EU: Withdrawal and Future Relationship (Motions)

Anne Main Excerpts

Monday 1st April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Forgive me if I was not sufficiently clear. I thought I had been. My apologies to the hon. Gentleman if my reply was too opaque. I thought I had indicated in an earlier reply that the House, in the motion that it had supported, had endorsed the approach to indicative votes that we are now taking. It is a discrete process separate from and different to the processes that have been adopted thus far.

All sorts of arguments and explanations have been given as to why we are in this process, with the House taking control of the process, and I do not need to revisit those, but I have answered that point already. I do not wish to be unkind to the hon. Gentleman, whom I like and respect very much as he knows, but I fear I have to say to him that it is not that I have not answered his point. I have answered his point already in response to an earlier point of order, but the simple fact is that the hon. Gentleman does not like my answer, and I am afraid I cannot do anything about that.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Tonight, we will be debating motion (E) on a confirmatory public vote, but this House voted on a confirmatory public vote, and I believe it gathered only 85 votes at the time. I am just wondering, Mr Speaker, why that motion, which was so roundly rejected by this House—it was not even supported by those on the Labour Benches—is worthy of another debate. Perhaps it should be kicked out.

[Mr Speaker]

I hope the hon. Lady will forgive me. I may have misheard her, but I thought she said something about 85 votes. From memory—I do not have it in front of me, although I can easily find it; it would not be very difficult—I think I am right in saying that the vote for the confirmatory public vote, for a confirmatory referendum, received 268 votes and was defeated—

[Mrs Main]

indicated dissent.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Lady is shaking her head, but I am trying to answer the point. I think it received 268 votes and was opposed by 295, so it was defeated. But again, if the hon. Lady will forgive me, and even if she won’t, I repeat the point that this is part of a process for which the House voted. Colleagues did so in the knowledge that a result might not be achieved on day one or even necessarily on day two, but the House wanted that process to take place. It may be—I have not looked at the Division list and it is absolutely her right—that the hon. Lady voted against this process altogether, and I completely respect her autonomy in making that judgment, but the House chose to adopt the process. What I have done and am doing is entirely in keeping with the spirit of that process.

[Mrs Main]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Is it is further to that point of order? I am not sure there is a further to.

[Mrs Main]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. The 85 votes I am referring to relate to the motion brought before the House by the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston).

[Mr Speaker]

I am sorry. I did not realise that was what the hon. Lady was saying. Okay, but my point about the discrete process we are undertaking and the level of support for that particular motion stands. What I have tried to do—I say this not least so that our proceedings are intelligible to those who are not Members of the House but are watching—is identify those propositions that appear to command substantial support, preferably of a cross-party nature. That is what I have done. It does seem to me, if I may say so, that although it cannot please everybody it is quite a reasonable approach, as opposed to, for example, identifying a series of propositions that have minimal support and thinking that it would be a frightfully good sport instead to submit them to a verdict of the House again. That would not seem to me a particularly constructive way in which to proceed. I am for a constructive approach and I hope most of the House will agree with me that that is how we should operate.

Can we now move to the main debate? I call the Father of the House, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), he who owns motion (C) on the customs union, to address the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Kyle]

The hon. Gentleman anticipates where I will get to in my speech. I will answer the question once I have addressed it, but I think I can predict that we will get there soon.

I believe that the solution is to work with what we have before us: to accept the world as it is, not the world as we would like it to be. After the referendum, I travelled to Norway and met negotiators and Ministers. I visited the European economic area headquarters in Brussels and I worked alongside colleagues to champion a soft Brexit, which I then voted for. So those who say that I and others like me have simply tried to scupper Brexit from the start are wrong.

I have also voted for every proposition from the Labour Front Bench and I encourage others to do the same as another way of achieving compromise and consensus. I congratulate the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Brexit Secretary on their excellent work in crafting a set of Brexit policies that puts the future of our economy and workers first and foremost. I believe that if they had done this from a position within Government, we would have been able to present a deal to Parliament that would have been accepted. That is why our motion relates to a deal, rather than specifically to the Government’s deal.

I know that many people on these Benches still long for a better proposition than the one on offer. We must be honest with each other, however. When the Prime Minister triggered the article 50 process, we all knew, whether we voted for it or against it, that it bestowed on the Government the right to negotiate a deal on behalf of the British people. That deal is now before us, and it defines Brexit.

[Mrs Main]

I want to make a serious point about what the hon. Gentleman would put before the British public. How long does he think it would take to craft a whole new deal? Does he anticipate fighting the European elections, because it would take a long time?

[Peter Kyle]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady—[Interruption.] I encourage everyone to look in this direction rather than in any other direction. I am not suggesting that we propose another deal. I am proposing that we accept the landscape that we are standing in, exactly in the manner that I have just suggested. The deal before us is one that defines Brexit, and as it stands, this sovereign Parliament has rejected it again and again and again. In fact, MPs have cast a staggering 1,167 votes against the deal—[Interruption.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Benyon]

rose—

[Mrs Main]

rose—

[Joanna Cherry]

I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman.

--- Later in debate ---

[Joanna Cherry]

We have every reason to be concerned about that. As the right hon. Lady knows, the Government have repeatedly ignored votes in this House. However, if an instruction is clear and unequivocal, as this motion is, and it is ignored by the Government, there will political consequences—we have seen that previously with a contempt motion in this House—and there could also be legal consequences. In any normal times, this Government would be long gone because of their incompetence and the multiple fiascos that we have had recently but, really, if this Government were to ignore an instruction as clear as this and plunge the nations of these islands into the economic disaster of no deal, not only would they not survive it, but the Conservative and Unionist party would not survive it.

[Mrs Main]

I am looking closely at the hon. and learned Lady’s motion. Can she confirm that, with the timelines that it outlines, voting for her motion tonight will absolutely mean voting again for European elections and having to have MEPs?

[Joanna Cherry]

We all know that, if there is any sort of a lengthy extension, there will have to be European elections. I know that there is some learned opinion to the contrary, but the weight of opinion is that there will have to be European elections. I know that that will be difficult for some people to deal with, but if that is the consequence of preventing no deal and protecting our constituents’ livelihoods—the businesses of our constituents and the jobs of our constituents—then so be it and no responsible MP could fail to support this motion tonight. There are four motions before us. I will vote for two of the other ones as well but supporting this motion does not preclude hon. Members from supporting other motions. It is not a motion about the eventual outcome; it is a motion about process and about protecting us. [Interruption.] I can see that Mr Speaker is keen to bring in other speakers. I will not take up much more time, so I will wind up to a conclusion.

For Conservative Members of Parliament, this is an opportunity to make good on the promise that the Prime Minister has already made to this House that, unless the House agrees to it, no deal will not happen. For Labour MPs, it is the opportunity to make good on the promise in their 2017 manifesto, which of course I have read, as I always do Labour manifestos, and which says:

“Labour recognises that leaving the EU with ‘no deal’ is the worst possible deal for Britain and that it would do damage to our economy and trade. We will reject ‘no deal’ as a viable option”.

This is pretty much the last chance saloon. If Labour wants to reject no deal as a viable option and put in place the insurance policy of revocation, then it really needs to do that today.

Most of all, this motion should appeal to all of us as democrats, because this decision of such importance for the United Kingdom, between revocation and no deal, ought to be one for the representatives of the people in this Parliament and not for the Prime Minister in a minority Government. That is why I have called it the parliamentary supremacy motion. Of course, in Scotland, it is the people who are sovereign and supreme, not the Parliament, but I recognise that, for all intents and purposes, this Parliament is supreme. This motion is all about taking back control and making sure that we have an insurance policy against the danger that this rather confused Government could crash us into no deal without really meaning to do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Tonight we are being urged to seek compromise, but it is not surprising to note that—I think—only five members of the Labour party voted for the Prime Minister’s withdrawal agreement. I changed my vote, because I could see this coming down the road towards me. The agreement is a very imperfect beast and I have received a great many criticisms, but tonight’s votes will make the position clear. I do not wish to vote for any options that are on the table, but I am being asked to choose one. Well, I chose the Prime Minister’s withdrawal agreement.

Interestingly, two of the motions on which we will have a vote tonight require a withdrawal agreement, as was mentioned earlier. Motions (C) and (D) would not give us control over our immigration. I was surprised to hear the two Members who advocated it talking about brakes—those were weasel words, in my view. I am sorry to have to say that, but trying to reassure Scottish National party Members about the number of people who will come over as a result of freedom of movement and to reassure Labour Members that there are brakes is playing both ends against the middle. The reality is that we are very unlikely to have control over our migration policy. If that is what Members want, fine, but I do not think that it is what has emerged from the debates.

I am absolutely opposed to a second referendum. I do not believe that we would ask the same question. To all intents and purposes, it would be a completely different referendum this time around. I do not know how anyone could explain on the doorstep why they had chosen to ignore the too-difficult question of implementing the referendum result. Let me read these words to the House, because I agree with every one of them:

“Over 33.5 million people cast a vote…72% of the electorate. Turnout at this level has not been seen since the 1992 General Election…No matter which side of the argument won, it was inevitable that there would be people left disappointed. That is the nature of debate, elections and referendums. It is fundamentally undemocratic to argue that the process should be re-run because the outcome was not what some people wanted…arguments over turnout, the majority, or the accuracy or otherwise of statements made throughout the course of the campaign do not invalidate the result.”

Those were your words, Mr Speaker, and I agree with every single one of them.