European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Tonia Antoniazzi Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)]

So here we are in January 2019 bearing the brunt of David Cameron’s back-of-a-fag-packet politics of 2015. His ill-thought-out plan aimed to appease the Brexiteers in his own party at a time when he thought that he was invincible. That know-it-all attitude is exactly why people turned out to vote leave: they wanted to vote against the establishment.

Never-ending austerity since 2010 has driven a rise in in-work poverty. Our constituents have been hit hard in the pocket. People are fed up and they are angry, with food bank use in Swansea up 50% since universal credit. Life is challenging at the best of times, and being stuck in a Catch-22 situation of spiralling personal debt and stagnant wages means that people have got angrier and angrier. I understand how that feels, because it is why I am standing here. When faced with the lies on a bus and promised a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow—let us throw some unicorns in as well—Brexit was painted as a way out.

But the promised land was not based on facts. In total contrast, as we hear from Scottish National party Members, in the 2014 Scottish referendum, a 400-plus-page White Paper was published called “Scotland’s Future”. It gave a detailed assessment of the impact of Scotland leaving the United Kingdom—not a leaflet, as shown by the hon. Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) earlier. Why did those hard facts not exist for us? We did not know what we were voting on.

At the beginning of the debate yesterday, I was taken aback to hear the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) intervene on the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU, saying:

“This House is not representative of the people.”

The Secretary of State responded:

“the majority of the House voted to trigger article 50. It is…incumbent on Members…to be clear what they are for.”—[Official Report, 9 January 2019; Vol. 652, c. 393.]

Well, I beg to differ. I did not vote to trigger article 50, and neither did the rest of the 2017 intake. The Prime Minister called a general election to try to convince the UK that she could provide a strong and stable Government. It didn’t work, did it? Members lost their seats—67, I believe. Let us not forget that the make-up of this House has changed considerably since 2016, pretty much like public opinion, which has also changed since 2016. Opinion certainly has changed, as I have seen since I have been the Member of Parliament for Gower, and the electorate has changed as well. Since June 2016, there are 2 million more people in the UK who have reached voting age. According to the House of Commons Library, that is estimated to be 2,400 in my constituency alone.

To add to the confusion about how constituencies voted in 2016, the ballot boxes were not counted by constituency. In my case, Gower was counted as part of the city of Swansea. Across three constituencies, the majority for leave was a mere 3,629. I would call that a marginal win. I took a marginal seat after it was held by a Tory for only two years, and I, along with the other new Members elected in 2017, prove that opinions have changed.

The House of Commons Library’s independent research on the vote estimates that Gower was 49.3% leave and 50.7% remain. That picture has changed significantly since 2016. Like most MPs, I have received a vast amount of correspondence from constituents. When analysed, it gives me statistics of 82% remain and 18% leave. From all that correspondence, 61% are asking for a people’s vote. I realised that I had to test that in the constituency, so I held public meetings. Our mock ballot in each of those meetings showed pretty much the same—80% remain and 20% leave.

Since the 2017 election, this House is the most representative it has ever been, and I am very proud to be here. The Secretary of State says that it is incumbent on Members to know what they are here for, and I want him to know that I know exactly why I am here. I am here to represent the fact that my constituency has not only changed its allegiance to Labour, but it has changed its mind on Brexit.

Moreover, my constituents want the Government to know that small businesses in my constituency such as Rose and Rebellion—a baby carrier business exporting all over the world—have lost 50% of their business directly because of impending Brexit. What assurances will the Government give to protect companies like those that are struggling to compete with America, which is swamping the market?

From the parliamentary logjam to the Government can-kicking, there is no simple answer to Brexit. There is no Brexit that is good for the United Kingdom. This Government have proven that they cannot be trusted and are not capable of winning. My constituents deserve to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I am applying sense and good logic to give us a way out of this logjam. Why can the Government not? That is why I am backing a people’s vote. We need to move this on and get back to the issues.