Early Parliamentary General Election

Debate between Jo Swinson and Gareth Snell

Monday 28th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jo Swinson]

I will not give way. I want to make some progress.

That is why, in the absence of those numbers for a people’s vote, the way forward now is to have an election, but to do so responsibly, not letting the Prime Minister force through his bad Brexit deal in a small number of days without proper scrutiny, which is what his plan is and why we will not support his motion tonight. We know that the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal will be bad for workers’ rights, bad for environmental protections, bad for the economy, bad for jobs, bad for our public services, bad for our security and bad for our United Kingdom. It should not be left to the Government to have carte blanche to set the date of the election after the House of Commons has dissolved. We cannot trust what the Prime Minister says.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Jo Swinson]

No, I am making some progress.

We cannot trust what the Prime Minister says. We have no guarantee that he would not try to crash us out of the European Union. He said that he would not prorogue Parliament; he did. He said that he would not send a letter to request an extension of article 50, and he did. We cannot trust what the Prime Minister says. That is why the plan that we have put forward with the Scottish National party for a general election on 9 December takes no deal off the table with the extension to article 50 and means that we have no withdrawal agreement Bill and that there is no wriggle room on the date for the Prime Minister. We have worked together on a cross-party basis. We do not agree on everything, but we do agree that we want to stop Brexit. We have worked together, which has been important. The European Union did not grant that extension on Friday when it said it might, and our EU friends have told us that the letter and the Bill that were published were instrumental in making sure that they were able to grant that extension.

[Jo Swinson]

I thank my hon. Friend—and I do count him as a friend—for that intervention. We have also worked together well on the people’s vote campaign, and I welcome the cross-party nature of that work. I have campaigned for votes at 16 from the moment that I came into this House. We have votes at 16 for most elections in Scotland, and it works well. The sky has not fallen in. I think that votes at 16 should be introduced across all different elections. But I say to my hon. Friend that the worst thing we could do for 16 and 17-year-olds is to crash out and leave the European Union. We are in a situation where there is no guarantee of an extension beyond 31 January, and we need to do everything that we can to stop Brexit. If that means having an election to stop Brexit to protect the rights of those 16 and 17-year-olds, we need to deliver that, because leaving the European Union is the thing that will wreck the future of those young people.

[Gareth Snell]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Jo Swinson]

I have given way plenty of times.

The Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition say that they want a general election. If that is the case and they are not just playing games, then the Government will give time for the Bill that we have published, and the Leader of the Opposition will ask his MPs to support it. I relish the opportunity to take both of them on in a general election and share with the country the Liberal Democrat positive vision to stop Brexit and build a brighter future.