European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Eddie Hughes Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 22nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

By your leave, Mr Speaker, I shall make some progress.

Let us pause for a second and reflect on the scale of the choices before us. If we rejected this new deal, what would the House be saying to the country and to the world? What alternative course of action is open to us? Is it to undo Brexit and cancel the greatest democratic exercise in the country’s history? Even now, I find it impossible to believe that any democrat would contemplate such a course. Time and again, the House has promised to honour the referendum, and the fact that the Leader of the Opposition is now proposing a rerun shows a regrettable contempt for the verdict of the British people. The House has repeatedly rejected a second referendum, and, in my view, must emphatically do so again.

[Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that a referendum took place and a decision was made by the British people? It is up to Parliament to accept that decision and work with it. Those are not my words, but the words of the Leader of the Opposition.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend has encapsulated the point perfectly, and I think that the Leader of the Opposition should reflect on what he has said.