EU Withdrawal Agreement

Dominic Grieve Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) on securing this debate. I read the news in Aberdeen for a number of years, so I learned how to pronounce Scots. In all seriousness, I offer him my congratulations on securing this debate, and of course agree with much of what he said. I also agree with the analysis and with much of what was said by the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer). The Government have made a grave error in taking this matter away from Parliament, delaying it for what will be at least a month and then undertaking to bring it back for the inevitable conclusion that would have been reached had the vote occurred the week before last—or was it last week? It seems in all of this as though time disappears, but it has been a grave mistake.

I agree with both the right hon. Gentleman and the right hon. and learned Gentleman said when they talk about the clock ticking away. I am afraid I have to say that I think the Government are playing the ultimate game of brinkmanship—it is deeply irresponsible—with Conservative Members, who are divided, as everybody knows. Unfortunately, the Government are flagging up to those who fear no deal as ultimately the worst thing that could happen, as they should do, that it is in some way acceptable, and they have never taken it off the table as we should have done two and a half years ago.

Of course, the Government are forgetting that we have no mandate: there is no mandate in this country for a hard Brexit. Everybody seems to forget that when we went to the polls in June 2017, the Conservative party lost its majority. We were saved, if I may say so, only by our brilliant Scottish Conservative MPs. However, we lost well over 30 Members from these Benches—hon. Friends—and we in effect lost that election. We lost our majority, and it was clear that the people of this country did not support a hard Brexit. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister should have taken it off the table then. Indeed, she must take it off the table now, because it is worst possible outcome.

I say with great respect to my hon. Friends that, in the game of brinkmanship being played, those who share the conclusion that a hard Brexit is the worst possible outcome are being told—we have heard this in calls from the Front Bench, and in some of the chuntering and comments from hon. Friends sitting along the Back Benches—“Well, if you don’t want a hard Brexit, you’ve got to vote for the Prime Minister’s deal”, as if there is no alternative. Indeed, there is an alternative. [Interruption.] Yes, there is, I gently say to the Government Whip sitting on the Front Bench.

Given the growing success of the people’s vote movement, those who want a hard Brexit are being told, “Ooh, if you don’t vote for the Prime Minister’s deal, you might get that dreadful thing called a second referendum, in which the people, knowing what Brexit now looks like, will have the opportunity to have a final say on it.”

[Mr Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree with me that it is rather extraordinary, at a time when we say we wish to reflect what is sometimes described as the will of the people, that we seem intent on dragging the country out of the EU on the basis of an agreement that appears largely to be rejected by the electorate themselves as flawed?

[Anna Soubry]

Here is a surprise: of course I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend. I think we will also agree on this: Members on the Conservative Benches who think that we have somehow always wanted to be in the position we are in today of supporting a second referendum are absolutely wrong. Many of us—in fact, all of us—voted for triggering article 50 with a firm determination to be absolutely true to the referendum result. We sought to make compromises, and to reach out and form consensus. That is why it is so interesting—this is a fact—that Scottish National party Members, for example, would have voted for the single market and the customs union, as would many right hon. and hon. Members on the Opposition Benches; I know that Plaid Cymru Members, the Green MP, and so on and so forth would have done. There was a majority in this place for what is now called Norway plus, but that time passed; too many people who said in private that they supported it did not show the courage when it was needed, for reasons that I understand. That ship has now long set sail, but there are alternatives, and there are things that must now occur.

Many of us reached the conclusion that going back to the people was the only right and proper thing to do, for a number of reasons. It has become increasingly clear that many people have changed their minds. It is two and a half years on from the referendum. People now understand far more—this includes hon. and right hon. Members in this place—about what Brexit means and what it looks like. Many have discovered the huge benefits that our membership of the European Union conveys to our country—we have the best, and indeed a unique, deal. Those are many of the reasons why we now support and ask for a people’s vote.

We also look at the 2 million young people who were denied a vote in 2016 by virtue of their age and who now demand a stake and a say in their future because they will bear the brunt if we get this wrong. I gently say to colleagues that if we leave without that vote and it turns out that the people of this country would have voted to remain in the European Union had they been given a vote, they will never forgive us; they will have no faith left in politics, but they will never forgive the Conservative party, and we will take all the consequences.

We need to get this matter back before us. We need to have on the table, with meaningful votes, all the alternatives that are available to us. If we cannot settle on one, we have to look at the process, and that must be a people’s vote or a general election. What is the best? What do the people want? A people’s vote.