European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Alister Jack Excerpts

Tuesday 12th June 2018 Commons Chamber

We will support amendments that seek to guarantee Parliament has a meaningful choice and a meaningful vote on the final deal. This gets presented as somehow usurping the decision of June 2016, but who among us can genuinely claim to have the right to decide whether a final deal, whatever it says, properly delivers the Brexit that people voted for? None of us can because nobody voted for any particular kind of Brexit. They voted for a Brexit. There was not a public vote on membership of the customs union. Nobody voted to leave the single market. Nobody voted to leave Euratom. Nobody voted to damage the United Kingdom economy. People voted for a departure from the European Union. There has been no public vote on the kind of Brexit we should have. The reason there was no referendum on the single market or the customs union is that the Conservative party thought it politically expedient to deny the public that choice.

[Mr Alister Jack (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman confirms that he and his party want to keep Scotland in the European Union. Can he confirm to me whether he wants to keep Scotland in the common fisheries policy as well?

[Peter Grant]

Certainly not, as currently constituted. If there were a common fisheries policy that actually protected Scotland’s fishing industry, instead of it being used by successive UK Governments as an excuse to sell it out, that might be a different matter.

There has of course been a public vote on the possibility of one of the consequences of a hard Brexit: a hard border across the island of Ireland.