European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Phil Wilson Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 22nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)]

I think everybody knows my position; I genuinely believe that any deal should go back to the people for confirmation. They have the right to compare the results of any negotiations between the UK and the EU with the promises made by the now Prime Minister and other leaders of the leave campaign back in 2016, because in 2016 there was a vote to leave, but it was not a vote on how to leave. Brexit started with a referendum and any Brexit deal should therefore be confirmed or rejected by a referendum. This started with the people, and it should end with the people.

There are some who raise the political temperature by using the language of “the people versus Parliament”, but it is those who do not want this deal to go back to the people for a final say who are being disingenuous and cynical when they use such language. There are dozens of parliamentarians in this House who want to include the people in the final decision. They are the ones who are on the side of the people, not those who use the pitch of “the people against Parliament”. But as my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) said during the debate on Saturday, the Government say they are acting on the will of the people. We now have two negotiated withdrawal agreements and the threat of no deal. It seem that, for some, the will of the people takes almost as many forms as there are forms of Brexit.

Why not ask the people once again in a confirmatory and binding vote whether they still want to go ahead? Whatever agreement we achieve should go to the people. If they want to go ahead with Brexit on that basis, it should be implemented and that should be the end of it—no third referendum and no neverendum.

The next tactic deployed by right hon. and hon. Members supporting this agreement is to say, “Let’s just get on with it. People are sick of the process; they are tired of it.” I think we all share that view, but you do not give up on an issue of this magnitude because you are tired—you keep going until you get it right. Three days for debate on this withdrawal agreement is therefore outrageous.

As an example of people’s attitudes, on Saturday the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) said that people, metaphorically speaking, were dying for a decision on Brexit. I agree, so let them make the decision. I say to my constituents that I will vote for a deal as long as it goes back to them to confirm whether they want to go ahead with it or not. I think that is fair. I do not want the deal to get through this House and be implemented without their agreement, because for them Brexit will not be over. We do not know its impact; their jobs will be under threat; and the deal negotiated is not as good as the one we have now. We might try to reinvent the wheel, but we will find out that it is not as round as the original.

Therefore, as I have said, we need to get this over in the right way. We cannot do that if we do not even have access to an economic assessment of the basis of this deal. That is very important when one in five of the people who work in one’s constituency work in manufacturing. I genuinely believe that if we do not put this back to the people, we will live to regret it as a democratic institution and as a country. I do not want the deal to get through this House and be implemented without the people agreeing one way or the other, only to find out that for them Brexit is not over.