Brexit Deal: Referendum

Paul Masterton Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Susan Elan Jones]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very interesting point.

[Paul Masterton (East Renfrewshire) (Con)]

The hon. Lady said right at the start of her engaging speech that the referendum had left the country polarised and divided. Would a second referendum make the country more or less polarised and divided?

[Susan Elan Jones]

It would be a different sort of referendum because it would be based on the final deal —but I am coming to that, if I get there.

“Realpolitik” was mentioned by the hon. Gentleman who has just been to Germany, the hon. Member for Solihull (Julian Knight). I will bring that word in at this point, because there are realpolitik reasons for having a referendum on the final deal. The Government might claim to be trenchantly opposed to a referendum—I suspect that is what the Minister will say today—but might it not help dig them out of what appears to be an awful hole they are in? Would the idea not also generate real appeal at the other end of the political spectrum—and, I am sure, a cheer or two at next summer’s Glastonbury festival?

Opponents of any sort of referendum in 2019 will take a very different view of all that. They might say that referendums, “just aren’t very British”; that we are not Switzerland, California or Latin America and we do not do that sort of thing—or not very often. Opponents might ask what supporters of a second referendum really want—is it for Parliament to dissolve a result that it does not like until it gets one that it does, which is the political equivalent of a penalty shoot-out that keeps going until the preferred team wins.

There is also the argument that the Archbishop of Canterbury put forward last March, when their lordships considered the Government’s European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill on Report and Third Reading. The archbishop disagreed with those who said that the process for securing Brexit was simple. He stated:

“It would be dangerous, unwise and wrong to reduce the substance of the terms on which we exit the European Union to the result of a binary yes/no choice taken last summer, and the Government should avoid any inclination to oversimplify the outcome of the most complex peacetime negotiations probably ever to have been undertaken.”

However, he also had this to say:

“neither is the complexity of a further referendum a good way of dealing with the process at the end of negotiation. It will add to our divisions; it will deepen the bitterness…Division of our country is not a mere fact to be navigated around like a rock in a stream but something to be healed, to be challenged and to be changed.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 7 March 2017; Vol. 779, c. 1213.]

I am far more sympathetic to the need for a referendum on the final deal, and the more I consider the evidence from the start of this debate, the more I move towards that position.

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[Paul Masterton (East Renfrewshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I am pleased to speak in the debate—it will be for only a couple of minutes, I promise—which combines various petitions on the question of a second referendum regarding Britain’s exit from the European Union.

My constituency recorded one of the highest remain votes in the country—about 76%—so hon. Members might think the electorate there would be champing at the bit for a second go, or at least the opportunity to have a vote on a final deal. However, only 167 voters in East Renfrewshire could be bothered to sign the e-petition on holding a referendum on the final Brexit deal, although it fared significantly better than the petition on the opposite position, on having no referendum on the final deal, which mustered a grand total of 12 signatures from my constituency. Compared with the numbers who signed one or the other of the e-petitions relating to Scottish independence, which we debated in this Chamber last month, that suggests that the question of membership of the European Union simply does not cause the same passion or strength of feeling as the question of Scotland’s place in the United Kingdom. However, it might also speak to the broader feeling that, to be honest, people are scunnered with referendums. Let us be frank: referendums are dreadful, divisive ways of settling major questions. My constituents’ lack of interest in this question points to an exhaustion with binary politics and constitutional wrangling. It would also explain why the only party explicitly offering a second referendum at the last general election—the Scottish Liberal Democrats—secured 2% of the vote in my constituency.

Are people dancing down the streets of Barrhead and Clarkston at the thought of Britain leaving the EU? No, but they are also not drawing the blinds and taking to their beds. They are disappointed, but they are accepting and they want us to get on with it, so it was no surprise that, when I was out and about this weekend, the overwhelming response from leavers, remainers and could- not-care-lessers to Friday’s news was, “Thank God for that.” It is a good, sensible, realistic and pragmatic deal to take us from phase 1 and into the matters of the future trading relationship.

I understand that many people feel really strongly that the UK should remain in the EU and wish to bring about a second referendum in the vain hope of achieving that aim. However, I am afraid that I do not support those calls. I voted remain in the EU referendum not out of any particular love for the European project but because I recognised its value to trade and business, and that, because we are so integrated with our European partners in so many fields, the process of untangling that would be extremely complex. I have not exactly been proven wrong.

However, I accept the result of the referendum, and I am committed to fighting for the best deal possible for East Renfrewshire as we leave the EU. To me, that will be a deal that is focused on and prioritises free trade and boosting strong, sustainable economic performance. I am particularly pleased, as I know my constituents are, that we now have agreement on the status of EU citizens in the UK and vice versa. As we move through to phase 2, I believe we should aim for the freest possible trade in services between the UK and EU member states, ensuring that businesses and citizens have certainty. That is particularly desirable in highly integrated sectors, such as financial services, in which many of my constituents are employed. It is vital that there is no cliff edge.

The Government have made it clear that they will seek a withdrawal agreement, and that the final agreed deal will be incorporated into a new statute. That is welcome. However, timings mean it is possible that that process will take place after we have already left the EU, as the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union accepted. Parliament should have the same opportunity as the Parliaments of the EU27 to have a meaningful vote on the deal on the table before it is signed off. This week, we have an opportunity to ensure that that is the case.

Scrutinising every aspect of the deal extremely closely, challenging the Government on their negotiating stance where we think it is appropriate and ensuring that Parliament has the final say on the final deal is our role as parliamentarians—that is our job. It is what we were elected to do, and provided we are all actually prepared to do it, there is no reason or requirement for a second referendum. We were elected to make the big decisions on behalf of our constituents, and any Member who is incapable or unwilling to do that should not be here.

While I have sympathy with those who want to run through the whole shebang again in the hope of getting a different result, I cannot agree that it is a necessary or sensible way forward. Instead, I simply say: please, God —no more referendums.

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[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir David. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in support of the petition for a ratification referendum, which was signed by no fewer than 864 of my constituents. For the purposes of full disclosure, the other petition, which was against a ratification referendum, was signed by 10.

The Green party fully respects the fact that voters made a decision and delivered a message to Parliament on 23 June last year, but we have also consistently said that the referendum was, and could only be, the start of the democratic process, not the end of it. The voters could not and did not express any opinion on the terms on which the UK should leave the EU, because those terms remained completely obfuscated. The leaders of the leave campaign did not ever want to set out what leave would look like, so it was hard for people to express a view on that.

For example, did the voters instruct the Government to ensure that when the UK leaves the EU it remains in the single market and the customs union, perhaps through membership of the European economic area? No one knows—not the Prime Minister, not the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, and not any Members of the House. Alternatively, did the voters instruct the Government to ensure that the UK leaves the EU, the single market and the customs union? Again, no one knows. Although, we do know that voters were repeatedly and confidently assured by prominent leavers, such as Daniel Hannan MEP, that there would be

“full participation in EU markets”

after withdrawal.

Did the voters instruct the Government and Parliament to ensure that the UK leaves Euratom, the REACH agreement or the European Medicines Agency’s regulatory regime? Again, no one knows, but it seems reasonable to conclude that most voters will not have given such questions any thought, because they did not feature in the referendum campaign, despite regulatory certainty being essential to British businesses.

Did the voters approve the terms of the future relationship agreement negotiated between the UK Government and the EU27? Of course they did not, because they were not told that there would be such an agreement, let alone what would be in it. Indeed, 17 months on, and with just 10 months left to conclude the negotiations, neither the voters nor Members of this House know whether there will be any such agreement before we drop out of the EU on 29 March 2019. However, we do know that voters were blithely assured, again by leavers such as Daniel Hannan, that the terms of the agreement would be “easily” agreed. That is very odd, because it does not look very easy right now.

Thanks to the chaotic and reckless nature of the UK Government’s negotiating strategy, and their stubborn refusal to lay out detailed proposals, we simply have no idea how the Prime Minister and her bumbling Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union plan to square their determination to leave the single market with the rather obvious fact that that implies having a hard border somewhere—either across the island of Ireland or in the middle of the Irish sea.

The Green party believes that a democracy worthy of the name must mean voters having a real say over the biggest decisions affecting their lives. Withdrawal from the EU is simply the most significant decision that Britain has taken since 1939, which is why we have consistently said that the terms of the withdrawal agreement, or departure from the EU without any such agreement, must be subject to a ratification referendum. That ratification referendum must give voters the option of approving the terms of withdrawal negotiated by the Government, or, if they do not like those terms, remaining in the EU—that has to be on the ballot paper as well. In other words, the ratification referendum—let us remember that this is the first referendum on the terms of withdrawal from the EU and the basis for our future relationship—must allow voters the democratic choice between accepting what is actually on offer or cancelling the article 50 notification and remaining a member of the EU.

I want to stress that we are not talking about a second referendum, although that term has been used many times this evening. This is not an attempt to overturn the decision that voters made on 23 June last year. The point is that the leave campaign, very deliberately, never set out what Brexit would look like, and people’s views naturally evolve as more information becomes available, so it is absolutely right that the British people who triggered this process should also sign it off, since once they know the outcome of the current negotiations they can see the terms of the deal and decide whether they like it. If they like what they see, they can go ahead and leave the EU; but if they do not, the option of remaining inside the EU must also be on the table and on the ballot paper.

[Paul Masterton]

Can the hon. Lady clarify whether her proposed—I will not say second referendum—new referendum would provide an option for saying, “No, we don’t like this. We want you to go back and push on these items,” or would it be a binary, all-or-nothing choice, where we either take what is on the table or cancel the whole process?

[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.