of the Acts of Union of 1801 which guarantee unencumbered movement of goods between the islands of Ireland and Britain. This is a critically important foundational statute of our union.
The application of full EU external border arrangements between Britain and Northern Ireland is entirely disproportionate. It is astounding that the Chief Vet there indicated that without the temporary grace periods, the number of export health certificates needed for this Irish Sea border might soon reach 50% of those conducted around the whole of the EU.
I welcome the Government’s Bill to introduce a ‘green channel’ which would remove goods and food from the Protocol where they are destined for domestic use in Northern Ireland, rather than export to the south.
But more radical surgery is needed if we are to protect Northern Ireland’s place in the UK’s internal market and restore political stability.
For the past six years, I and other Brexit supporting colleagues have advo- cated alternative arrangements which could secure an invisible, but compli- ant, north south border on the island of Ireland. Based on the latest technol- ogy and best-in-class border arrangements from around the world, we can deliver a solution which protects the integrity of the EU’s single market, whilst releasing Northern Ireland from laws over which it has no control.
At the heart of this would be compliance checks away from the border (for example at the premises of the exporter); transparency on trade flows and cooperation between the authorities so smuggling issues can be detected and dealt with; and a commitment by the UK Government to make it illegal to export goods and food to the Republic of Ireland which do not comply with EU rules. These new arrangements could be lifted into an annex of our Trade and Cooperation Agreement with the EU, thus becoming subject to the arbitration process contained in that landmark deal, removing the role of the European Court of Justice.
Breaking up a nearly 50 year relationship was always going to involve strains and tensions. But the Ukraine war has provided a vivid reminder that the UK remains an open and outward looking nation, committed to working in partnership with our European friends, and wholly committed to our con- tinent’s security. The EU and the UK have worked closely together to sup- port Ukraine following the return of state-on-state conflict in Europe. With so many other issues to grapple with, I hope that Brussels will recognise that there is a solution to the Protocol problem and that it is achievable in the few short months before the 25th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement in April.

Jonathan Gullis MP—MP for Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke, former Minister for School Stand- ards

When we as a country voted to leave the European Union in 2016, the largest mandate in British political history, we did so in order to restore our ability to control our laws, money and borders. The people of this great country felt too much power wrongly lay in Europe, and that their voices were ignored.
With over 45,000 crossing the English Channel last year, it is imperative that we deliver on our pledge to restore our territorial integrity and ensure we can control our borders. The Prime Minister recognises the significance of
this – only by stopping the small boat crossings can we demonstrate to the British people that we have brought back control.
Last year, we passed the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 which included the asylum dispersal scheme that processes asylum seekers in a safe third country like Rwanda. Crucially, this would deter those seeking to cross the Channel which would break up the abhorrent people smugglers’ business model. However, immigration lawyers used the quasi-legislative European Court of Human Rights and blocked the flights, fundamentally undermining our sovereignty and Parliament’s ability to make its own laws and control our borders. It is imperative that any new legislation brought forward by the Government to conquer this issue use the “notwithstanding” formula to override the ECHR, as proposed in an amendment in the Nationality and Borders Bill in 2021, which should have been enacted. This formula, which is clear and express wording, enables Parliament to insist that the judges obey an Act of Parliament without reservation and is entirely consistent with a stream of judicial and constitutional judgments and authorities which categorically demonstrate that Parliament can legislate accordingly.
British people invest their trust in Parliament, not unaccountable European courts that lack democratic legitimacy. We believe that Parliament is sov- ereign and the ultimate law-making body, which has the power to make or amend any law. Therefore, it is shocking that we have allowed thesejudgements to get in the way of our immigration policy.
That is why I introduced a Ten Minute Rule Bill in the House last year as a first step in seeking to ensure that Parliament, not unaccountable European judges in Strasbourg, has the final say. The Asylum Seekers (Removal to Safe Countries) Bill proposed ignoring the European Court of Human Rights’ ruling in this very specific circumstance, copying a similar motion proposed by David Davis over prisoner’s voting rights back in 2010/11.
Back in the summer, writing in The Telegraph, the Prime Minister said that “where the ECHR is a problem, I will tackle it. We voted to leave so that we could be a sovereign nation. The ECHR can not inhibit our ability to properly control our borders, and we shouldn’t let it”. This shows that the Conservatives are willing to consider all means of restoring our territorial integrity. This is in stark contrast to Labour, as Keir Starmer voted against my motion that would have allowed us to get the flights to Rwanda off the ground.
Ultimately, I believe that it is clear that we need to end the European court’s infringement on our democratic institutions to properly control our borders; so we can display to the British people we are on their side and end illegal economic migration. There is no doubt that until we stop the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg from undermining parliamentary sovereignty, I believe we will face an uphill battle to adequately enforce our immigration laws.

“Sovereignty is democracy”