I am afraid I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s analysis. He is right to make that point.
We also know that entrepreneurial activity—risk taking and creativity—will be crucial in driving Britain’s future success, alongside an active state that both rewards success and leaves no one behind. However, the uncertainty about our future trade arrangements in this context is extremely damaging, and it is damaging our interests now. We must ensure that the enormous globe-spanning corporations pay their fair share of taxes, so that we can invest in opportunities for all Britons. This will require increased global co-operation, not less. Britain must therefore be at the forefront of international institutions that set the rules by which business is done across our globe.
It is now imperative that the Government set out the tests against which any deal to leave the EU must be judged, because we have not heard them yet. How does our future relationship with Europe bolster and underpin a more activist national industrial strategy that delivers more jobs for the future and greater investment and growth in our economy? How will we heal the divisions in our country, which set city against town, young against old and communities against each other? How can we maintain and enhance the collective security of Britain and its allies and maintain the current co-operation that allows cross-border crime and terrorism to be thwarted and prosecuted? How can Britain remain an engaged and influential world power that has a seat at the table, setting the rules by which nations and corporations have to abide?
Leaving the EU is a complex process that will cause great damage if it is botched. This is a challenge that will require the Prime Minister to unite a divided nation. She cannot succeed locked in a room with a few advisers. She will need us all to play our part as Members of Parliament. She will need this place to play its part. She will need citizens to play their part, too, helping us to reassess from first principles who we are, who we want to be, how we can make our way in the world, how we can be prosperous and how we can achieve our ambitions. If she carries on as she has started, she will not succeed. It is not too late, though, for her to change course and approach. For the sake of my constituents in Wallasey and for all our constituents, I hope she does so.
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