Early Parliamentary General Election Bill

Pat McFadden Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 29th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

I begin with the revolutionary thought that if something was a bad idea yesterday, it might just be a bad idea today. I do not believe that the Prime Minister has been pushing for an election because it is impossible to get his deal through. After all, the proposal received its Second Reading last week. This is being done because the Prime Minister wants to avoid proper scrutiny of his proposals before he calls an election, and he has been desperate to run this election since the day he took office, no matter what he says about his reluctance.

There are two reasons that should give us pause for thought. First, depending on the outcome of an election, this does not take no deal off the table. The Prime Minister has made sure of that himself, through his own petulant decision to pull his withdrawal Bill before it could complete its parliamentary stages—before we could even begin the detailed scrutiny that a measure of this importance deserves. If no withdrawal Bill is being discussed before the poll takes place, no deal is still a possibility.

Moreover, we are only in the first phase of this negotiation. Not only is no deal a possibility in the first phase of withdrawal, but, as we know from the political declaration placed before us a week or so ago, it is also a distinct possibility in the second phase. In fact, it is more likely in the altered political declaration than it has been in the past. The possibility of a no-deal exit has not been removed. That is my first point.

[Dr Caroline Johnson]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the only way to completely remove no deal from the table is either to revoke, which his party says it does not want at the moment, or to agree a deal, which his party blocks?

[Mr McFadden]

Those are not the only ways. There are three ways to avoid no deal: we can revoke, as the hon. Lady says, but that is not something we should do without the people having a say; we can agree a deal; or we can go back to the people. There is more than one possibility.

[Dr Caroline Johnson]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr McFadden]

I would like to proceed.

Secondly, what is the right way to reach a resolution on an issue that has been so difficult for us and for the country? Surely the right way to reach a resolution on Brexit, and on the proposals before us, is to properly and fully consider them—not to have the pre-cooked, pre-prepared tantrums of the Prime Minister. The withdrawal agreement Bill is a hugely important piece of legislation—perhaps the most important that this House has considered for many years—and it deserved proper scrutiny.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is simply a dreadful deal, that the attack on workers’ rights, environmental protections and consumer protections is simply appalling, and that we need time to discuss these important matters?

[Mr McFadden]

I do. There are many other points about this deal that we should properly explore, not least because for the first time, the proposal before us is to have two Brexits, not one—one Brexit for one part of the country and another Brexit for the rest of the United Kingdom.

There are those who will say, “You have been discussing all this for three years; you have had plenty of time,” but as others have said in this debate, much of that time was taken up by an internal negotiation within the Conservative party and the Cabinet, with multiple Cabinet resignations, and the specific proposals before us were published only a couple of weeks ago. They are different from the proposals in the past.

[Tim Loughton]

The right hon. Gentleman said that he could not vote for the agreement because it still allowed the possibility of no deal and because that possibility of no deal could happen after the agreement was passed, and following the subsequent negotiations about the nature of the deal. So on that basis, he could never vote for a deal. There is all this nonsense about how we need more time for scrutiny and how all these years were wasted, but he was never going to vote for a European withdrawal Bill. He pledged in his party’s manifesto to uphold Brexit, but he is not going to do that. The only way out of this, therefore, is to have this election, which is why he should vote for it.

[Mr McFadden]

I voted for a number of proposals that would have kept us close to the EU economically, including customs unions, single market arrangements and other proposals. It is not the case that I have opposed everything.

[Mr Vaizey]

Anyone on the Government Benches who voted against the withdrawal agreement proposed by the last Prime Minister cannot really complain if other people voted against different versions of Brexit, because they clearly subscribe to the principle that their interpretation of Brexit should guide their vote.

[Mr McFadden]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a very wise point. When hon. Members such as the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) say, “You have blocked everything”, it is worth remembering that the people who were most vociferously opposed to the deal of the previous Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), were Members from her party, some of whom now occupy Cabinet positions. That is important in the argument to come.

The proposals before us were published only a couple of weeks ago and they depart from the previous proposals in several important ways. First, as I said, they propose two different Brexits for different parts of the UK—one for Northern Ireland and the other for the rest of the UK. Secondly, they chart a course for the future that is much more divergent on some of the rights that hon. Members have mentioned than was the case previously.

[Alberto Costa]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr McFadden]

I am going to wind up soon. In my view, the right way to have dealt with this issue is not to do what the Prime Minister has wanted to do since day one—to go for an election before these proposals could properly and fully be scrutinised by this House and the public—but to have proper scrutiny and debates and consider the amendments that would have been put forward. If we want to consult the public again on Brexit—as the Prime Minister said he wants to do time after time—and let them decide, why not consult them on the specific Brexit proposals of which he is now the champion? For those reasons, I do not think this is the only way to go.

Since the day he took office, it has been part of the Prime Minister’s plan to run a people versus Parliament campaign, despite having opposed several Brexit deals himself, and to blame everyone except the champions of this project for its not proceeding—to blame the European Commission, Parliament and sometimes the civil services and judges. But while this may have been part of his plan since day one, not all of us are willing to fold into it this evening.