Leaving the European Union

Debate between Tom Brake and David Drew

Monday 19th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Tom Brake]

No—that is potentially two ways, but I am confident that we will all be going through the same Division Lobby for this vote. I hope that the Leader of the Labour party will join us. We know that we will end up with either the Government’s deal or no deal if the Labour Front-Bench team does not support a people’s vote. I hope that they will.

[Dr Drew]

It is not either/or. The question is whether they will support a call for a general election. That is the obvious way to resolve this.

[Tom Brake]

The idea that there will be a general election is one of the obstacles that the Labour party has put in the way of supporting a people’s vote. The only circumstances in which a general election would happen would be, first, if the Prime Minister said, “I want a general election.” We all remember what happened the last time she decided to call one—it did not go very well, so it is unlikely that she will do that.

The other circumstance would be if there were a vote of no confidence, which would probably require the Government’s friends from the Democratic Unionist party to support it. The DUP would be looking at the Leader of the Labour party potentially becoming the Prime Minister. I suspect that the DUP would not want to facilitate that. If the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) wants to intervene and confirm that they would support a vote of no confidence, this is his moment. He is sitting on his backside, and clearly does not want to confirm that this afternoon.

Clearly there are almost as many Tory party policies on where the Government should be going as there are Back Benchers. I do not know whether Tory Back Benchers have an official position on whether they would seek to revoke article 50 if we reached 29 March without a deal, or whether they are happy for us to go over the cliff. I guess we will have to wait and see. One clear element of Tory policy is to blame everyone but them for the debacle unravelling in front of us.

A procession of very senior ex-Ministers has appeared on television in the last couple of months. One such ex-Minister said, “I’m our man in Washington and I’ll be able to secure a free trade deal with the US in three months.” The same person spent two years trying to negotiate the deal with the European Union and had to walk away. The outgoing Secretary of State for the Department for Exiting the European Union is also seeking to blame the Europeans for bullying the Government. I recall that he was one of a number who said that Brexit would be simple and straightforward, that the EU would give us everything that we wanted, and that it would all be done almost overnight. The reality is that he has failed. There was never any chance that the sort of Brexit that he and some other prominent Brexiters claimed was deliverable would be delivered for the United Kingdom.

Leaving the EU: Parliamentary Vote

Debate between Tom Brake and David Drew

Monday 11th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Tom Brake]

I agree entirely with the hon. Lady. Members of Parliament should be offered a choice that reflects the choices that people made in the EU referendum campaign. I certainly cannot remember anyone saying to me, “I think the best thing for the United Kingdom would be to crash out overnight, on World Trade Organisation rules. That would be brilliant for British businesses and jobs.” If anyone had a constituent come to them and say, “That’s a fantastic solution,” they should stick their hand up now. No one will do so, because no one thought that that was a solution. Yet it seems that that is the choice that Members of Parliament will be offered.

Either we go for a deal that no Member of Parliament will support, whether they are a supporter of the ERG or a remainer like me, or we go for no deal, which nobody has ever supported from the outset. We are in a strange position. If the Government want to do this the right way, I suggest to them that remaining in the EU should be on the ballot paper. If it is, we might end up with a parliamentary outcome that reflects more closely the views of Members of Parliament and possibly those of the public more generally.

Members of Parliament should have a meaningful vote, for the reasons that I have set out. We are entitled to a real choice—not a Hobson’s choice between something catastrophic and something even more catastrophic. I will touch briefly on why there should also be a people’s vote. I have heard worrying reports from some Members of Parliament. Unfortunately, during the EU referendum campaign two years ago we had the murder of Jo Cox. Since then, Members of Parliament have been threatened for their views on our membership of the European Union. The only threats I have had are the comments that everyone who stands at a stall in favour of remain gets. A person stops, says, “You’re a traitor,” and then walks off.

That is the only sort of threat I have had, but I am aware that other Members of Parliament have had much more serious ones. There is a question mark over the extent to which they will be able to vote fairly and cleanly in the forthcoming votes. Potentially, a very small number of votes will determine the outcome, one way or the other. If Members of Parliament are scared of making the decision that they think is right because they have had threats to their lives—often the threats are not as serious as that, but they still have to be reported to the police—that is another reason why throwing this open to the country might be the right thing to do.

I thank the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) for her earlier intervention, ensuring that I came back on track and that, as opposed to focusing all my effort on the people’s vote, I came back to the parliamentary vote, which is just as significant.

[Dr Drew]

My worry is that whatever pressure we come under in this place and outside, our role in another referendum would be even more dangerously vulnerable, because of the nature of that debate. The right hon. Gentleman said earlier that it would be a better debate. I wish I believed him, but I think it would be a worse debate.

[Tom Brake]

We are each entitled to our views. I do not know what level of engagement the hon. Gentleman has had with people in his constituency or further afield, but all the discussions we are now having about whether the European arrest warrant will continue, the European Aviation Safety Agency, the European Medicines Agency, and whether we should comply with EU standards on products are, frankly, discussions that were not had before the referendum. They are being had now, and I believe there is a greater awareness of the implications than there was before. That is why I have a hope, though this is not a certainty, that were such a referendum to take place it would be better informed than the previous one.

I should not be overly indulgent, Mr Austin, given that you have allowed me to speak in special circumstances. I congratulate the petitioners on securing more than 100,000 signatures, and on reinforcing the point that not only should there be a people’s vote in the wider country, but Members of Parliament are entitled to be treated as grown-ups and have the opportunity to take part in a meaningful vote—not one that presents us with two options that are completely unacceptable.