EU Withdrawal Agreement

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

I thank the Minister so much for giving way. I am deeply confused. If we are to leave with a deal, which is what the leader of the SNP in this Parliament says, then the deal needs to be voted through both in this Parliament and in the European Parliament. In the European Parliament, the members of the SNP who sit in that Parliament have voted in support of the principles of this deal time and again. Has the Secretary of State any idea why SNP MEPs support this deal, but SNP MPs appear not to?

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wonder whether you can help me. The hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford)—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I must hear the hon. and learned Lady.

[Joanna Cherry]

The hon. Member for Chelmsford has directly and, I am sure, inadvertently misrepresented the position of the two SNP Members of the European Parliament, both of whom are personal friends of mine. I can absolutely assure her that they have made their position clear that they are against this deal. Indeed, one of them was my co-litigant in the article 50 case. I ask your assistance for the third time in a week, Madam Deputy Speaker, about how I can go about correcting misrepresentations of the facts about Scottish politics coming from the Government Benches and the Benches behind them.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I appreciate that the hon. and learned Lady has very cleverly made her point into a point of order by asking my advice. I say to her that, of course, she does not need my advice, as she has just taken the opportunity of her point of order to put her point on the record. It is not for me to judge whether the hon. Lady or the hon. and learned Lady are correct in their interpretation of something that has happened in another Parliament, but I am satisfied that both points of view have been put to the Chamber.