EU Exit Day Amendment

Debate between Kirsty Blackman and Peter Bone

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I cannot promise that I will speak without hesitation, repetition or deviation, and I probably will not limit myself to a minute, but I will do my best on all those counts. An extension to the exit day is a good thing for several reasons, but the extension that has been asked for, which we are discussing tonight, is not the one that we should be faced with, and I want to look back at how we got into this mess.

Several Members have mentioned the fact that people are expecting us to leave on 29 March. However, when people voted in the June 2016 referendum, not one person mentioned 29 March 2019 as exit day, nor did they mention 12 April or 22 May. The people voted either to remain in or leave the EU. That was the proposition, and there was no discussion of the actual exit day. While I am on the subject, nobody during the referendum expected that the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) would now be the Prime Minister. No one expected this deal to be the deal before Parliament, because that was not discussed during the course of the referendum, and it is absolutely wrong for anyone to say that it represents the settled will of the UK people.

[Mr Bone]

I remind the hon. Lady that David Cameron said that if the referendum resulted in the UK leaving, he would trigger article 50 the day after. He did not do that, and he resigned.

[Kirsty Blackman]

The article 50 process is a two-year period with the possibility of extension. Triggering article 50 does not mean we leave exactly two years afterwards. There is a negotiation period, and anybody with an ounce of sense, for a start, would not have triggered article 50 until they were in a position to negotiate something with which Parliament and the people would agree, and they would have negotiated extensions so we do not leave before we are ready.