Brexit Deal: Referendum

Lee Rowley Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Geraint Davies]

What I said stands. Obviously, scenario plans were done in terms of the aggregate impact, and no forecast is perfect, but what we do know about the impact of Brexit was that, overnight, the hon. Gentleman’s salary and assets were devalued by something like 15%, because the financial markets took their own view that this was crazy. We are all worse off for it. People living in Britain have not really seen it, but gradually the impact of that devaluation is coming through in inflation, on top of low wages. People were told, and sadly it has happened: the poor have been made poorer. The leave campaigners said, “The reason you are poor is foreign people from the EU,” when in fact the average person from the EU contributes 35% more in tax than they consume in public services. The poor—and all of us—will become even poorer without them, and we have seen this awful devaluation.

The evaluations were not good enough, but there were dire predictions. Let us take as an example a Japanese car company. I know there have been lots of under the table, secret negotiations with car companies, but the reason they are here is that we are a stable democracy and economy, and provide an English-speaking platform to the biggest market in the world. Once we are not in that market, they and other investors will move. The economic impact on Britain, from an intuitive, a priori point of view, is wholly predictable.

[Lee Rowley (North East Derbyshire) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman explain what is dire, catastrophic and crazy about five consecutive quarters of economic growth?

[Geraint Davies]

The hon. Gentleman will know that we have got the lowest growth in the G7—it is absolutely appalling.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Rowley (North East Derbyshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to contribute to the debate. We have a veritable smorgasbord of e-petitions before us, so all of us can probably choose at least one of them to support and push forward.

I have been listening to the debate since it started and I have to say that I find Brexit debates, both in this place and in the other place, relatively dispiriting. Of course, I am not seeking to cast aspersions on colleagues here, but I find the debate dispiriting. We start from the principle of trying to debate something, and I came here today thinking that we would have a wonderful theoretical debate on the value of representative versus participative or direct democracy, the utility of referendums versus parliamentary democracy, and how the inherent tension between those concepts has caused such theoretical and practical problems in the past 18 months or so. What immediately happens, however, is that we all go back into our tribes depending on whether we like or dislike Brexit. Many of the speeches that I have heard, which have been heartfelt and have clearly come from a place of real principle, have fallen back on to whether people support Brexit or do not support it.

We have to be more careful about these kinds of discussion. I have heard massive misuse of polling in just the past hour and a half. The right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) talked about how we should have some kind of independent arbiter to judge the correctness or otherwise of what politicians say. I think that that is a terrible idea, but if we are going to do it, I gently say to the right hon. Gentleman that we might start by banning politicians from using one poll to prove that something is suddenly a comprehensive, complete and totally true statement. If we want to play that game, a poll carried out by Opinium says exactly the opposite. I understand that the Survation poll, which has been quoted so extensively in this place already, also gives the Labour party an eight-point lead. I know that Opposition Members are delighted about that, but I do not believe that 45% of the people in my country believe in neo-Marxism and I hope that it will not happen. I will not go down the party political route, other than to say that.

I have heard a number of different comments today and I want to take up a few of them. The hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies), who is no longer in his place, talked at one point about how, if we are honest as Members of Parliament, most of us know that ultimately Brexit is a bad idea. I think it was Elizabeth I who said, “Don’t seek windows into men’s souls.” I do not subscribe to that view. I genuinely understand why people in my constituency voted 63% to leave; I understand why I voted to leave. It was not because of a hatred of the European Union or because of the caricature of how we are that some people try to propose. It was not because of the lies that certain people have talked about in here, which I absolutely disagree with. It was actually because we happen fundamentally to believe that the future of our country can be better served in a different way from what has happened in the past 40 years. I ask those people on the opposite side of the debate just to think carefully about some of the comments that they make, because I do not believe in the depths of my soul that Brexit is a bad idea. I think it is a good idea, but I also understand the challenges that those people are putting forward. We should not enter binary discussions or make assertions.

[Julia Lopez]

I followed the speech by the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) as closely as I could, and he seemed to be saying not only that we need Parliament to protect the British people from their decision, but that we need the EU to protect the British people from our own Parliament. I wonder whether my hon. Friend has a little more faith in this place and its people.

[Lee Rowley]

I absolutely hope that that would be the case. It is utterly important that we ensure that there is a wide debate about the issues, but ultimately we start from the principle that a large number of people—the largest number of people ever—have made a decision and we should seek to honour that.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I believe, from the bottom of my heart, that we will be worse off if we leave the European Union. The more we talk about how we appreciate European workers and how they support our economy and local services, and the more we talk about regulatory alignment and the fact that we do not want new borders, the more we are describing what the EU actually is, so why are we leaving?

[Lee Rowley]

The hon. Lady has expounded my point perfectly. I do not doubt her resolve, her willingness or her absolute belief; I just happen to disagree with her. I hope that Opposition Members—I am not suggesting that this applies to the hon. Lady—understand and recognise that we have deeply held views as well.

I also heard earlier that if we had a second referendum, it would be a different sort of referendum, as if the first one was invalid or incomprehensive or there was not sufficient discussion. Again, the conversation tended toward the emotional and the lies. Just from the emotion that I have heard expressed in this Chamber today, the conversations that have occurred and the use of terms such as catastrophe, exodus, dire, crisis, lies, death row and malicious, I do not believe that there would be anything less than the kind of emotional discussion that we had two years ago, so we should be very careful what we wish for.

I have heard conversations about multi-options. Even though I understand in principle the point made by the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones), and I know that one of the e-petitions under discussion suggests multi-options, I wonder whether, if we proposed a second referendum with multi-options, we would all be here in three or four years’ time talking about one option that got 42% of the vote and the other two options that got a smaller proportion of the vote, and then delegitimising the 42% of the vote option because it did not manage 50 plus one, which is the usual yardstick for success.

Then we get into the slightly more absurd discussions, which I know were not entirely serious on the part of some people who have commented, about vote weighting or the fact that some people are dying and therefore their vote is less valid. I just think we have to be much more careful. I agree with the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) that we need to be much more careful about how we debate and discuss this matter, because my constituency is a constituency of honourable people who understand the challenges and have researched the issue and watched the television, but who still voted 63% leave. They and I voted to leave because we legitimately think that that decision means that our country will be better in the long term.

I want to talk briefly about the idea perpetuated by some that people did not know what they were voting for. We have to accept the principle that people vote for many different reasons. I would not like to suggest that that is not the case, but I know that the thing that was closest to what people understood was happening on the day was the leaflet the Government sent out to every household in this country. When I reread that this morning in preparation for this discussion, it was pretty clear to me what was happening. Nothing in the leaflet mentioned a second referendum. It stated:

“On Thursday, 23 June there will be a referendum”—

singular. “It’s your opportunity”—there was no multitude of opportunities. “It’s a big decision”—singular. It is “One” decision, not decisions plural. The leaflet goes on to say that it is a

“once in a generation decision”—

not a twice in a generation—and:

“The government will implement what you decide.”

That leaflet came through my letterbox in north Derbyshire and the proposition was absolutely clear to me and to all of my residents in Dronfield, Cutthorpe, Eckington and Killamarsh. It is incumbent on hon. Members that we recognise and honour that. I reject totally and completely the notion that people did not understand what they were voting for. They understood what they were voting for. They understood the propositions that were on the table. They understood, if I am honest, the things on both sides of the argument that went too far. I will not talk about them individually, but I was unhappy, as a leave voter, with some of the suggestions from the remain camp, which are also in the leaflet, about how there would be almost an economic collapse. We have to be very careful about how we discuss this matter, where we are going with it and what we want the outcome to be.

[Susan Elan Jones]

I am reluctant to intervene, having made the opening speech, but I would like to ask the hon. Gentleman one question. I am talking not about my personal view on this issue, but about the points raised by Ross Clark in The Spectator. His view is that what is being implemented by the Government is not what he voted for, and that was the fear, because it was not as simple as a binary choice. He is a very traditional conservative with a certain view that is very much against further association with the European Union. What would the hon. Gentleman say to people such as him?

[Lee Rowley]

I have not read the article the hon. Lady is referring to, but I will address the principle. What she outlines explains beautifully why the sorts of intellectual contortions that we have heard in this debate over the past hour and a half, and elsewhere, will ultimately not work. We can make an assessment about why some people voted one way and others voted another way, but there are 30 million different reasons that people voted for it. We can make an assessment about whether the voting system was correct, or whether the right people voted, and we can make an assessment about whether the debate—before, during and after the vote—was appropriate, but ultimately those are our assessments, not facts. Assumptions have been bandied around far too much over the past year; the whole discussion has been about assumptions. When we get into the amorphous mass that we have arrived at, an hour and a half into this discussion, it is not possible to get much further, so we have to boil it down to the simple point: people voted and made a decision, and ultimately we have to implement what the people decided.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Certainly, if there was enough time to ask our negotiators to go back to the table, I would have no problem with having that option. However, the real worry at the moment is this: we heard what the Secretary of State for Brexit said on the Sunday television programmes yesterday, and he is talking about having a whole year for negotiations, so the idea that we would then be able to come back and have a serious discussion, if they have not properly negotiated a transition period, is yet another thing that is in doubt. It is clear that people should have the option, if they wish, to remain in the EU. The Prime Minister has pledged that MPs will have the final say on any deal, but I simply want to widen that franchise. The British people should have the final say. That is not denying democracy; it is enhancing it.

It is also important to stress that a ratification referendum is not a silver bullet. We owe it to ourselves to acknowledge that when people voted to leave, many of them did so because of very legitimate concerns. In my view, from the people I have spoken to, not many of those concerns actually relate to the EU per se, but those people were persuaded that their very legitimate concerns about housing, jobs and the NHS were somehow linked either to our membership of the EU or to the presence of immigrants in this country. What we also need to do, at the same time as campaigning for a ratification referendum, is campaign for changes in this country, as well as changes in the EU.

I am not talking about some kind of reversion to the status quo ante—the status quo before the referendum happened. We are not pretending that it did not happen or trying to go back to 22 June last year. It did happen, people are very angry and many of the reasons for their anger are legitimate. However, the irony is that by leaving the EU, the problems that they were most concerned about—their future prospects at work, their kids’ future prospects, whether they could access the NHS and whether they could get affordable housing—are all going to get 100 times worse. Believe me, we have not yet even begun to imagine the anger of those people when they realise that.

It is absolutely crucial that, alongside campaigning for the ratification referendum, we look at the way in which the deep social divides in this country have been exploited by many of the leaders of the leave campaign. They have used them as a wedge to drive home their long-standing ideological hatred of the EU, even though those problems are likely to be made worse by leaving the EU.

[Lee Rowley]

The hon. Lady makes a powerful point, even though I do not agree with it, and powerfully expands her position on a second referendum. May I ask her how many referendums she proposes to accept in this discussion? Will we be going to 20, 40 or 135, until we get the right answer?

[Caroline Lucas]

I was about to thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but that was such a ludicrous and frankly dishonourable one. It is very clear that I am talking about the idea that people should be able to look at the facts, which are not present right now, and were certainly not present on 23 June last year.

I am also making some serious points about the very real grievances that the referendum result laid bare. Frankly, it is cynical and shocking how those grievances are being manipulated by the leave campaign for its own political ends. I believe that one of the things that the referendum tells us is that we need to look at the way in which people are governed in this country. That involves looking at a voting system that systematically takes power away from people. It is such an irony that the party that is in the lead in calling for Brexit and bringing back control does not want people to have control when it comes to their own electoral system. That party does not want them to have a real say. At the last election 68% of the votes cast made no difference to the outcome, because they were piling up in constituencies where, because of first past the post, they were not necessary.

Let us look at the way the UK is governed. Let us look at issues such as more devolution to the regions and electoral reform for more widespread proportional representation. Where the case is to be made to the “left behind”—those people were left behind not in some kind of casual accident, but as a deliberate and predictable outcome of the process of neo-liberal globalisation, which systematically marginalises them—it will take a long time to turn around some of those impacts at the root of why so many people voted to leave the EU, but we have to start now by finding genuine solutions to people’s worries about jobs, pay, schools and housing. Ultimately, things will only shift once trust is built and people see with their own eyes that their lives are getting better and that being inside the EU was never the cause of their problems.

In conclusion, a ratification referendum would give the British people more democracy, not less. This time around, I hope, the necessarily short referendum campaign will be conducted in a more open, honest and transparent way.