UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union

Charlie Elphicke Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, but I do not think there is an ambiguity on this matter. First, I have already made the point, which I think she heard me make, that numbers are a factor but they are not the only factor: breadth is important, too. I have selected an amendment on this subject to which there is breadth, and that seems to me to be a valid choice. So far as the wider policy position is concerned, as the hon. Lady will be well aware that her own party—the Government she supports—has a clear view on this matter. I think it is evident that she shares that view, and if she disapproves of the amendment she will be able to register her view, quite possibly in the debate, but if it is put to the House, in the Division Lobby. If it were not put to the House, she would in any case not be disquieted. I think the position is clear.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I welcome your selection of amendment (i), which the whole House will be under no illusion is in fact a disguised amendment aimed at securing a second referendum. May I seek your guidance on this one point, Mr Speaker? The amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), which you have not selected, has twice as many signatures, is cross-party and is also very clear in its intent, so in relation to the memorandum that your predecessor submitted in times past, which my hon. Friend referred to, will you update the House on the guidance and the basis on which selections are made?

[Mr Speaker]

I have already explained those matters. I do not wish to be unkind to the hon. Gentleman, whom I have known well for many years, but I think he is misleading himself and I would not want him to be afflicted by that curse. I think when he refers to the failed—as in non-selected—amendment of the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) he is referring to the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley). That is quite important—Somerset and Derbyshire are quite a long way apart from each other, but there you go.

I have already explained the basis on which the Chair tries to make a judgment to facilitate the key issues being debated in the Chamber. The hon. Gentleman might not like my answer, but that is my honest answer, which I would defend to this House and indeed to the world. More widely I say to the hon. Gentleman, who is an extremely assiduous Member, that I am not sure the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), who is a great gentleman in this House, will take particularly kindly to his characterisation of amendment (i). I very much doubt that the right hon. Gentleman would accept that characterisation, so it is the hon. Gentleman’s opinion. If he is called to speak in the debate he will have an opportunity to express his opinion, and I hope that will satisfy him, at least for now.

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[Mr Lidington]

No, I am not going to give way again for the moment.

As I said, the motion that the Government have tabled for today’s debate is a start. We basically have two options. First, if the House has approved a meaningful vote by 20 March and agreed a timetable for the EU withdrawal agreement Bill, we can expect the European Union to agree to a short technical extension to allow the necessary legislation to be carried through. If for whatever reason that proves not to be possible, we would be faced with the prospect of choosing only a long extension, during which the House would need to face up to the choices in front of it and the consequences of the decisions it has taken.

The Government recognise that the House would require time to consider the potential ways forward in such a scenario, so I can confirm today that in such a scenario the Government, having consulted the usual channels at that time, would facilitate a process in the two weeks after the March European Council to allow the House to seek a majority on the way forward. We should be clear about the consequences if that were to happen. If we are in the world of a longer extension so that this House can come to a decision, we will be required, as a condition, to hold European parliamentary elections in May. As the note on this issue published by the Government today sets out, we would need to begin to prepare for those elections in early April. In other words, we either deliver on the result of the referendum, giving people and businesses throughout the country the certainty that they are calling for, and move on as a nation, or we enter into a sustained period of uncertainty, during which time the Government would work with this House to find a way through, but which I fear would do real damage to the public’s faith in politics and trust in our democracy.

[Charlie Elphicke]

On the possibility of having to conduct European elections if the extension went past 23 May, can my right hon. Friend tell the House whether the Cabinet Office is prepared for that? On what date would such elections take place and how much would it cost?

[Mr Lidington]

I do not have the figures on cost to hand; they would be a matter of record available on the Electoral Commission’s website. However, we would have to make those elections possible—not something that the Government wishes to do at all—and that would require secondary legislation to be laid before the House in mid-April.

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[Mr Lidington]

While I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s defence of his amendment, my objection still stands. In the scenario that he has described, a motion in the names of very large numbers of Members of Parliament—not just from my party, but from his as well, or a very large number of some hundreds of people on a cross-party basis—could be moved only if it were in the form of a motion that had previously been tabled and accepted for debate, under the limited terms specified in his amendment.

It is of course for you, Mr Speaker, to make a ruling on which amendments to select and which not to select, but as the right hon. Gentleman well knows, there are practices, traditions and precedents of the House—about, for example, the material of an amendment needing to be pertinent to the motion to which it has been tabled—so, flowing from his amendment, there would be a potentially very severe restriction on the rights of many hundreds of Members of this House to come forward and table motions that raise subjects they want to be debated.

[Charlie Elphicke]

My right hon. Friend is making a very powerful argument, but the position is in fact worse than he says. Paragraph 3 of the amendment mentions

“at least five Members elected to the House”—

elected to the House—

“as members of at least five different parties”.

It is carefully crafted to exclude the TIGgers, meaning that we will have tyranny by a minority, because either Plaid Cymru or the Greens will need to be included in such a motion. In other words, four Members of this House could hold the entire House to ransom.

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[Keir Starmer]

I agree with the right hon. Lady. One of the frustrations is that we are now faced with arguments from the Government that the period of time for an extension must be really short for various reasons, yet they ran away from the vote on 10 December. We could have known on 11 December that this deal was never going to go through. We would then have had three and a half months left on the clock before we even got to any question of an extension, and then another three months, even on the Government’s own analysis, to try to sort the problem out. Yet here we are, with 15 days to go, having this discussion about an extension in the worst of circumstances, and we are doing it for one reason. That is that the deal that was signed on 25 November and that could have been put to the vote on 11 December was pulled. Not one word of that agreement has ever changed. All that has happened is that we have been waiting for three-plus months to vote again on the same proposition. We cannot waste another week doing the same thing next week.

[Charlie Elphicke]

I welcome the fact that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will be opposing amendment (h) tonight, and I will join him and the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) in doing so. It is right that the House should send a clear message on the matter of the people’s vote. The question should be put to the House tonight, and I hope that it will be defeated so that we can move on.

[Keir Starmer]

That is not what I said. I did not say that we would oppose it. It is obvious that we are supportive of the principle; it is a question only of timing.

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[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

As ever, it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who rightly pointed out the importance of tradition. I backed remain in the referendum, but there is a tradition in our country of democracy and of respecting public votes, which is why I respect the two thirds in my constituency who voted to leave the EU and why I believe we should get on with it and not extend article 50. To do otherwise would badly undermine public trust in our democracy.

[James Heappey]

The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) made the point very eloquently that we should not consider the same matter again and again. Does my hon. Friend think that the same should apply to the repeated putting of questions about second votes—

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[Mr Speaker]

Order. It is not very courteous to make long interventions that slow things up.

[Charlie Elphicke]

My hon. Friend is quite right, and I will come to that in a minute.

First, let me underline the importance of honouring the referendum. This was the biggest democratic exercise in our history, and 17.4 million people made the clear decision that we should leave the EU, yet amendment (h) seeks yet another referendum—a so-called people’s vote. It is not a people’s vote; it is a losers’ vote, because it is promoted by the very people who lost last time. I completely agree with the Labour Front-Bench team when they say that they cannot support the amendment; I agree with the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), who made a point of order earlier on this subject; and I agree, I hope, with a majority of the House in thinking that we should vote on this amendment and reject it. We should put to bed the idea of further referendums and delays and get on with leaving the EU and dealing with the future of this country. We cannot have endless Brexit.

I hear that the Independent Group, under pressure, might wish not to press the amendment. It will be interesting to see what the Liberal Democrats and the SNP, who are also signatories to the amendment, will do. Will they have the courage of their convictions and see it through, or will they be frit and run away, as they are asked—begged—to do by the Labour party Front Bench? We do not need to extend article 50. We need to get on with it. We do not need a referendum of the losers. We need to listen to the British people. A snap poll today by YouGov finds that a majority want to get on with it: 43% to 38%. The 43% want MPs to vote against delay. The British people are as sick of endless Brexit as most people in this House. That is why I shall be voting against every amendment tonight, and against the main motion, making it clear that we need to honour and respect the verdict of the referendum.

We also need to put maximum pressure on the European Union to provide an exit from the backstop, either unilaterally or through a sunset provision. We must not have the affront of European parliamentary elections, which would see Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson elected. The hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) would be elected as well. What we need is true democracy. We also need to see some integrity; not only should we honour and respect the result of the referendum, but those Members who wish to set up a new party should have the integrity and courage of their convictions and put to the people, in a true public vote, the question of whether they should continue to be Members of this House. They should face the people in a by-election, rather than running away from them. They should honour our democracy, as we should honour the referendum result.