United Kingdom’s Withdrawal from the European Union

Bob Seely Excerpts

Friday 29th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir William Cash]

I add to that, Mr Speaker, that if Members are so blind that they do not want to listen to these points, it makes no difference to me. The points I am making are significant to the question of whether we agree to the withdrawal agreement.

[Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes a series of powerful points, but is not the problem that he is letting the perfect be the enemy of the acceptable? Today we have the chance to leave the European Union, but he and others are preventing that from happening.

[Sir William Cash]

I of course want to leave the European Union, but the problem with the withdrawal agreement is that it does not, I assert, represent Brexit, in terms of repealing the 1972 Act. As I was saying, that is an Act of Parliament not only of Great Britain but of Northern Ireland. The constitutional status of Northern Ireland is therefore at stake, with respect to the question of the Northern Ireland backstop. There is no doubt about that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Grieve]

I greatly respect my hon. Friend; indeed, I respect the views of all my hon. Friends and others on this matter. Compromise is a very important part of the political process. Compromise happens when people come together to accept an outcome that they are prepared to endorse and respect, but it is manifestly obvious—I only had to listen to one or two of this morning’s speeches from this side of the House—that that is not what is going to happen. There is no compromise, and that is because there is nothing to compromise on in terms of a future relationship. There is no settled will. I share my hon. Friend’s desire to get this over with, but the siren song being sung to us will just take us further on to the rocks, and in mid-May we will end up scrabbling around with the catastrophe of no-deal Brexit, without any ability to rectify it when currently we are in a position to do so.

Some of my hon. Friends showed great courage in supporting the indicative vote process and, in doing so, essentially rebelling against the Government’s position. I say gently to them that, having had the courage to do that, they are now abandoning it completely for something that cannot progress the debate on how we get out of our current impasse. It just will not happen.

For those reasons, however tempting it might be, and however much the calls of loyalty are made—and heaven knows, I feel them keenly—I am afraid that I cannot vote for something that, in my judgment, is not going to deliver the benefits that are claimed. Furthermore—and here I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham, not for the first and not for the last time—our constituents, whether they voted leave or remain, are being delivered something that is utterly, utterly different. The vote we take today will determine whether we end up in chaos or not.

[Mr Seely]

If we want to avoid chaos, can we not vote for the deal? My right hon. and learned Friend says that he is not willing to compromise and that other people are unwilling to compromise, and he bases his own lack of compromise on other people’s unwillingness to compromise. If he is willing to compromise, he will find that many people in the House are also willing to compromise. That compromise is the withdrawal deal.

[Mr Grieve]

I am always willing to consider compromise, but, as I said before, compromise has to come from a settled intention to respect an outcome. I have to say that there is no such settled intention, certainly among many Members on the Government side of the House. I listened to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith). It was quite clear from what he said that his purpose will be to use the passage of the WAB to re-order entirely the future relationship in the way he wants. I do not disagree with that—it is his right—but it highlights why separating the two is plainly, in my judgment, impossible. Yet that is what we are being asked to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wera Hobhouse]

I could not agree more. It is ultimately the arrogance of individual Members who claim that they know exactly the will of the people. I do not know the will of the people in 2019. I am happy to ask them.

[Mr Seely]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way. I understand that she is making the argument, eloquently, that people did not necessarily vote for a tick-box of what sort of leave they would want. But does she accept the basic principle that 17.4 million people voted to leave and that the best way we can leave in an orderly way is to vote for the deal?

[Wera Hobhouse]

I absolutely agree with the principle that 17.4 million people voted to leave the European Union, which is exactly why the most democratic way going forward is to ask the people in 2019 once we know what the choices are. To me, the real lie of the leave campaign was that it was not a clear choice. That was the betrayal of the people. Now, in 2019, if we had a referendum we would give people a clear choice between a Brexit deal—I do not mind which one it is—and staying in the European Union. That would be a much more honest referendum this time around.

There is a very easy way for the Government to get a deal through: to agree to put it to the people. The Government have, unfortunately, made their position clear. They do not support a people’s vote. However, the great strength of the indicative vote process is that it can test the sentiment in the House and start the combining of choices. Combining choices is how the indicative vote process can move towards a majority view. Not all choices can be combined—we cannot combine leaving the EU with not leaving the EU—but we can combine leaving the EU with a people’s vote.

The indicative vote for motion (M) on Wednesday, for a people’s vote, achieved the highest number of votes. So the question for today is this: why does the Prime Minister not offer a people’s vote on her deal to get it over the line? I have a strong suspicion that if the House was to vote on a combined motion to vote for the Prime Minister’s deal subject to a people’s vote, the Prime Minister would vote against her own deal.

We keep coming back to the question of our democracy. I and many others in this House have pointed out that democracy did not end in 2016. It is now over two-and-a-half years since that date and it is increasingly absurd for Members to argue for implementing the will of the people in 2016, while simultaneously refusing to ask the people what they think in 2019. If we have the right to change our minds, why do we not give that democratic right to the people of this country? Prime Minister, you can get your deal over the line by combining it with a people’s vote. I hope very much that, moving on into next week’s indicative votes, we can all compromise and agree to combine some of our options. The ultimate thing has to be that if we are changing things in this place, that change needs to be put back to the people.