Leaving the EU: Negotiations

Debate between John Lamont and Layla Moran

Tuesday 10th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

Like each and every one of the Liberal Democrats, I did not get the referendum result that I wanted in 2016. I campaigned and voted for the United Kingdom to remain part of the European Union. In the early hours of 24 June, I looked on in a state of disbelief as the results came in, and it took weeks, if not months, for the implications of the vote properly to sink in. In Scotland, the uncertainty and disbelief were compounded by the new calls from the SNP and the nationalists for a second referendum to break up the United Kingdom.

Neither my personal view ahead of the referendum nor my personal reaction to the vote really matters. What matters is that the voters made their decision, and our job as parliamentarians is to ensure that we respect that decision and implement it in the best way possible. I find it impossible to ignore the blatant hypocrisy and incoherence of the Liberal Democrats’ position on this matter—hypocrisy, because they want to re-run a once-in-a-generation vote across the United Kingdom, but claim to oppose a rerun of another once-in-a-generation vote north of the border in Scotland. Their party leader, Willie Rennie MSP, says,

“With the Scottish economy teetering on the edge of a recession…the last thing our country needs is another divisive and distracting independence debate.”

I agree with Willie Rennie.

[Layla Moran]

Will the hon. Gentleman explain how the first referendum held after all the facts have been presented to us would count as a rerun, given that there would be new facts? In my constituency, for example, BMW has now come out and said that businesses would be harmed, and that would mean that my constituents would lose their jobs. Why should they not have the right to change their minds?