UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union

Debate between Andrew Percy and Damian Green

Wednesday 13th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)]

Amendment (f) stands in my name and the names of an eclectic and wide-ranging group of right hon. and hon. Friends from three separate parties. Many of us have perhaps not found ourselves signing amendments together much in the past. The purpose of the amendment is manifold, but one of its purposes is to avoid what may face us at the end of this month—a cliff-edge, no-deal Brexit for which it is clear that the country as a whole and, in particular, many of our major industries are not prepared, as the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) has just repeated.

I am conscious that some who will support this amendment are sanguine about an immediate no-deal Brexit, so I should set out my own position. I think that no deal on 29 March would be a disaster for the economy of the country, a particular threat to manufacturing industry, and, in practical terms, a particular threat to the day-to-day lives of my constituents and everyone else in east Kent. That is why I oppose it.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I have the utmost respect for my right hon. Friend, but I will be opposing his amendment. Is it not somewhat strange that the very people who voted last night to kill Brexit for 29 March this year are now signed up to voting, and will vote this evening, to delay Brexit? This will only be the first delay, of course, because there will potentially be others in future. We are in a very strange place at the moment.

[Damian Green]

The one point in that intervention I agreed with is that we are in a very strange place at the moment. I think the whole House can agree with that.