European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Kate Green Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I did not come into Parliament to spend my time working on the future of the European Union. It is not what my constituents, when they elected me first in 2010, intended me to spend my time on either. They wanted me to concentrate on their living standards, their security, the future for their children and grandchildren, and a better planet for the future of our world.

Actually, however, all these things are encompassed in the decision we make tonight about whether we accept the deal before us, and about our commitment to our ongoing relationship with our European Union neighbours. I will not vote for a deal that will make my constituents poorer, that will make them less secure, and that means we will have less influence in the decisions taken that will affect them and that will reduce our highly respected and highly regarded standing in the world.

I am distressed, as all hon. Members are, at the divisions that this Brexit story has revealed and opened up in our country, but our duty now is to concentrate on healing them. I do not believe it will ever be possible to do that if we deliberately make our country poorer, more unstable and less influential than it would otherwise have been. We need to concentrate on building a positive, prosperous, powerful future for this nation. Voting to leave the EU, and voting for the Prime Minister’s way of leaving tonight, will not enable us to do so.