Evening Standard EU debate: ‘Leave campaign must moderate demands if it gets a narrow win’

Tory MEP tells Standard debate that ‘tiny’ Out referendum victory would not be a mandate for huge changes
Making their point: CBI director general Carolyn Fairbairn, former No 10 adviser Rohan Silva and leading Labour MP Chuka Umunna, with Standard editor Sarah Sands, at the debate
Nigel Howard
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Brexit campaigners should accept “moderate” changes to Britain’s EU relationship if they win the referendum by a tiny margin, says a leading Out campaigner.

Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan immediately sparked a fresh debate over the impact of a vote to Leave on June 23.

If nearly half the country voted against Brexit, he believes that reforms to the UK’s immigration system should be “phased in”.

He also says Britain should stay “close” to the single market in a scenario where the country is so evenly split over its EU membership.

Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan 
Nigel Howard

The most immediate and landmark change would be to “take back” parliamentary sovereignty by repealing the 1972 European Communities Act.

With many polls showing In and Out almost neck-and-neck, Mr Hannan outlined his vision last night during the Evening Standard’s EU debate, in partnership with London First.

“If Leave wins by a tiny amount, I think that wouldn’t be any kind of mandate for a completely separate policy,” he said.

“We would have to accept half the country has voted for the status quo and that therefore although there would be a moderate repatriation of power and more control over our money and our borders and so on, we would have to maintain quite a lot of the existing dispensation, I think that would be the way of interpreting that result.”

The Evening Standard's EU debate
Nigel Howard

He later added: “The implication would be that we would stay close to the single market. Changes on migration would be phased in. It would be a very gradual process.”

Mr Hannan also stressed: “If it’s Remain by a whisker and the EU carries on integrating, then we have a problem.”

He believes that Brussels would refuse to give any more ground to the UK Government on repatriating powers, even if nearly half of British voters had made clear that is what they wanted.

His proposals have echoes, though from the opposite side, of the “vow” of more devolution to Scotland made by David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband which was seen as persuading many Scots to vote against splitting away from the UK.

But Green Brexit campaigner Baroness Jenny Jones believes the country may have to be asked to go to the polls again if the referendum result is so tight that there are just a few votes in it and said “rabid people on both sides” would push for a second referendum.

Senior Labour MP Chuka Umunna said the Leave campaign “should stop trying to con people” as voting to quit “would wreck our economy...it is deeply irresponsible of the Leave campaign to suggest otherwise.”

Ukip also distanced itself from Mr Hannan’s proposals.

A spokesman said: “Daniel is speaking for his own view on a hypothetical situation. But it’s not a position that’s being discussed across the broad Leave campaign and it’s not Nigel’s (Farage) position.”

CBI director general Carolyn Fairbairn said she “dreaded” a one-vote victory and added: “What we need coming out of this is a decisive vote and we need to move on, because there are so many other priorities that we have, there are so many opportunities we have and I’m hoping for something more decisive.”

Head to head: our panel of leading londoners trade blows at last night's debate

REMAIN

Carolyn Fairbairn

Director-general of the Confederation of British Industry

“My organisation speaks for 190,000 businesses across the UK of all sorts, from all sectors and of all sizes, and they are emphatically saying that they want to stay in the European Union.

“Eighty per cent of our members want to stay in. They believe it is best for jobs, for growth and prosperity.

[On the dangers of Brexit] “This would be such a seismic shock. The idea of a lost decade is not an exaggeration.”

Rohan Silva

Entrepreneur, and former adviser to Prime Minister David Cameron 

“The institutions of the EU are amongst other things, unaccountable, untransparent, undemocratic, wasteful, sometimes corrupt, top down, not fit for purpose for the world we live in today, that’s all true. But as someone who runs a small business and works to support hundreds of other small businesses, small companies are least well placed to withstand the turmoil, the uncertainty and the flight of capital that’s going to happen from leaving for at least three years, five years after leaving the EU... The jobs lost, the sleepless nights, the anxiety, the economic damage will be truly considerable and the price of that is not worth paying at this time because the EU for all its flaws is not as bad as leaving.”

Chuka Umunna

Labour MP for Streatham and former shadow business secretary

“There’s a huge wealth of evidence that says it’s better for your wallet, better for your jobs, and better for your businesses if we stay in.

“All the challenges we face, other countries face, will not change if we leave the EU. If we continue to lead in Europe then we will keep delivering the goods for Londoners.

“Where we actually do things with the EU together, and pool influence and power, it’s to amplify our influence and actually far from being trampled over by Angela Merkel and all the rest, nine times out of 10 we are on the majority side when there’s a vote.”

LEAVE

Daniel Hannan

Conservative MEP 

“The EU is an overhang and relic from the Fifties, from an era when freight costs were high and refrigeration expensive and regional blocks were quite like the future, but it’s crazy in an age of Skype and cheap flights to allow the geographical situation to trump our links of language and law, of custom and kinship, of habit and history that tie us to every continent or archipelago.

“We should look beyond this declining trade block to more opulent markets across the oceans if only we have the courage and self-confidence to raise our eyes to more distant horizons and rediscover our global location.”

Baroness Jenny Jones

Green Party member of the House of Lords 

“What we see is quite often that the benefits of the EU is actually the EU cleaning up its own mess. 

“The reason we have such bad air quality, here in London in particular but all over the UK, is because at some point the EU wanted to cut its carbon emissions and it was pressured by all sorts of diesel manufacturers to sell diesel vehicles and fuel instead because then you don’t have the carbon emissions.”

[On a mooted European army] “It seems the EU is now moving away from peace to a much more aggressive organisation. For me it’s time to leave an unreformable, rather nasty organisation, and enjoy perhaps creating a more democratic Britain.”

Munira Mirza

Former deputy mayor for education and culture

“Many of the challenges that London faces would be much better handled if we were to take control as a country of the many different laws and policy areas we have currently given over to Brussels.

“I don’t want us to pull up the drawbridge and stop trading with Europe, in fact I want it to continue to grow. Leaving the EU is not the same as leaving Europe.” 

[On staying In] “We are like the citizens of Pompeii looking around thinking we are safe but Vesuvius is around the corner.”

Call to quit: Munira Mirza warned of a “Vesuvius” if Britain votes to Remain, and Jenny Jones  said the EU was “unreformable”

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