EU Referendum Rules

Debate between James Cleverly and David Amess

Monday 5th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Umunna]

The hon. Gentleman and I had many debates during the referendum campaign, but, I am sorry, I do not accept his point about accountability. There is a complete contradiction here: many on the leave side made accountability and transparency the cornerstones of their campaign, but when people legitimately seek to hold members of the Government who voted leave to account for their pledges, they now say that there should be no accountability. To me, that is contradictory and not acceptable.

[Sir David Amess (in the Chair)]

Order. Before the hon. Member for Braintree (James Cleverly) resumes, may I say that the wind-ups will start at 7 o’clock, and by my maths at least five or six people still wish to speak? I hope that hon. Members will bear that in mind.

[James Cleverly]

The hon. Member for Streatham has pre-empted my next paragraph, so I thank him for that. He may read my speech to prove to him that I am not retrofitting anything.

Although it is not incumbent on the Government to take on board the campaign ideas and slogans of Vote Leave, it would be unwise of any Government to ignore some of the fundamental issues that came to the fore during the referendum campaign, such as the desire for greater domestic sovereignty for this country, for the reprioritisation of Government spending to domestic expenditure—for example, a significant upturn in spending on the national health service—for the control of borders and for greater international trade. Without a doubt, through the negotiation process and in the aftermath of our exit, the Government will need to put to the British people a credible plan on those issues and a whole host of others to have a realistic chance of being returned to government.

That brings me to my fundamental point. The way parliamentary democracy and parliamentary accountability work is that prospective Governments should put forward their ideas. Those ideas should be voted on by the British people, and those Governments should be held to account for the delivery or otherwise of that agenda.

It is helpful to think about the chronology. We are likely to see article 50 invoked relatively soon, I suspect. Then over the next couple of years, as timetabled by article 50, we will see a negotiated position, which I suspect will be in the public domain in the lead-up to the 2020 general election. The Prime Minister will no doubt put forward the Conservative plan for what Brexit will look like in real terms, including on immigration policy, public spending policy, trade policy, defence policy and so on. I am sure the Labour party—I will rephrase that: I hope the Labour party—will be able to put forward an agenda for what its impression of Brexit looks like, including its public spending priorities, immigration plans and international trade plans. The Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National party will do likewise. If one of those parties wishes to say, “Actually, do you know what? None of the deals on the table is good enough. We will rejoin the EU and overturn the explicit mandate from the EU referendum,” good luck to them. They can put that in front of the British people and let us see what they come up with.