Leaving the European Union

Paul Scully Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 200165 relating to leaving the European Union.

The e-petition states:

“Leave the EU immediately

The Government should walk away from the Article 50 negotiations and leave the EU immediately with no deal. The EU looks set to offer us a punishment deal out of spite. Why wait another 18 months when we could leave right away and fully take back control of our country, lawmaking powers and borders?

The EU looks set to offer us a punishment deal out of spite, insisting we pay tens of billions of pounds as part of a ‘settlement fee’ and continue to accept the jurisdiction of EU courts even after we’ve left. Meanwhile pro-EU MPs in Labour, the Lib Dems and the SNP, along with unelected Lords, are attempting to block Brexit, the longer we remain a member the more opportunity they have to interfere. Why wait almost another 2 years when we could just leave right away?”

Mrs Moon, I think we have two firsts today. It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship for what I think is the first time during my time as a member of the Petitions Committee. Secondly, I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Suella Fernandes), to her place. I was delighted to see her promotion. I know she will do a fantastic job at this important time.

We have now debated a number of petitions on the EU—I think I have become the EU specialist on the Petitions Committee, mainly because I can grab hold of the issue and speak about Brexit until the cows come home—but clearly there is still an appetite for this type of debate. The last time I looked, there were 137,542 signatures on this e-petition, and the constituencies with the highest numbers of signatures seem to be in Kent and Lincolnshire, the Isle of Wight, Clacton and some parts of Cornwall.

I can understand why people feel the way set out in the petition. I do not necessarily agree with them, but I can understand why they feel that way. I voted for the Referendum party in 1997. I joined the Conservative party two weeks later when I saw the error of my ways, having helped Tony Blair to get into power and a Liberal Democrat to get into Sutton. My aim since has been to try to rectify the local matter and increase the Conservative majority, but also to leave the EU. However, having wanted to leave the EU for 20-odd years, I believe it is absolutely right that we do it in the best way possible—the way that works for everybody.

When I was speaking in various debates and on various panels on the EU referendum, I could see a real disjoint—people who felt set aside from the whole debate. To be frank, some people would be happy to be a little poorer to achieve their long-term aim. Again, I do not regard that as the right view, but we have to accept that there are people out there who feel passionately and urgently that they want to leave the EU immediately. Until we recognise that, we will never heal the divide, and we will never settle the current uncertainty, which has been whipped up by both sides of the debate.

To illustrate that, I remember a debate I attended in Balham in which, despite the fact that I am the son of an immigrant, I was accused of supporting migration policies whereby I would machine-gun migrants in the channel. I thought, “Crikey! What rhetoric is this? What kind of approach is this to any sensible argument?” However, as I said at the time, “You keep patting me on the head and you keep patronising me, because I know that will drive a whole load of voters into the leave camp,” because those people felt they were not being listened to.

Why do I not believe that to walk away without a deal is the right thing to do? I have wanted us to leave the EU for a number of years now, but I am patient enough to know that this Government are moving on the right track; we should give them every chance, and we should use up every day of the two years of article 50 negotiations to make sure that we get the best deal for this country and the EU.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes a very particular point. In St Albans, 190 people signed this e-petition—a minuscule number. I agree with him. Why on earth does this e-petition call for all negotiations to stop now, when we are nowhere near reaching the deal? It just assumes that we will not get a deal. It is very defeatist and my hon. Friend is absolutely right that we should use every day to make sure we get a deal.

[Paul Scully]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. I intend to talk about the need to be optimistic. Just looking around the Chamber, I know that those gathered here to participate in the debate differ in our opinions, but we must be united in being optimistic for our prospects, whatever deal we strike with the EU. We have to talk up our economy, because the best way of creating, fostering and building up uncertainty is to talk down our economy.

That is not to say that we should be arrogant. We need to move on from this stereotypical idea that we are some sort of post-colonial power, sweeping everyone before us; that is not what we are saying at all. What we are saying is that the arguments in the referendum essentially centred on three areas: first, sovereignty and taking control of our laws; secondly, migration and making a fairer immigration system that we could better manage and better control; and thirdly, our prosperity and trade. When we leave the EU, we will take the first two back into our control. We will have a fully accountable Parliament and we will decide the laws that we pass, even if we give away or decide to share some of the responsibility for the decisions we have to make with groups such as NATO, or in areas such as environmental collaboration with relevant institutions. None the less, we will choose to do those things, so they will all come down to the UK and the UK Parliament. The position on migration will be similar. Having had the clear steer from the Government that we are ending freedom of movement, we will choose to what extent we extend visas and invitations to people with the skills and the qualities that we need and want in this country.

The one thing we cannot do on our own is build up trade partnerships, because trading, by definition, needs two sides—someone to buy and someone to sell. We are looking outward and the Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade is doing a fantastic job of building up relationships with other countries; we should grab hold of the opportunities that Brexit and our ability to handle free trade agreements offer, but nobody is suggesting that will we just leave Europe, pull up the drawbridge and fail to trade with our closest partners, the 27 remaining member states of the European Union.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a responsibility for the public, industry and the Government to make the case that, if we were to crash out, the impact would be immediate in, for example, the car industry, which is a big factor in my constituency? Switching to World Trade Organisation rules immediately would lead to an increased tariff of 10% on that industry’s products, which would have a very damaging effect.

[Paul Scully]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question, but I challenge the language he used—“crash out”—as it goes back to what I was saying about a sense of optimism. We are right to plan for no deal, because it would be patently ridiculous if we did not have every avenue covered as we seek to build our relationships with the rest of the EU; but saying that we will “crash out” suggests that there will be no planning at all, and I just do not share the pessimism of that view. Regarding the car industry, the hon. Gentleman gives a strong argument for why we need to do a deal and why countries such as Germany, which sells 10% of its cars to us, would want to do a deal with us. We can set our tariffs as we see fit, whether that is 10% or not, if we leave without a deal, but then we would have to have an equal tariff with other countries, unless we have a free trade agreement with them.

[Royston Smith (Southampton, Itchen) (Con)]

This is not a competition, but not only did I vote for the Referendum party in 1997, I was a member of it before I joined the Conservatives, not necessarily because I wanted to get out of the EU but because I felt it was time people had their say.

On “crashing out”, does my hon. Friend agree that the people who say “Let’s go now,” are pushing us to crash out, rather than to wait and see whether we can get a good and favourable deal?

[Paul Scully]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. That is exactly right. We need to use the time imaginatively, sensibly and constructively to ensure that we do not crash out, and that if we have no deal it is because we choose to have no deal—because we feel that is the best way for us, rather than because we have been forced into it by a knee-jerk reaction.

We were shown the benefit of using the time by the first part of the negotiations, which concluded just before Christmas and looked at three things: the Northern Irish border, EU citizens living in the UK and British citizens living in the rest of the EU, and the amount of the financial settlement we might pay. While we were getting in a funk because of some of the newspaper headlines and the rhetoric that was being built up, the Prime Minister got her head down and carried on. Everyone was despairing on the Monday, but by Friday she had come up with a really good deal and was able to demonstrate that both sides had compromised. That is what a negotiation is. Sitting there thinking we will get everything we want is fanciful, and I say that as someone who would love to have everything he wanted. It is just not going to happen. That is the whole point of a negotiation. If we are to have a fruitful ongoing partnership with our European friends, it is really important that we take that time, and the Prime Minister ably demonstrated that before Christmas.

I have done a few public meetings in Sutton in which I have tried to give people my sense of a Brexit update as neutrally as I can. I always say, “Don’t read The Independent and The Guardian about Brexit because you will be going to hell in a handcart whatever you do, and don’t necessarily read things like the Daily Express, because everything is going to be absolutely sunny. We know it will be somewhere in between.” That is a fact of life.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

As a London MP like me, has the hon. Gentleman had representations from people who work in the City and are worried—based not on reading The Guardian but on their own working lives—that their EU passporting rights could be lost? People have said to me that as we were not in the euro or part of Schengen and had a generous rebate, we were only about 60% in anyway. Does the hon. Gentleman have any comment on that?

[Paul Scully]

Yes, I have had people talk to me about financial services. The financial services industry is important for Sutton and Cheam, for London and for the country—about 11% of our entire tax take comes from that industry, and it creates a lot of jobs. That is another good reason not to leave immediately without giving any thought to what happens to every single industry, including financial services, manufacturing, education and the medical sector. It all needs to be put in the pot.

On the idea that we need to panic about financial services, there are things we can do. This year the European Union is bringing in MiFID II—the second markets in financial instruments directive—and we had already been talking about a number of regulatory equivalence issues, at the behest of the UK, before the referendum. There is plenty more we can do, and we need to ensure that we develop that in our talks, to demonstrate that the financial services industry in London has the rule of the law that the EU is looking for, and the right time zone, language and support systems, so that it continues to be an attractive place in which to settle and remain for not just European financial institutions but worldwide ones.

On how we think the negotiation might pan out, we have to be really careful of the rhetoric. We knew how it was likely to pan out in the first place. A friend of mine, Syed Kamall, the MEP who is the leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists group in the European Parliament, wrote an article—I have also heard a few of his speeches on this—in which he detailed how he thought the negotiation would pan out. In it, he talked about how we need to be clearer about our priorities, but not necessarily reveal our hand, and that we need to set the right tone regarding co-operation. No one is talking about the need to break up the EU; all we have said is that we are leaving the EU. We are not leaving Europe. We want to work with Europe as one of a number of trading areas around the world.

We need to understand how the EU negotiates as it tries to grab some of our markets and close down some of our discussions. That is natural: we have talked about trade, but there is an element of competition. Trade is very much a partnership; competition can get a bit more feisty, because we are looking after our own interests. We must bear in mind, of course, that not all the negotiation will be rational. To be frank, the debates we have in this place are not always rational, so imagine multiplying that by 27, with all the competing priorities in the EU. It is no accident that many free trade agreements have not been dealt with speedily. The Australian trade agreement has primarily been delayed by Italian tomato growers, and the Canadian agreement has only just come to fruition—Romanian visas were one thing stopping it. There are many little competing priorities.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The main thing is that on a number of occasions, the European Commission has been keen to press on with international trade deals but has been unable to because one member state or another has prevented it. Does that not destroy the argument that the European Commission has been imposing laws on the United Kingdom against the latter’s wishes? Is it not the case that in every major decision regarding approval of European Commission proposals, the United Kingdom has played an equal and often decisive part?

[Paul Scully]

The hon. Gentleman was right in the first half of his intervention: there are undoubtedly competing priorities. However, that is not necessarily the same as the laws, rules and directives that come from the European Commission. The 27 member states, individually or in small groups, often feel disempowered by the moves from the centre, from Brussels.

On asking for more than we want, I do not think that the EU understands our negotiation style sometimes. I believe that if we had asked for more when we were trying to renegotiate many things before the referendum, including the emergency brake, we would have got some movement, and we would have voted to remain in the EU. Instead, we did not ask for enough, and we did not even get that. So in this negotiation, it is absolutely right that we are ambitious, that we ask for perhaps more than we want. That is why we need time. We might do a deal on the courtroom steps, perhaps even on the very last day, but we need to be prepared to walk away as well. There is absolutely no point in saying, “You know what? We’re happy to sign up to anything you ask us for,” because if we do they will offer us a deal that we can easily refuse and we will never get anywhere. If we end up staying in the EU in all but name, that will not be good for the country, for the division and uncertainty I spoke about earlier, or for the other 27 nations when they want—and they clearly do—to seek to reform the EU.

[Matt Western]

The hon. Gentleman is generous to give way again. I want to come back to the point that in talking about walking away, we are essentially talking about having no deal. It is crucial for many manufacturers in this country, as well as for other organisations and businesses, that they have some visibility or certainty that we will have a deal that is as close as possible to or as good as what we have today. It should be the responsibility of Government and all of us here to ensure that our businesses, our economy and our jobs are protected in the future.

[Paul Scully]

I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman about certainty. That was why I was explaining that we need to look at every area and sector, and every permutation and possibility. We talk about how we must do a deal—ideally, a bespoke deal that works for as many people as possible in the UK and the EU—but it may not be within our gift to do a deal. We talk about walking away, but if we do not sort out article 50 within the two years, we will walk away and no longer be members of the EU. That is what article 50 says and that is how it is.

People may talk in this debate, as they have in others, about whether article 50 is reversible. Now, I am not a lawyer but I am not too bad at grammar, and when I read article 50 I can see clearly that there is one way effectively to reverse it, and that is by getting the unanimous agreement of all the European countries to extend the deadline. That could be to something like 50 years—it could almost be like the lease on Hong Kong, with the issue pushed away to a time so far in the future that effectively we remain in the EU. Essentially, that is the only way.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very fair speech, but does he accept that the view of Lord Kerr, the author of article 50, and the weight of legal opinion in the United Kingdom is that article 50 is unilaterally revocable by the United Kingdom?

[Paul Scully]

I have read what Lord Kerr said, and I accept that he has said that article 50 is revocable, but that does not make it revocable. He may have written article 50, but he is not a lawyer. He may look back and wish he had written it a little bit clearer in the first place.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

What about the weight of legal opinion? What about the fact that it is not only Lord Kerr, who wrote article 50, but the weight of legal opinion that says the United Kingdom can revoke article 50 without anyone’s permission but our own?

[Paul Scully]

There is some legal opinion that says that. The hon. Lady talks about the weight of legal opinion, but I do not agree that it is the weight of legal opinion. There are arguments about it. It is such a short paragraph, and it is pretty clear to my mind that we cannot unilaterally revoke article 50.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

Is it not ironic that the lawyers who brought the case under the guidance of Gina Miller to require Parliament to enact the article 50 notification decided that article 50 was not revocable? The entire case was premised on that.

[Paul Scully]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that powerful point.

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[Antoinette Sandbach]

I hear the chuntering from my hon. Friend, but the reality was that it was not the issue that was being decided on. If there was any merit in that point in the judgment, it was clearly obiter dictum, as it is called.

[Paul Scully]

That exchange is interesting, but it is moot, because we are off. The point is whether we are off tomorrow, as the petitioners want, or whether we are off at the end of the two years under article 50.

I sum up my remarks by saying that I understand the petitioners’ frustration and why they want to leave now. We need to speak to them, but we also need to speak to the people, some of whom are here today, who want the future situation to be as close to the status quo as possible and for us to find a middle path. We can only do that with a sense of agreement, a sense of proportionality and a sense of optimism that wherever we go in the world, we will still be trading, partnering and collaborating with Europe. Environmental pollution does not stop in the channel. Terrorist threats do not stop in the channel. We will clearly need to collaborate with our European partners.

[Matt Western]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way again. I totally concur with him and his summary, and I urge the Government to speak out to the audience who put forward the petition, because leaving now would have such an immediate and seismic effect on our industries, such as the car industry, which is already well down—14% down on 12 months ago. Leaving now would be absolutely catastrophic. The public need to be told just what the impact would be if we jumped out tomorrow.

[Paul Scully]

There is plenty of uncertainty that we need to get rid of. I do not have time to start attacking some of the #DespiteBrexit things that we might otherwise go into. Yes, we need to speak to both sides. My concern is that while people are feeling disaffected on one side, we have the extreme version on the other that wants to unpick the referendum, and that is not helpful. Not only will it not happen, but it is creating even more uncertainty, particularly for EU citizens. The rhetoric around EU citizens on social media is invariably from people who want to unpick the referendum saying, “See what has happened,” and jumping on the bandwagon of things that may or may not be covered in the press, rather than being from people creating some sort of division and making others feel unwelcome. We have to be careful with the language, be optimistic and talk up our economy.

We should have confidence that we will be a single nation dealing with our own free trade agreements. That will make this country the buccaneering, maritime trading nation that it can be. As someone who has run a small business for 25 years, I know the agility and nimbleness we can have. That will stand us in good stead, but the Minister has a challenge over the next few months, because it is not going to be easy. It will be a complex negotiation, and I wish her good luck. I know we are going to get a great deal. I am optimistic that we will get a bespoke deal that will work for everyone.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon. When I speak in these petition debates on a Monday afternoon, it is usually because of the weight of popular opinion and the number of signatures that have been recorded in my constituency, but in the case of today’s petition, with 137,409 signatures, only 132 people in Ealing Central and Acton signed it. I had intended just to intervene, but I agreed almost 100% with what the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach) said, which is unusual because she is on the other side, and her speech made me want to say a little more than a one-sentence intervention.

I have a couple of points to make. First, 132 out of 137,409 is 0.09%—a tiny number of people. I am a self-confessed remoaner or remainiac, as are more than 70% of my constituents. That is not even the highest percentage in Opposition seats. In the 2015 election—I have not seen the figures for 2017—we had the 25 most pro-remain seats and the 25 most pro-leave seats. The percentage of remain voters is even higher in the 25 most pro-remain seats. I do not think that anyone, even ardent leavers, could think it is a good idea to pull the plug on the negotiations—to cut the cord, put up the white flag, exit the stage, and throw in the towel—at this stage, when the negotiations are already under way. My constituent, Ruben Kenton-Harris, who is an intern in my office this term as part of his degree and whose opinion I trust on these matters, has said that he cannot understand why anyone would ever sign the petition. It makes no sense at all, because when jumping out of a plane, it is surely best to have a parachute. Going to WTO terms, with no say whatsoever, seems suicidal.

[Paul Scully]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Dr Huq]

Okay, I will. My speech is really just an outgrown intervention, so I will not take loads of interventions, but I will take the hon. Gentleman’s, because he took mine.

[Paul Scully]

I thank the hon. Lady. She says that she cannot see a reason why people might sign the petition. Although she might not agree with the petition, can she not see that disaffection and disassociation with this place, and some of the arguments that are being put forward, may be a good reason to sign the petition?

[Dr Huq]

The hon. Gentleman makes a wise point, which shows the danger of standing up and trying to make a speech on the spot. I agree that discontent with the system and with politics has made people sign the petition. Arguably that also explains things such as the Trump phenomenon, which was kind of a vote for “none of the above”. When people are so frustrated with elites and people in ivory towers who seem removed from their everyday lives, I can see why they might sign such petitions. However, like many things in the Brexit debate, what might look good on first glance starts to fall apart after a close look at the detail. The promise of £350 million for the NHS is one such example. I think we had a one-off injection of that amount for the winter crisis, but it was meant to be every week. That is what was promised on the side of the bus. It sounds good, but in reality it falls apart.

My hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) talked about certainty and predictability. We live in uncertain times, so people want some sort of predictability. I do not read The Guardian in isolation—I mainly read it on Saturday for the TV guide—and I have been taking soundings from small businesses in my constituency. Park Royal, which at one stage was the biggest industrial estate in western Europe, is in my constituency, and I have visited various businesses there. Savoir Beds, in NW10, used to make hand-stitched mattresses and things for the Savoy hotel. I think it still supplies the Savoy, but its products are now available on the open market. Savoir Beds said to me early on, “Can you reverse Brexit?”

When I go to businesses I say, “Is there anything that I should be doing for you?” They all seem to be saying, “Can you reverse Brexit?” Initially, they found that their orders were going up because of the falling pound, but now that they want to buy more supplies that has come back to bite them. They have staff from all 27 member states. ChargeBox in Chiswick is really worried about that. When people go to a shopping centre, they can plug in their phone into a ChargeBox machine to charge it. Apparently, it makes sense to buy those machines, because people spend £35 more per head if there is a ChargeBox machine in a shopping centre. I visited ChargeBox the other week, and its representatives made those points to me about the talent pool from the 27 nations. That is in addition to the fact that businesses are finding the falling pound very difficult to work with, even though at one stage it might have looked like a correction.

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[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon.

We have to take this petition at face value and bear in mind what it is saying to us: that people are frustrated—that those who voted to leave the European Union want to see something more quickly than they are seeing at the moment. I fully appreciate why they feel that way. All the life decisions we make mean we want to move on, and in this country we are used to a quick turnaround—to Governments changing office in the middle of the night, with one Prime Minister leaving as the next arrives, before the sun has come up on the election results—but the negotiations cannot be the same. I appeal to those people who signed the petition to have patience, to think about how important the process is to the future of our country and to give our politicians time to find the best way ahead.

It is fair to say that the petition did not have a lot of support in my constituency. Fewer than 100 people signed it—93, in fact—which is not a huge surprise in Edinburgh West, because at the referendum the vast majority voted to remain in the EU, as was the case throughout Scotland. Although I take the point made by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) that the referendum was a UK-wide vote and I agree with him entirely that it was, I do not accept that the result had a significant majority—it was the narrowest of majorities. Again, that is a source of frustration for a lot of people and a reason why we should be extremely careful about what we do. The phrase “crashing out” worries me: the implication of crashing in any form, whether physically or financially, is always serious, because there is no control. We cannot know what the outcome will be.

[Paul Scully]

Does the hon. Lady agree that the phrase “crashing out” tends to come from the people who want to unpick the referendum? I did not use that phrase and it is important that we do not use it. We are planning for the possibility of no deal, but not crashing out of anything.

[Christine Jardine]

That would be the reality, though: we would simply say, “We’re going.” That would be like a crash because if a car skids in the winter, the driver does not know the outcome until they stop. If we were to leave the European Union without a deal in place, a plan or a route map of where we were going, we would have no control over the future of this country’s economy.

I ask the people who signed the petition to think about it from the other perspective. There is an implication that the European Union is somehow being vindictive—that it is not dealing with us and giving us the best possible deal. Surely, if the roles were reversed, we would expect the European Union to protect our interests from France, Germany, Italy or any of the other 27 countries. We would expect our interest to be preserved, so we should respect their right to negotiate the best terms for them. For me, the impact on this country of leaving the European Union without that route map, agreement or deal is more important. Where would we go? What would we do? What would be the impact on our trade, and on the tens of thousands of jobs in this country that depend on our trade with the European Union?

There has been a lot of talk about the car industry: what would happen to companies such as BMW if we were to just walk away? What would be its arrangements? How would it get the spare parts from Europe, which suddenly would be in a foreign market? BMW is a vital British employer, and it would suddenly be cut off from part of its own company. There are others, too. We would stop them from moving goods about the EU. How would the borders operate under those circumstances? They are not ready—there is no customs arrangement. How would we trade? There has been a lot of talk about queues at the ports. I ask Government Members to think about the impact on the farmers in north-east Scotland if there were no customs or trading arrangements with the European Union. How would they sell their beef? I am sure that hon. Members agree that the impact would be disastrous, because they could not get their products to Europe.

What about our airports? In my constituency, there is a lot of concern about the impact on the airport—a vital link that provides Scotland with connectivity not just within Scotland, the UK and Europe, but to the rest of the world, too. There are fewer than 18 months to go before we leave the European Union—that is the period of time that most international carriers look ahead, to negotiate their routes. There is acknowledged hesitation among foreign carriers, particularly American ones, to commit to routes from the UK because they do not know whether they will be able to fly to Europe. If we leave the European Union without a deal, what happens to the open skies policy? That is not covered by WTO rules. What would they do—a separate deal? How would we have a separate deal if we walked away? Walking away means no deal.

There is a potential impact on the pound and on trade. In the immediate aftermath of the referendum, the pound plummeted more than in the devaluation under Harold Wilson’s Government. We hear a lot about it recovering, but it is recovering from a very low base. Some people say that that is good for exports, but it is not good for imports—for buying goods—and for our tourists going abroad. Where would we derive the benefit that we were told there would be from leaving the European Union if we just walked away without a deal?

It is not a secret that I am not in favour of leaving the EU. I do not believe that it is certain by any measure that it will go ahead. I believe that the triggering of article 50 can be revoked. The weight of legal opinion is that we can say that we do not need Europe’s opinion, so we can revoke it on our own. Brexit is not a done deal yet: we can still repair our damaged relationship with Europe. But if we have to leave, we have to get the best possible terms for the United Kingdom. We have to be as close to the centre of Europe as possible. We have to be part of its trade, in the customs union and in the single market. We have to do what is best for the people of this country.

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[Paul Scully]

I pay tribute to all hon. Members for such a good-natured debate—unlike some other debates and headlines. I am dismayed at some of the words spoken to my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach). They are demeaning and deplorable, and frankly, they do not get anybody on either side of the debate anywhere. For that reason, I am pleased that the words chosen in the debate have been useful and careful. To the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant), I say that I chose the word “buccaneering” carefully and used it as an adjective about being adventurous.

When it comes to Brexit, my eyes look to the future, not the past. I am pleased to hear the Minister say that there will be no second referendum. That would weaken our negotiating stance, prolong uncertainty and fuel the very divisions that the people who are calling for that referendum complained about in the first instance.

It is important that we understand the petitioners and that our approach is not patronising. Many people up and down the country signed the petition. They are not too old and they are not stupid. We have had a long debate. They have the facts that the Committees have come up with since the referendum, but they still signed this petition. We must appreciate what they are saying.

The petition says, “Why wait?”, but as we have heard, we are not waiting. We are working hard, whether that is on the EU (Withdrawal) Bill to ensure that we leave in an orderly fashion, or on the negotiations in which we know we have to compromise at some point. I appreciated President Macron’s interview over the weekend. Although I do not agree with everything that he said, he said it in a fair way. He was representing the views of French people, which is his job. It is up to our Government and us as parliamentarians to represent our people in the UK.

We are making the decision for 40 or 50 years—it is not a short-term decision—so although I am counting down the days to 29 March 2019, it is important to get it right and to concentrate on getting the best bespoke deal that we can. I ask petitioners to stay with us, to remain patient, to talk up our abilities as a country and as an economy, to believe in Britain and to know that our best days are ahead of us.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 200165 relating to leaving the European Union.