Richard Tice

I did not say anything about downplaying; I said that if the Government are going to agree a deal, they should agree the terms of the deal. They should not just say, “We’d like a bit of the action. Please tell us how much it’ll cost us later,” and have no idea how much of the action they will get. That is a terrible deal, and we all know that no deal is better than a bad deal. The third surrender is about becoming a rule-taker. The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) referred to agrifoods and the SPS deal, which all sounds very good, except that we now have to take a load of extra rules from Brussels that we have no input into under a process called dynamic alignment, which might mean that we cannot do any further trade deals with great nations such as the United States. That is instead of arguing for mutual recognition, which can of course exist between nations that have excellent standards of food and products, as we do. We have gained nothing from those three great surrenders. Indeed, we will probably have to pay more if we want any more rules to be given to us, but why would we pay more when we have given ourselves the freedom not to have to pay? I thought we had done all of that. If we are not content with that, what about the fourth surrender—the big one? Earlier this year, the Minister said, “Don’t worry, chaps—no plans for any form of youth mobility scheme.” It turns out that he was right, because some clever person rebadged it: “I’ve got an idea. Let’s call it a youth experience scheme.” Well, I am sure it is a lovely experience, but when someone is 30 years old, are they still a youth? Is it a middle age experience scheme? During the negotiation—because it has not been concluded —I can see that it will then become an old age experience scheme. Then, someone will say, “Hang on, if it’s an old age experience scheme, we don’t have the workers to look after the old people from the EU who’ve come over to our glorious care homes.” So then we will have to have more freedom of movement.