EU: Withdrawal and Future Relationship (Motions)

Debate between Baroness Hoey and Angus Brendan MacNeil

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands), who was a brilliant Trade Minister and resigned on a matter of principle. We here should all remember our principles.

There is an air of almost self-satisfaction and self-congratulation in the House today, as if somehow this is wonderful. I think the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) called it a wonderful freedom. I actually feel very sad about today. We should not be in this position. I could spend the next five minutes talking about who to blame, but there is not much point. We are where we are.

The one group of people we cannot blame, however, are the people of this country who in the referendum voted to leave, thought they would be listened to and were told by everyone, including the former Prime Minister, that their vote mattered and would be implemented, whatever that decision. Since that day, many people in this House who never wanted us to leave have done all they can in very clever ways—an hon. Member said she had been helped by a senior lawyer to put her motion—to prevent us from leaving.

The public looking in today would say, “What a nonsense. It’s just a lot of waffle. You’re just putting through loads of different things.” In the end, only the Government can make this happen. The Prime Minister could still get her withdrawal agreement through, if she was to recognise that she as a Conservative and Unionist Prime Minister should never have come up with something like the backstop and that the backstop has to be changed. I understand that fundamentally.

The one thing that must not happen today is the people of this United Kingdom being told, “You were too stupid, racist or ignorant to vote the right way, and now we want you to vote again in a separate referendum, because we think you might have changed your mind.” I am incredibly disappointed that my party—a Labour party that saw the majority of its constituencies vote to leave—is whipping Labour Members to vote for a second referendum.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kate Hoey]

I am not giving way to the hon. Member.

It is outrageous. Labour supporters and voters who came back to Labour and voted Labour, having dallied with UKIP for a while and believing that Labour meant what it said, would see it as a huge betrayal.