Leaving the EU: No Deal

Debate between Keir Starmer and Lord Walney

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

I do agree that serious consideration needs to be given to the timetable now set by article 50, because by 14 January we will be just nine weeks away from the proposed date of leaving the EU. On any view, the Government will then have to make a choice about what to do next. No plan B has ever been forthcoming. In the week or so before the deferral of the vote last week, the question everybody was asking was, “What is the Prime Minister’s plan B?” When she pulled the vote and ran away, we learned that she does not have a plan B. The Prime Minister will have to come to the Dispatch Box and make a statement about what she proposes happens next. If she stands at that Dispatch Box and says that she intends to take the UK out of the EU without a deal, I genuinely believe that Parliament—this House—will do everything that it can to stop that course of action.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Ind)]

Given that it is the only route that gives legal certainty to be able to stop no deal, can I take it from what my right hon. and learned Friend is saying that if we get to the end and the only thing to do is revoke article 50, the official Opposition would support that, alongside Government Members?

[Keir Starmer]

What I have said is that I genuinely think that the majority in this House is against no deal. One reason why I feel strongly that the vote should be put as soon as possible is that the discussion and the debate about what happens next need to happen sooner rather than later because they will take time. We need then to assess what the options are and to see where the consensus of the House is. All that is happening in this deferment of the vote for weeks is wasting the time of the House that should be spent on the question of how we prevent leaving without a deal.