Business of the House

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

That is one fantastic precedent that the right hon. Member for West Dorset has already put in place. We are getting towards electronic voting. For the first time in my 18 years in this House, we will actually be able to vote in a sensible, constructive manner and not waste hours and hours in the Division Lobby when nothing further can be done. I can see you looking at me with an encouragement to conclude my remarks, Mr Speaker, and I will do so with this. I listened carefully, keenly and attentively to the Leader of the House on the radio this morning, as I always do, and I got the impression that this Government are not in the least bit interested in what this House passes today in its indicative votes. I have no reason to be believe, for one minute, that they are not going to totally reject, contemptuously, as is now traditional, what this House decides.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

To come back to the points made by the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) and my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra), I have reflected on this situation over the past two or three years, and I find it incredible. One would have thought logic would have told the Prime Minister, before she activated article 50, to get all the interested parties together to find a way forward. Now, two years down the road, the Government still do not have a plan B. It is incredible, to say the least.

[Pete Wishart]

I describe the Government’s approach to Brexit as chaotic and clueless, and nothing will ever distract me from that principle when it comes to the way they have prosecuted this Brexit, which has been such an utter disaster.