(5 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberI absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Of course, the purpose of today’s motion—he and I have commented on this—is that once the withdrawal agreement is agreed, there is no turning back, because the UK will be bound into an international agreement with the EU. As right hon. and hon. Members will know, that means there will be no chance to change the withdrawal agreement, no chance to change the Northern Ireland backstop, no chance to put safeguards in place to protect our democracy from the harmful laws that will be imposed on us, no chance to freely negotiate new trade deals with the rest of the world, and no chance to change in any meaningful way the legislation coming forward to implement the withdrawal agreement, because seeking to amend the legislation would risk putting the UK being in breach of our international obligations.
Agreeing to the motion means facing a Brexit deal that is dreamed up, drafted and decided by the EU. Once the motion is passed, we will be forced to comply with the EU’s demands. That is not what the country voted for, when 17.4 million people voted to leave the EU in the greatest show of democracy this country has ever seen. However, once again we will see the EU’s will being imposed on the British people. Of course, the withdrawal agreement represents a legally binding treaty, which will deny the British people and our Parliament the sovereign right to choose our future and be in control of our destiny.
I was elected to the House of Commons with a mandate to deliver Brexit, and the withdrawal agreement does not give this country the freedoms, independence, democracy and control that people voted for. It is becoming increasingly clear that MPs elected on a mandate to take Britain out of the EU and the customs union are—we have to be honest—going back on those pledges and want to impose a customs union on this country. The withdrawal agreement already includes a single customs territory, which is a form of customs union, and we know that many MPs want to go further. That would prevent Britain from negotiating its own trade deals with the rest of the world and effectively keep us as a rule taker.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, since the referendum, we have had a general election, where the Labour party and the Conservative party both said in their manifestos that they would deliver on what the people voted for, and the customs union simply is not that?
My hon. Friend is right.
Members now have to ask themselves whether they have faith in our democracy and our ability to govern ourselves. We should all be doing everything possible to respect the referendum mandate and stick to the fundamental commitments that brought every single Member of Parliament to this place. Those Members who are committed to keeping their promises to the people are now being forced to make a difficult choice between taking a risk with this motion or taking the risk of giving others in the House who simply do not want to deliver Brexit or the commitments we stood on to get us here in the first place the opportunity to sabotage Brexit. That is the problem we all face, and it is a difficult challenge.
I do not take the decision on how I vote today at all lightly. There is grave disappointment. Nothing upsets me more today than listening to Members of Parliament who want to renege on the very commitments that brought them here. Ultimately I will be judged on the choice I make, and rightly so, by the people of the Witham constituency—a constituency that voted overwhelmingly to leave the European Union.
Leave means leave. That is exactly what the British public voted for. They did not vote for motion after motion coming forward in this House. They did not vote for Members to say one thing to their electorate and do something else in this House. Members will have to make their own judgments today and not listen to the what ifs, buts and everything else. As many colleagues have said, it is a balance of risk and probabilities, but ultimately we should all be judged on how we vote by the very constituents who elected us. Is it any wonder that trust in British politics is broken given some of the extraordinary contributions today? The fact of the matter is that many of the pledges we have made to our electorate are now being moved away from.