Brexit Deal: Referendum

Debate between Caroline Lucas and Paul Masterton

Monday 11th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir David. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in support of the petition for a ratification referendum, which was signed by no fewer than 864 of my constituents. For the purposes of full disclosure, the other petition, which was against a ratification referendum, was signed by 10.

The Green party fully respects the fact that voters made a decision and delivered a message to Parliament on 23 June last year, but we have also consistently said that the referendum was, and could only be, the start of the democratic process, not the end of it. The voters could not and did not express any opinion on the terms on which the UK should leave the EU, because those terms remained completely obfuscated. The leaders of the leave campaign did not ever want to set out what leave would look like, so it was hard for people to express a view on that.

For example, did the voters instruct the Government to ensure that when the UK leaves the EU it remains in the single market and the customs union, perhaps through membership of the European economic area? No one knows—not the Prime Minister, not the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, and not any Members of the House. Alternatively, did the voters instruct the Government to ensure that the UK leaves the EU, the single market and the customs union? Again, no one knows. Although, we do know that voters were repeatedly and confidently assured by prominent leavers, such as Daniel Hannan MEP, that there would be

“full participation in EU markets”

after withdrawal.

Did the voters instruct the Government and Parliament to ensure that the UK leaves Euratom, the REACH agreement or the European Medicines Agency’s regulatory regime? Again, no one knows, but it seems reasonable to conclude that most voters will not have given such questions any thought, because they did not feature in the referendum campaign, despite regulatory certainty being essential to British businesses.

Did the voters approve the terms of the future relationship agreement negotiated between the UK Government and the EU27? Of course they did not, because they were not told that there would be such an agreement, let alone what would be in it. Indeed, 17 months on, and with just 10 months left to conclude the negotiations, neither the voters nor Members of this House know whether there will be any such agreement before we drop out of the EU on 29 March 2019. However, we do know that voters were blithely assured, again by leavers such as Daniel Hannan, that the terms of the agreement would be “easily” agreed. That is very odd, because it does not look very easy right now.

Thanks to the chaotic and reckless nature of the UK Government’s negotiating strategy, and their stubborn refusal to lay out detailed proposals, we simply have no idea how the Prime Minister and her bumbling Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union plan to square their determination to leave the single market with the rather obvious fact that that implies having a hard border somewhere—either across the island of Ireland or in the middle of the Irish sea.

The Green party believes that a democracy worthy of the name must mean voters having a real say over the biggest decisions affecting their lives. Withdrawal from the EU is simply the most significant decision that Britain has taken since 1939, which is why we have consistently said that the terms of the withdrawal agreement, or departure from the EU without any such agreement, must be subject to a ratification referendum. That ratification referendum must give voters the option of approving the terms of withdrawal negotiated by the Government, or, if they do not like those terms, remaining in the EU—that has to be on the ballot paper as well. In other words, the ratification referendum—let us remember that this is the first referendum on the terms of withdrawal from the EU and the basis for our future relationship—must allow voters the democratic choice between accepting what is actually on offer or cancelling the article 50 notification and remaining a member of the EU.

I want to stress that we are not talking about a second referendum, although that term has been used many times this evening. This is not an attempt to overturn the decision that voters made on 23 June last year. The point is that the leave campaign, very deliberately, never set out what Brexit would look like, and people’s views naturally evolve as more information becomes available, so it is absolutely right that the British people who triggered this process should also sign it off, since once they know the outcome of the current negotiations they can see the terms of the deal and decide whether they like it. If they like what they see, they can go ahead and leave the EU; but if they do not, the option of remaining inside the EU must also be on the table and on the ballot paper.

[Paul Masterton]

Can the hon. Lady clarify whether her proposed—I will not say second referendum—new referendum would provide an option for saying, “No, we don’t like this. We want you to go back and push on these items,” or would it be a binary, all-or-nothing choice, where we either take what is on the table or cancel the whole process?

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Certainly, if there was enough time to ask our negotiators to go back to the table, I would have no problem with having that option. However, the real worry at the moment is this: we heard what the Secretary of State for Brexit said on the Sunday television programmes yesterday, and he is talking about having a whole year for negotiations, so the idea that we would then be able to come back and have a serious discussion, if they have not properly negotiated a transition period, is yet another thing that is in doubt. It is clear that people should have the option, if they wish, to remain in the EU. The Prime Minister has pledged that MPs will have the final say on any deal, but I simply want to widen that franchise. The British people should have the final say. That is not denying democracy; it is enhancing it.

It is also important to stress that a ratification referendum is not a silver bullet. We owe it to ourselves to acknowledge that when people voted to leave, many of them did so because of very legitimate concerns. In my view, from the people I have spoken to, not many of those concerns actually relate to the EU per se, but those people were persuaded that their very legitimate concerns about housing, jobs and the NHS were somehow linked either to our membership of the EU or to the presence of immigrants in this country. What we also need to do, at the same time as campaigning for a ratification referendum, is campaign for changes in this country, as well as changes in the EU.

I am not talking about some kind of reversion to the status quo ante—the status quo before the referendum happened. We are not pretending that it did not happen or trying to go back to 22 June last year. It did happen, people are very angry and many of the reasons for their anger are legitimate. However, the irony is that by leaving the EU, the problems that they were most concerned about—their future prospects at work, their kids’ future prospects, whether they could access the NHS and whether they could get affordable housing—are all going to get 100 times worse. Believe me, we have not yet even begun to imagine the anger of those people when they realise that.

It is absolutely crucial that, alongside campaigning for the ratification referendum, we look at the way in which the deep social divides in this country have been exploited by many of the leaders of the leave campaign. They have used them as a wedge to drive home their long-standing ideological hatred of the EU, even though those problems are likely to be made worse by leaving the EU.