Article 50 Extension

Peter Grant Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am grateful for the chance to speak in this debate, and I commend the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) for having secured it.

Despite the Secretary of State’s protestations—I can understand why, out of loyalty to his Prime Minister, he has to make them—the Prime Minister’s deal is finished. She will not get that deal through next week. She will not get any changes to it this week, this month or even this year. She is now acting like a motorist who brings a car back to the garage week after week and then runs to the press expressing her frustration at the mechanic for refusing to take a decision to give an MOT when it is perfectly obvious that she is driving a clapped-out old banger that should have been consigned to the scrapheap weeks before. An extra coat of paint on this deal will not make it road worthy; it should be scrapped, and if there is to be any attempt at a deal, it has to be a deal reached on the basis of consensus and engagement with the whole House, including the 90% who do not agree with the Prime Minister’s vision.

The options are a significant extension, not just for a few weeks or a couple of months; the complete revocation of article 50, which would give a future Government the option of trying again; and crashing out with no deal. It was very noticeable today at Prime Minister’s questions that the Prime Minister repeatedly went through a litany of options that she was refusing to take forward because the House had voted them down. None were voted down by anything like the same calamitous margin as the option she is now determined to bring back for the third time, in flagrant violation of the traditions of the House, which—remember—was supposed to get sovereignty returned to it by this whole Brexit fiasco. Given that the Prime Minister has failed twice to get her deal through the House, surely it is well past time that she and her Government accepted it is not Parliament that is out of step but the Government.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is misinformed. Last week, the House voted down a proposal for a second referendum by 249 votes, which was a crushing defeat for the amendment and demonstrated that there was no support for a second referendum in the House.

[Peter Grant]

One of the Prime Minister’s own allies has just argued very eloquently why the Prime Minister’s deal should also be dead.

With 15 days to go to the cliff edge, Parliament voted to ask for an extension. The Prime Minister quite deliberately used 40% of the available time to do absolutely nothing. Having made a statement on Friday saying she would write this urgently needed letter, it still took her five days. What was she doing? Looking for a pen? A stamp? I could have given her either if she had asked.

[Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)]

We have heard repeatedly from across the Floor that the Government have to follow the democratic will of the people. Does my hon. Friend accept that the 2017 elections to this House and the 2016 elections to the Scottish Parliament also represented the democratic will of the people, that both the Scottish Parliament and SNP Members in this House have repeatedly and resoundingly called for the Government to listen to Scotland and that time and again they have failed to listen to either the Scottish Parliament or this House?

[Peter Grant]

That is a valid point. It is worth recalling that the only time in 25 years when the Conservatives have had a majority in this place was when they had stood on a manifesto to keep us in the single market and the customs union. As soon as they stood on a manifesto to take us out of the single market and the customs union, their majority vanished like snow off a dyke.

[Heidi Allen (South Cambridgeshire) (Ind)]

I think it worth ensuring that the House is aware that in the last five minutes Donald Tusk has confirmed that a short extension will be made available only if the House approves the withdrawal agreement next week. That is clearly not going to happen. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there should be no more smirking at the Dispatch Box, no more playing games and no more poker about no deal? The Government are on the edge of bringing this country down. No more! The Prime Minister must bring indicative votes to the House as a matter of urgency and a national imperative, because the risk that is facing us right now, given that the withdrawal agreement will not succeed next week, is that we are looking at no deal.

The House must be allowed to exercise its democratic mandate on behalf of all our constituents. We must have those indicative votes, unwhipped. Let us not play the game of saying that the House has had the opportunity. We all know how the whipping system works. We need free votes to enable us, as Members of Parliament—representatives of the wellbeing of our constituents—to have our say and to stop this madness now.

[Peter Grant]

I agree with a great deal of what the hon. Lady has said. Perhaps the most telling phrase that she used was “no more playing games”. This is indeed a game to many of these people. Far too often, when we are talking about the most serious threat that these islands have faced during peacetime in recorded history, we see smirks and joking on the Government Front Bench every time an Opposition Member speaks.

I find it incredible that the Secretary of State—perhaps he will now put down his phone—took the best part of half an hour to explain why the Prime Minister was justified in going against the clear will of the House yet again after last Thursday’s vote, and spent about half that time throwing eggs and tomatoes at the Opposition Front Bench. I agree with him to an extent—I do not think that the Labour Opposition’s position has been at all clear, and I do not think that they have been an effective Opposition—but there is no excuse for any Government to say, “We have not caused this disaster by being in government; someone else caused it by not being a good enough Opposition.” If the Government cause a disaster, the Government, and no one else, are responsible for it.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

May I pursue the intervention from the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen)? It seems that there are also rumours on Twitter that the Prime Minister is talking about a general election. Surely it would be the height of irresponsibility to leave the United Kingdom in the furnace of economic meltdown to run a general election without first revoking article 50. If the Prime Minister is calling a general election, she must write a letter to Brussels to get article 50 revoked before she can hold any general election. Anything else would be utterly irresponsible. There is no time: a letter must be written first.

[Peter Grant]

It might well be irresponsible, reckless and thoroughly irrational, but that does not mean that this Prime Minister will necessarily rule it out.

Within the last three or four days—the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) made this point very well earlier—we have received a clear message from the Government. They plainly intended the House to believe that we would be voting for a long extension if the agreement were not accepted.

The Prime Minister has whipped herself to vote against a motion that she herself tabled and presumably supported at the time when she tabled it. The Secretary of State—although he tried to say that this was not what he had done—has commended a motion and later voted against it. As two Members have pointed out, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, on behalf of the Government, has said that asking for a short, one-off extension would be reckless, a few days before the Prime Minister, on behalf of the Government, went off and asked for a short, one-off, reckless extension.

The Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng), who is present, told us that there had been many votes in the House against Scottish National party amendments for revocation. There have not; there have not been any. He told us that the presidential rules for the Joint Committee under the withdrawal agreement did not provide for delegations. Rule 3 of annex VIII refers explicitly to delegations, so the Minister was wrong again. The same Minister told my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) that during the transition period we would still be in the European Union. That was a clear statement from the Dispatch Box, and it was absolute nonsense.

We have reached a point at which the House can no longer take at face value anything said by Ministers at that Dispatch Box. One of the most ancient and surely most sacred traditions of this House is that when a Minister speaks at the Dispatch Box, their word can be taken as being correct. That no longer applies, not through any ill will on behalf of individual Ministers but because far too often a Minister says something that was true today and different Ministers say something tomorrow that makes it cease to be true. This is no way to run a Government and no way to run a Parliament.

[Anna Soubry]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was in the House on, I think, Monday when the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng), who is present now, was answering an urgent question or whatever—there have been so many—stood at the Dispatch Box and said it is

“very plain that if we are given the meaningful vote, we will seek a short extension, if we get that through the House, and if we do not, we will seek a longer extension.”—[Official Report, 18 March 2019; Vol. 656, c. 818.]

So that is yet another Minister giving a promise—a commitment—at that Dispatch Box which, with respect, has not been worth the paper it has been printed on in Hansard.

[Peter Grant]

I thank the right hon. Lady for giving yet another example. It is becoming increasingly clear that when Ministers come to the Dispatch Box to defend their Government’s handling of Brexit, they will say what they think needs to be said, and if it happens to coincide with the truth that is useful, but if it does not, someone has to come back afterwards and correct it. How can we expect European negotiators to have any faith in what British Government representatives are saying when time and again it is abundantly clear that we cannot take at true face value anything Ministers say from the Dispatch Box? We have a system of government and Parliament that depends entirely on being able to trust what Ministers are saying, and Ministers are simply not bothering to check the facts before they declare them in some circumstances.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the real crisis of democracy is not that we are asking the people again, because I can never understand why more democracy can be less democracy, but that this Government ignore democratic votes in this House?

[Peter Grant]

That is part of the crisis of democracy, but it is certainly not the only part of our democracy that is in crisis.

The Government claim to be working to respect the will of Parliament and the will of the people, although it has been made perfectly clear that the people are not allowed to change their minds. The about-turn from the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster’s speech to the Prime Minister’s actions, both on behalf of the Government, tell us that five days is enough time to allow 100% of the Cabinet to change their minds but almost three years is not enough time to allow 3% of the population of these islands to change their minds, because it only needs 3% of the population to change their minds to get a different result in another referendum. The Government think there has been a significant shift in public opinion; that is why they do not want to allow the public to have another say. If they were confident that leave would win another fair, uncheated referendum they would not be running away from it so quickly.

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

There is a rumour that the Prime Minister intends to make a statement in No. 10 this afternoon, or this evening possibly. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it would be far more appropriate—in fact, it would be an insult to this House if this was not the case—for her to come here first before making any such statement?

[Peter Grant]

I am not sure that what is appropriate and what is an insult to this House is a consideration for the Prime Minister and indeed the rest of the Government; they will do what they think will get their way through Parliament regardless of whether it upholds the traditions of this House. I find it astonishing that I am defending the traditions of this place to a Bench full of Conservative Ministers. When I first got elected, I never thought I would be doing that, but we have a Government who have been held formally to be in contempt of Parliament and I believe a lot of their actions—certainly in the past couple of weeks, and what they intend to do next Monday by all accounts—demonstrate that that contempt of Parliament has only deepened since the House had to pass that shameful resolution against them last year.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Peter Grant]

I have given way a good number of times and need to make some progress.

When we see the First Ministers of the national Governments of Scotland and Wales being frozen out almost completely and the leader of a non-governmental party effectively being able to pull the strings of half the Conservative party—the leader of a party whose total election vote in 2017 is smaller than the population of Scotland’s second city, not even our biggest city—we have to wonder where the democratic principle in that is.

It became quite clear last weekend that attempts to persuade DUP Members to back the deal were not about persuading them that it was actually better than they had thought, or that the backstop was not as big a threat to them as they had thought; it was about trying to find out how much money could be dug out of the Treasury to buy their support. What kind of an honourable way is that for a Government to work? We know that DUP Members do not agree with the deal, and that they think it will be damaging to their constituents, but the Government are trying to send in money so that their constituents will not notice how damaging it is. In any other context, that practice would be viewed very differently; it would not be considered an honourable practice at all.

[Bill Grant (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned how minorities can lead a majority. Is it not the case that in Scotland, a small group of six, rather than the Government, has inflicted tax rises on the people of Scotland?

[Peter Grant]

There is an important difference there. The reason that the Scottish Green party was able to have some influence on the Scottish Government’s business is that when it was invited to talks, it accepted the invitation. Other parties with significantly more political clout, and therefore presumably much more opportunity to influence those talks, choose not to accept their invitations. They went away in a huff. They wanted to have something to complain about, but they could not find anything proper to complain about so they invented something. We heard their bogus outrage about a tax that has actually been legalised and is part of the policy of the hon. Gentleman’s own party within this Government. The Conservative party did not take part in discussions with the Government of Scotland because it turned down the invitation to do so. Our party has often not taken part in discussions with the Government of the United Kingdom because we have not even had an invitation, and neither have any of the other parties represented here apart from the DUP—although it has no representatives here today.

The United Kingdom faces a grim choice between two futures. We are now almost hours, rather than days, away from the time when the only option left will be to revoke article 50 or to plunge off the cliff edge without a deal. We are running out of time for anything else. The Prime Minister has taken us 99% of the way from the referendum to cliff edge day, yet she still has no idea how she is going to avoid the cliff edge.

The people of Scotland are facing a choice between two futures as well. It is becoming increasingly and alarmingly clear what our future will be if we remain tied to this failed and dysfunctional Union of so-called equals. Do we want to be part of a Union that treats elected national leaders with contempt and kowtows to the leaders of parties that in the not-too-distant past have invoked homophobia and bigotry as a way to garner electoral support? Do we want to be part of a true partnership of equals in which half a billion people and their Governments will stand shoulder to shoulder with the Government of a nation of barely 3 million people to ensure that those 3 million cannot be bullied by a bigger neighbour? Or will we remain part of a Union that has made it perfectly clear that, even though our people rejected this disastrous Brexit by a majority of almost 2:1, we will have to take it because we are part of that Union?

I want to see a long extension to article 50, because I want the people of the United Kingdom to have a chance to say, “We made a mistake.” I do not need to hope, because I know with absolute certainty that, before very much longer, the people of Scotland will be given the chance to say, “In 2014, we made a mistake.” This time, there can be no doubt whatever what the choice of the people of Scotland will be. I look forward to seeing the people of Scotland taking our place beside our Irish neighbours and cousins as full, independent sovereign members of the equal partnership of the European Union.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Owen Paterson (North Shropshire) (Con)]

I will be brief. I have listened carefully to the debate, at the beginning of which I had no intention of speaking. I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), who touched on several points with which I entirely agreed, but I have reached a totally different conclusion.

Three international events are important. First, President Tusk said that we need to vote on the withdrawal agreement again. Given your stricture, Mr Speaker, which I support, that we cannot vote on the same text again, does that count as changed circumstances? I am very interested in your thoughts on that. You might like to address the matter in answer to a point of order later. Secondly, the Le Point magazine website put out a report at 1.6 pm that President Macron had stated that unless there is “a clear project”—that was the translation—France intends to veto any extension. Thirdly, there have been interesting reports from a respected BBC journalist that the letter from the Prime Minister has gone out too late for some Prime Ministers to consult their legislatures so they may not have the chance to make a decision this week. That is yet another muddle in this saga.

The hon. Member for Wirral South made a point about populism. I have said the following goodness knows how many times inside and outside the Chamber. The conundrum we face is that the House had three democratic mandates around the referendum. David Cameron said, “If you vote Conservative in 2015, I will give you an in/out referendum. It will not be advisory—it will be decisive. If I have a majority, the House of Commons will deliver what the people want.”

[Peter Grant]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Paterson]

Time is short and I would like to press on. Other people want to speak.

David Cameron won the election and then, probably to his horror, he had to deliver the referendum. The then Foreign Secretary made it clear when the referendum Bill was going through the House that MPs were handing back their sovereignty to the people and that the House would honour the people’s decision, whatever it was. The referendum was not advisory, but decisive. It was the biggest vote in British history and 17.4 million people voted for the broad slogan of “take back control”. The immediate question was, “What does that actually mean?” The Conservative party interpreted it as meaning that we would honour leave if people voted for a Conservative Government in the 2017 election. It would mean leaving the single market, the customs union and the remit of the European Court of Justice. The Labour party broadly supported that. So 85% of the votes in 2017 went to the two main parties, which supported that proposition. That means that more than 60% of the seats in this Parliament represent that proposal.

To pick up on the comments made by the hon. Member for Wirral South, I am genuinely worried. This was a huge step by the British people. It was the first time, following a succession of referendums, that they had gone against the wishes of the establishment—the political establishment, the commercial establishment, the media establishment. We had had the 1975 referendum, the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland referendums and the alternative vote referendum. Each time, the people had gone along with what the establishment wanted. What we are now wrestling with this afternoon—the hon. Lady raises the question of populism—is how we deliver that.

My contention—I really mean it—is that I am seriously worried about the long-term damage to the integrity of our institutions. People are writing to me and sending emails. I have been mocked for making one particular comment. A guy came up to me on the tube and gave me his visiting card—the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh) picked me up on this; she can come to my office and I will give her the visiting card of this guy if she wants to see it—saying, “Please stick to your guns, because we depend on you to see it delivered.” I appeal to Members of both main parties. The position of the Liberal Democrats and the SNP is totally honourable. They have been consistently against leaving the EU and voted against it. Of course, the Liberal Democrats got crushed in the general election as a result, but the two main parties did really well in the general election. The Prime Minister got the second-largest number of votes in history.