Leaving the European Union

Sandy Martin Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Main]

I completely agree, but we have to learn from the past, which forms part of our future trajectory. All I am saying is that the in-out referendum that the House promised the British people is the only way to go. The three-way referendum now supported by the hon. Lady’s party and others would ask people to choose between what she would describe as a hard Brexit—a no-deal Brexit, perhaps—the Prime Minister’s Brexit, and staying in. That could not be countenanced as democratic.

As I understand it, the EU would have no truck—I do not blame it—with us wanting to kick the whole thing into the long grass during a long drawn-out process. My hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Mrs Murray) said that the British public would never forgive us; certainly they would never forgive us for trying to twist the arm of the EU, and saying, “Please can we extend article 50, so that we can offer a three-way referendum?”.

[Sandy Martin (Ipswich) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady says that the British people would never forgive us for asking them again, but would they ever forgive us for a serious economic collapse as a result of a no-deal Brexit?

[Mrs Main]

That is interesting. The other day in the main Chamber, I tried to intervene on the Leader of the Opposition many, many times. I wanted to know whether the policy of the Labour party is to offer another referendum. The economic collapse, I believe, is a much-hyped fear factor.

The British public had 40 years of trying out the European project, which is certainly not the Common Market that my late parents voted for. That was a vote for one thing. After 40 years of ever closer political integration, the British public were asked if they wanted to re-endorse that membership, or if they would like to say, “We’d like to leave.”

It is not as though we have not discussed the possibility of leaving, or our unhappiness with having treaties foisted on us. The British public have a lot of experience—the history that the hon. Member for Bath does not want to draw on—of looking at how they were treated, how they were talked to, and how they were being sucked into closer integration, which they were not happy with. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), who opened the debate, said, that is what many people were unhappy with. The British public knew that they did not like it, so they decided that they wanted to leave and be an independent, self-governing and sovereign nation again. That is the argument that was made.

I campaigned to leave, and I made it very clear to my constituents that I was for leaving—I did not hide that, or take the easy option—although most of them voted to remain. I made it clear that I believed in leave, but that I was only one vote. Those members of the British public who were of voting age that first time around, however, had seen the direction of travel, which was towards ever closer integration, and they did not want to go there, so they decided get off that bus.

I do not like to talk of winning or losing, but the only way to describe a referendum is in those terms. The leave campaign won because there was more heart in the campaign to get back our sovereignty than there was in saying, “We know the EU’s not perfect, that it should change, that lots of you have had grumbles and complaints over the years, and that we keep trying to change things and it never gives us much—but I am sure it will at some point in the future.” That did not cut it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Blomfield]

We will come to that shortly.

When she is questioned, the Prime Minister just keeps hitting the repeat button. She knows it is nonsense and, what is worse, she knows that everybody knows she knows it is nonsense. It did not have to be like this. The hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) has highlighted the original drafting of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. There was provision for multiple exit days for multiple purposes, which was sensible. It was the Government’s proposal.

However, to throw some red meat to those whom the Chancellor described as the Brexit “extremists” of the European Research Group, the Government fixed 29 March on the face of the Bill for all purposes. It was a gimmick, and a time-consuming and irresponsible one. The Opposition told the Prime Minister that it was a legislative straitjacket and that the Act would have to be amended. We tried to help her out, and tabled amendments to that effect, but the Government rejected them. They rejected proposals that would have given Parliament control over the dates.

The Prime Minister is now preparing to return to Brussels, following last week’s vote. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam talks about the EU giving some flexibility. Let us just remember what the Prime Minister is returning to do. She is going to ask the EU27 to change the backstop that they did not want, but that she pressed them hard to accept. The backstop is a UK Government proposal. We can imagine their bewilderment when, having conceded it when pressed by the Prime Minister, they will face her telling them “You know that backstop? We have got to change it.”

[Sandy Martin]

Does my hon. Friend agree that if the Prime Minister had made a little more effort to secure a deal among her own Members of Parliament it might have been easier for her to get a decent deal with the European Union?

[Paul Blomfield]

I shall be echoing my hon. Friend’s point in a moment.

The immediate task that the Prime Minister has set herself is to reopen the deal that she said, two weeks ago, was unreopenable. On 15 January, she said:

“Some suggest that there is a fourth option…to vote this deal down in the hope of going back to Brussels and negotiating an alternative deal. However, no such alternative…exists.”—[Official Report, 15 January 2019; Vol. 652, c. 1112.]

It is worth remembering, too, with all this focus on the backstop, that the backstop was not the primary objection for the majority of us who voted to reject the deal. It was the impact that the deal would have on jobs and the economy. The hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) is right to say that we have the right to walk away, but we also have the responsibility to the British people to outline the consequences of taking that sort of step, and we have exercised that to some degree in terms of the impact of no deal.

With the country currently despairing of our politics and with business confidence collapsing, the Prime Minister might reflect—to return to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Sandy Martin)—that it did not have to be like this. At the outset, she could have said, “The British people have voted to leave the European Union, but by the closest of margins; it is a mandate to end our membership of the EU, but not a decision to rupture our relations with our closest neighbours, our main trading partner and our key allies.” She could have added, “Therefore, we will seek a deal that reflects that position: a deal that is right for people’s jobs and livelihoods, in a customs union, close to the single market, in the agencies and partnerships”—some of which the hon. Member for Glasgow North mentioned—“that we have built together over 45 years, retaining the rights and protections for workers, consumers and the environment, and keeping up with those rights and with the EU as we move forward.” If she had said those things, she could have secured a majority in Parliament. She could have united a country that had been so bitterly divided by the referendum, and the issue of the Northern Ireland border would never have existed.