Oral Answers to Questions

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

What makes no deal more likely is if parties like the hon. Gentleman’s continue to vote against sensible proposals that this Government bring to the House of Commons. Any Government have to be responsible and prepare for all eventualities, but the best way to make sure that we do not have that eventuality is to do the preparation.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

May I take the Foreign Secretary back to our last debate on Brexit? He gave me an answer that was not exactly convincing, so I thought I would give him another chance. [Interruption.] I am nothing but kindness—it is my new year’s resolution. Four days after the referendum, he said that

“we need to negotiate a deal and put it to the British people, either in a referendum or through the Conservative manifesto at a fresh general election…we will trust the British people to decide on whether or not it is a good deal”.

So can I ask him again why he no longer believes in trusting the British people to decide whether they want the Prime Minister’s deal?

[Mr Hunt]

I do. We have had a general election and over 80% of voters supported parties that wanted to leave the EU and end free movement. I will happily take criticisms of our Brexit policy on the chin the moment Labour actually has the courage to have its own Brexit policy in the first place. This morning, the shadow Business Secretary, on the “Today” programme, could not even say whether Labour supported a second referendum or not. That is not policy—it is politics. I simply say to the right hon. Lady that to play politics with Brexit in a hung Parliament is a total betrayal of ordinary voters.

[Emily Thornberry]

Well, that is not a very convincing answer, is it? It is the same sort of unconvincing answer that we got last time. We always know when Government Ministers are getting a bit desperate when they decide that they need to ask the Opposition what their policy is instead.

The Foreign Secretary said in the very first paragraph of the article that I am quoting that

“we did not vote on the terms of our departure.”

So his entire argument was that we should trust the people to decide the terms on which we would leave. But let me also remind him that in the same article he warned of the danger that

“we could be thrown out with no deal at all.”

So even if he no longer believes that the public should have a say on the final terms of a deal, does he still at least believe that they should have a say if we are risking leaving with no deal at all?

[Mr Hunt]

If the right hon. Lady is worried about no deal, there is a very easy way to stop it, and that is to talk to the Prime Minister. The Leader of the Opposition talks without preconditions to Hamas, Hezbollah and the IRA, but not to the British Prime Minister. The reason is that Labour’s objective is not to have a deal but to have a crisis—and what a betrayal of ordinary families that is.