Vote Leave Campaign: Electoral Law

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Monday 10th September 2018 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Chris Heaton-Harris)]

It is a huge pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, as ever, Sir Roger. Actually, I think this is the first time I have served under your chairmanship as a Minister. I hope I do not somehow incur the wrath that the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) faced. I will stay completely in order throughout the debate.

I thank the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) for opening the debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee. He said that he did so in an “even-handed” way—actually, he did, and he should be congratulated on that. I guess I should caveat that by saying that it was relatively even-handed, but it was a very good job well done, and I congratulate him on representing the views of the people who signed the petition.

I thank all hon. Members who participated in the debate. There is a decent number of them here, considering the competition in the main Chamber. There were interventions from my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami) and the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake)—it is a shame he has left, because I was fascinated by his idea of an independent arbiter to stop incorrect statements. I thought it was odd for a Lib Dem politician to attempt to silence his own party’s election machine, but so be it.

There were also interventions from the hon. Members for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) and for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West). In fact, she and I debated during the European referendum campaign in a room not too far from here. I would like to think that, had she been here now, she would at least agree that our debate was fairly well educated—certainly, the people in the audience were, and they informed the debate very well indeed—and very balanced. Good debates did happen during the referendum campaign, and I am sure many hon. Members in this Chamber participated in them on either side of the argument.

I thank the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), and I recognise her long-standing and very principled position on the matter of leaving the European Union. She is a passionate pro-European, and I respect her for that completely. When I was a Member of the European Parliament, I debated with lots of people in a similar position, and I never fell out with them once because I completely understood that they were sticking to principled positions. I just happened to disagree with their position. I very much welcome what she said about wishing to get a good deal for the country and scrutinising the deal when it comes before the House. I thank her for those words.

I thank the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) for his contribution. He made some interesting points, which were probably more for Cabinet Office Ministers than for the Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the Department for Exiting the European Union, but I will pass them on. The hon. Member for Cambridge made similar points about the rules of referendums. I will ensure that those points are passed on so that he can be assured that they will be taken into account in any future debate on the rules of referendums.

I thank the official Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield). I have known him for a long time—alas, slightly too long, really. I disagree with him too on much of what he said, but I know that he speaks from a principled position. He is passionate about this subject and I respect him for that.

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s comments about how Chequers has moved the negotiations and this debate on. It will be interesting to see where his party—the Opposition—gets to in its debate on such matters. I tend to think that the majority of his constituents and mine are in a slightly different place from us. No matter how they voted, they just want this noisy debate to end and they want us to get on with the very detailed job of leaving the European Union in March next year.

A great deal of the passion that people feel about the referendum result was expressed by the hon. Member for Cambridge. I remember it distinctly. In many constituencies—the hon. Member for Ipswich (Sandy Martin) might recall this in his own—“pencilgate” caused a problem during the referendum. People were worried about marking their cross with a pencil because they thought that the Government might change how they voted. There was passion on both sides of the argument, and it would be foolish of us to ignore that passion.

I also thank all those who signed the petition. It was a good-sized petition, with 200,000 signatures, including nearly 300 people in my own constituency of Daventry. The petition calls for article 50 to be revoked if any electoral laws are found to have been broken during the 2016 referendum. It highlights two issues: the conduct of the referendum, and the revocation of our notice to withdraw from the European Union under article 50. I shall deal with each in turn.

I emphasise first that it is not acceptable for any organisation to breach electoral procedures, and it is regrettable that fines have been levied on multiple groups on both sides of the referendum campaign. Electoral law must be followed, and its breaches must be dealt with decisively. The Electoral Commission’s use of its sanctioning powers shows that it is doing that vital job. However, breaches did happen on both sides, I guess. A number of pro-remain organisations have also already been fined by the Electoral Commission for breaking referendum law, including the Liberal Democrats, Open Britain, Best for Our Future and a host of others. I understand, though, that that is not the nature of the petition.

The issue is rightly and effectively being dealt with through our legal system. It is being scrutinised through ongoing legal processes, even including challenges to the findings of the Electoral Commission. The police must consider whether there has been any breach of criminal law. There must be due process and a fair hearing, and an important constitutional principle is that politicians do not interfere with police investigations.

That said, the Government will be considering the wider implications of the issue, as well as recent reports on Government policy on referendums and elections. We will carefully review the Electoral Commission’s report on digital campaigning, the Information Commissioner’s recommendations on the use of data in politics and the results of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee inquiry into fake news, and we will take necessary action to strengthen our democracy further.

There is, however, no question that the UK Government will revoke our notification under article 50. Our clear policy is that we will not revoke article 50. The people of the United Kingdom gave a clear instruction, and the Government are committed to seeing that through. We will leave the European Union on 29 March next year.

Parliament voted overwhelmingly to put the question of the UK’s membership of the European Union to the British electorate. The simple question that was put to members of the public on 23 June 2016 asked:

“Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?”

The result of the referendum was therefore a clear answer to a clear question, giving a clear directive to Government to withdraw from the European Union, which we respected through our notification under article 50.

The result reflected not only campaigning but considerable and prolonged debate, at national and parliamentary level, underpinned by a commitment from all major political parties to respect the outcome of the vote. Almost three quarters of the electorate took part in the referendum, resulting in 17,410,742 people voting to leave the European Union and 16,141,241 voting to remain. That is the largest number of votes cast for anything in UK electoral history. Parliament then overwhelmingly confirmed that result by voting with clear and convincing majorities in both Houses for the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill. Furthermore, at the last general election more than 80% of the public voted for parties committed to respecting the leave result.

The Government respect the views and wishes of the more than 198,000 people who signed the petition, but the instruction received from the wider public and their elected Parliament is one that cannot be ignored. The Government are clear that the British people have voted to leave the European Union and therefore that is what we shall do. The former Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), noted early last year that

“the electorate voted for a Government to give them a referendum. Parliament voted to hold the referendum, the people voted in that referendum, and we are now honouring the result of that referendum, as we said we would.”—[Official Report, 31 January 2017; Vol. 620, c. 818.]

The Government have been and continue to be committed to delivering on the instruction given to us by the British people, working to overcome the challenges and to seize the opportunities that it brings to deliver an outcome that betters the lives of British people—whether they voted to leave or to remain. The British people must be able to trust in their Government both to effect their will and to deliver the best outcome for them. As the Prime Minister has said:

“This is about more than the decision to leave the EU; it is about whether the public can trust their politicians to put in place the decision they took.”

In upholding the directive to withdraw from the European Union, that is what the Government have done and will continue to do. We recognise that to do otherwise would be to undermine the decision of the British people, and that would be to disrespect the powerful democratic values of this country, this Government and this Parliament. The Government’s position remains clear: our notice under article 50 will not be withdrawn.