Early Parliamentary General Election Bill

Rachel Maclean Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 29th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Main]

I will not give way now as I want to respond to the intervention of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire about honouring referendums.

[Rachel Maclean (Redditch) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mrs Main]

I will give way in a moment; I am in great demand. First, however, I will respond to my right hon. Friend’s intervention on referendums. It is important that we recognise that people voted in that referendum who had never voted before. I spoke to people in St Albans—and I am sure that this experience was replicated across the House—and they had a fixed view; it was not a political view, but it was a fixed view on whether they wanted in or out. Some people wanted help in making their minds up, and some changed their mind, but they had a fixed view, and I had numerous people say to me, “Politicians are all the same,” but on this matter all the political parties came together to ask the same question.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Main]

No; I said no, and I say no twice. Mr Speaker made a ruling on this earlier on, so the answer is no.

What I will be arguing, as indeed we are arguing, is that we gave the in/out choice, regardless of political parties, and the in/out choice was delivered. Some people did not like it, and some constituencies did not match up with what their MP wanted, but that is not what it is about; what it is about—

[Rachel Maclean]

rose—

[Mrs Main]

I will take my hon. Friend’s intervention before I get to that point.

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank my hon. Friend very much for allowing me to intervene on her fantastic speech. She is making a number of points that I agree with extremely strongly. I voted remain in the original referendum, but my very strong feeling the day after the referendum, when we saw that overwhelming desire to leave the European Union, was that I should passionately support democracy in this country. Ever since that day I have supported that vote, even though I am a remainer, because I think we have one thing to do in this House, which is keep our promises to the electorate. Does my hon. Friend agree with that, and does she find that people who voted remain in her constituency share this desire to honour democracy above all else?

[Mrs Main]

I absolutely accept my hon. Friend’s point. I accept that there are people in my constituency, as there will be in others, who fervently wish to overturn the result and to back remain. However, most people I speak to, when asked, feel that revoking would be a step too far. Most of them say, “I just want it over and done with. I want a deal.” I believe that this Government have tried to deliver exactly that. The last Prime Minister tried to deliver exactly that. She, like my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), made it clear that she was a remainer, but like me she vowed to respect democracy. The fact that I am mismatched with my seat might be something that political opponents wish to capitalise on, but the fundamental question we need to ask ourselves is whether we value political self-interest more than the trust, the pledge and the contract that we all made when that referendum was called.