Leaving the European Union

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd May 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I have said, what we intend to put in the Bill is the commitment to have a vote on whether to have a second referendum and that the Bill cannot be completed and the treaty ratified until that vote has taken place. I hope that that gives confirmation to Members of the House who are in favour of a second referendum that that issue will be addressed properly within the passage of the Bill. As I said, whipping decisions will be taken closer to the time. I note the keenness of some Opposition Members to determine what the whipping arrangements for Government Members should be, but with no reference to their own whipping arrangements.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister asks what it would say about democracy if we put this back to the public. The Leader of the Opposition has said from the Dispatch Box that if the Prime Minister likes her deal so much—this is roughly what he said—she should not be afraid of putting it back to the people, and I agree with him. She is putting it back to us time after time after time when we have already rejected it time after time after time. Why does she not trust the people? Why will she not go back to them and ask them what she thinks of her deal?

[The Prime Minister]

I do trust the people. That is why I believe that it is our duty to put in place what the people asked us to do.