Leaving the EU: Business of the House

Philippa Whitford Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant]

I have enormous respect for the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), the Chair of the Exiting the European Union Committee, on which I serve, and I know that he would show latitude where possible, but it would be a bit much if Committee members starting taking questions from those giving evidence, as the hon. Gentleman suggested. I say this to him and some of his hon. Friends: if they want to throw out accusations about failing to respect the result of a referendum that meant that Scotland has to keep sending Members of Parliament to sit in the Palace of Westminster, doing that to an SNP MP, or any Scottish MP, while they are delivering a speech in the Palace of Westminster, when we are only here because we do accept the result of that referendum, is not the most credible time for it. I have said often enough that I respect the right of the people to speak in a referendum. I also respect the right of the people to say that they want another go, and I not only expect but demand that the result of the 2016 referendum in my nation of sovereign citizens be respected, rather than simply laughed out of court time and again by the Conservative party.

We already know from previous work done by the Confederation of British Industry and others that the financial cost to Scotland of a no-deal Brexit is more than the entire amount we spend every year on our precious national health service. Up to 100,000 people could lose their jobs, although in this place, some people seem a lot more concerned about who is going to get one job than about who is going to lose the other 100,000.

There was a bit of protest from Conservative Members when I said that a no-deal Brexit was against the clearly expressed will of the people, but it is true. In a democracy, one of the key ways that we find out the will of the people is through the ballot box. For nearly three years, we knew that about 17.5 million people wanted to leave the EU, but none of us knew or had any right to assume what kind of Brexit they wanted. I cry shame on all those who had the arrogance to think that they knew what the 17.5 million people wanted.

We still do not know what Brexit they all want, but thanks to the EU elections on 23 May, we know what they do not want, because the same people who voted in 2016 to leave the European Union decisively rejected the parties whose manifestos consisted of a no-deal Brexit. This was the first time that people had ever been given the chance to turn out and vote decisively for a no-deal Brexit, and even those who voted leave avoided the no-deal parties in their millions: 34%—barely one in three—of leave voters supported the no-deal parties. Of the 17.4 million people who voted leave, 11.5 million refused to vote for hard, no-deal Brexit parties on 23 May.

[Dr Whitford]

Is it not also the case that the current Prime Minister went to the country in March 2017 with her approach, which was towards a hard Brexit, and ended up losing her majority and with a minority Government, so people had already expressed their will?

[Peter Grant]

My hon. Friend makes a very valid point. Unfortunately, on that occasion, as on too many occasions, the soon-to-be former Prime Minister was listening to nobody apart from her own reflection in the mirror. It is not even as though the Brexit party can claim that 11.5 million people wanted a no-deal Brexit but did not vote for it because they disagreed with some other aspect of the Brexit party’s policies, because it does not have any other policies for people to disagree with.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

Basically, I have already described this as a phantom motion for a phantom Bill. We do not know what the Bill will contain. We have had various suggestions that it may contain some elements of what has been proposed by some of the so-called leadership candidates. I do not know what they will propose by the end of the process.

What I can say, however, is that this is, as I said earlier, an open-door motion. It opens the door for any Bill, of any kind, to take precedence over Government business, which is inconceivable as a matter of constitutional convention. I put it to the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) that the reality is that there is not a single constitutional authority he could cite to disprove the proposition I have put not just once over the past six months to a year on this very question, which is that our constitution operates on the basis of parliamentary government and not government by Parliament.

[Dr Whitford]

The hon. Gentleman has just said that he has no idea what a future Prime Minister will propose, which is exactly the point of this motion. A future Prime Minister could prorogue Parliament or, as the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) pointed out, simply tie us up and do nothing. This motion would simply prevent either of those options.

[Sir William Cash]

I have great respect for the hon. Lady—she sits on my Committee, and I am happy that that should be the case—and I understand what she says, but, as I said earlier, the reality is that this is a phantom motion for a phantom Bill. The real objective is to unwind the provisions set out in article 50, which is supposed to operate according to our constitutional requirements and, subject only to an extension of exit day, provides for the repeal of the 1972 Act. That Act is a bundle of all the laws, all the treaties and all the provisions, including the Lisbon treaty Act, which is part of our domestic legislation and prescribes that when we get to the end of the two-year period, that is it—subject only to an extension of exit day.

For practical purposes, there is no other way to interpret what may be in the pipeline. We all know that, and I do not know why we need to be coy. It is perfectly clear that this is an attempt by the Labour party to make political capital during a leadership election, and I do not blame it for having a shot at that. However, it is utterly irresponsible to use this procedure in a way that would enable the unwinding of the law of the land, as expressed in an Act agreed on the basis of a referendum that was itself dependent on the authority of a sovereign Act of Parliament to give the people the right to decide whether they were to leave or to remain in the European Union. That was passed in this House by six to one. It was then followed by the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017, which was passed by some 499 to 120.

With great respect to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), we now move on to the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. I very well remember what he said to me as we were coming to the Third Reading of that Bill, and I do not think he would disagree with this fair description of our conversation. He said, “You know, I’ve never actually voted against a provision of this kind before. I’ve never voted in a way that would be against the interests of what I perceive to be the European Union and its objectives.” I understand that, because he has been totally consistent, and I respect him for that. But the reality is that he did vote for that Bill on Third Reading and so did every other Member on the Conservative side.

The phantom Bill is all about attempting to unravel all that, although we have not yet seen the wording. We did see it before when we had Bill Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, which ended up with the one that was passed by a minuscule majority. This is an attempt to unravel the process. I understand why people might want to do that, but the question is one of legitimacy. I also add that the role of the House of Lords in this context is completely unacceptable, as it has no legitimacy whatsoever to deal with a matter of this importance, given its unrepresentative character; the House of Lords is not elected, and this is essentially an issue about the election of Members of Parliament and the wishes of the electorate. That is what the referendum Act was about and it was what the manifestos were about.