European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 6) Bill

Margot James Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 4th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)]

Perhaps I can start by agreeing with something that others have said, which is that, regardless of one’s views on this subject, the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) and others who spoken in this debate are acting the national interest in bringing up these issues in the way that they do. They do not deserve to be name-called as a result. Having said that, however, I disagree with the Bill.

The Bill does three things: it sets out that the Government should get specific parliamentary authority for any deal they negotiate; it sets out that they should get specific authority for any exit from the EU without a deal; and it sets out that, failing either of those, they should enact a three-month further extension in our departure from the EU. I am afraid that my view is that the first two of those are unnecessary and the third is undesirable. In two and a half minutes, I will try to explain why.

On the first, it seems to me that our existing procedures allow for the Government to bring forward any deal that they negotiate, for us to approve it or not. It would be an international treaty, and the processes are already in place for us to do that.

Secondly, in relation to a no-deal outcome, what the right hon. Member for Leeds Central and colleagues have put forward is on the premise that there is no mandate for no deal. It is certainly true that the leave campaign in the 2016 referendum did not advocate no deal. That was not its preference and, as I understand it, that is still not the Government’s preference, but nor was it put to the electorate that we would leave only if there was a deal with the EU. That could never have been guaranteed. There was no pattern to follow and no example for us to look at, and it could never have been certain that the EU would put forward a proposal that we found acceptable. Indeed, some of us who argued for remain in the referendum campaign said, “If you decide to leave, you take a leap in the dark. You cannot know what the future will look like and you cannot know what, if any, deal we will be offered by the EU or by anyone else.” The electorate, as it was their absolute right to do, listened to those arguments, rejected them and decided to leave anyway. It was their decision to make and, in my view, they were perfectly entitled to make it.

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Ind)]

Even if I accepted my right hon. and learned Friend’s main point about the way that the referendum campaign was conducted by leave, which I do not, does he not accept that in a democracy, minorities have rights? A minority as big as 48%, and a majority in Northern Ireland, in Scotland and in our northern cities, should not be so dismissed.

[Jeremy Wright]

I certainly agree with my hon. Friend that minorities should not be dismissed, and frankly, the way in which we conduct this debate should reflect the fact that 48% of the public voted in a different way from the prevailing outcome. I do not think that we have succeeded in that as a Parliament or in a broader national debate. The truth is that we—Parliament—set out the rules for this referendum in the European Union Referendum Act 2015. As she has just said, many of us participated in the referendum campaign on both sides of the argument, and we stressed that it was the public’s decision to make. When they had made it, we— Parliament—decided to trigger article 50 of the EU treaty.

As someone who has spent more time than is good for anyone looking at article 50, I can tell the House that it does not require the leaving country to do so with a deal. When we—Parliament—decided to trigger the article 50 process, we knew, or we should have known, that one possible outcome was a no-deal outcome. It was not one that we wished to see and not one that we expected to see, but it was one that could have happened, so I am afraid that on this fundamental point, I cannot agree that we do not have a mandate for no deal and therefore that we must proceed as the right hon. Member for Leeds Central sets out in the Bill.