European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Shabana Mahmood Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister said this morning, in setting up today’s vote, that we—that is to say Parliament—must not “let the country down”. The real tragedy is that ever since the Prime Minister assumed her position and began the process of implementing Brexit, her way of handling the process has done exactly that: it has let the country down. A vote won by 52% to 48% required the language of compromise from the Government and the Prime Minister at the outset, not the language of red lines.

We are a divided nation. That is not surprising given that we asked our citizens to answer a binary question in a highly polarising and toxic debate. No genuine attempt has been made to reach out to the 48%, to bring people together and to tell those who found themselves in a minority by a very small margin on the day of the referendum result that this is still their country, too. No attempt has been made to state unequivocally that all those citizens who have been exercising their British rights and freedoms to dissent, to hold an unpopular or minority position and to still argue for remain are not acting as saboteurs or traitors, but are as British as it gets.

Instead, we have allowed toxic language and rhetoric to take hold, poisoning not only our politics, but our wider society. Just as there has been no reaching out to the rest of the country by the Government, there has been no reaching out to the rest of the House either. At the outset of his speech, which feels a long time ago, the Attorney General said that we have reached this point reluctantly. That is not true. All the choices made along the way—choices made willingly and wilfully by the Prime Minister—have led us not reluctantly but inexorably to the place we are in today.

It is unforgivable that we have lost a whole month to a simple running down of the clock because the Prime Minister was afraid of losing the vote, as she will inevitably this evening anyway. I cannot support the withdrawal agreement or the political declaration for many of the reasons that Members have already set out, not least because they ignore 80% of our economy—the services sector on which so many thousands of jobs depend.

I will, however, support all and any measures that allow Parliament to do what the Executive have so demonstrably failed to do, which is to commence the search for a consensus. We should hold some indicative votes to find what will command a majority in the House. We must take all and any steps to rule out a no-deal Brexit. The real tragedy is that Brexit on any terms will not solve many of the reasons why the Brexit vote took place in the first place. At the very least, we as a House must make the best of it and find a consensus to go forward.