Wera Hobhouse
Main Page: Wera Hobhouse (Liberal Democrat - Bath)Department Debates - View all Wera Hobhouse's debates with the Cabinet Office
Leaving the EU: Negotiations
Wera Hobhouse Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
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John Lamont
That is a good point. One of the great strengths of our businesses is their ability to adapt and respond to challenges. During our recent half-term break, I spent a week visiting businesses in my constituency. When I asked them what was the biggest challenge they faced—whether they were small businesses employing a handful of people, or big businesses employing 800 or so—not one of them said “Brexit”. I asked them, “Why on earth did you not say ‘Brexit’, given that all we read in the press is about Brexit and the difficulties you will face?” They said, “We are resilient. We adapt to whatever the challenge may be. The reason for our present strength and success is our ability to adapt to those challenges.”
Steve Double
I have changed my mind, but I suspect that now is not the time to go into that. I have changed my mind on a number of things over the years, but I do not detect what the right hon. Gentleman says he is finding. I do not find it in my constituency from the people I speak to on the doorstep and meet around the place, or from the people who come to my surgeries. The clear message I get is, “We made a decision. Let’s get on with it.” A lot of people just cannot understand why we have not left already. They are frustrated because—[Interruption.] I would say it is because of Members on both sides of the House who have sought to delay the process—perhaps we will come on to discuss that.
I will not support the motion, and I wish to set out three reasons why it is a bad idea. First, I believe it would be bad for our democracy. We gave the decision to the British people. We are absolutely clear in the lead-up to the referendum two years ago that this decision was in the hands of the British people and that they would be making the decision. If we tried to rerun the referendum, in whatever form we want to put it, be it a second referendum or a referendum on the final deal, I do not think the British people would buy it. They would just see it as trying to change the decision. It would simply be saying to them, “Your view and your vote did not count.” As I said when I intervened earlier, I believe that one reason why many people voted leave was to give a clear message to the establishment saying, “We are fed up of being ignored. We want our voice heard. We want our opinion to count.”
It is a miracle that people voted leave, because the overwhelming movement of the establishment—of the Government, big business and so much of our society—was telling them “This is the wrong decision. This is a stupid decision to make. This is a detrimental decision to make.” The majority of people chose to ignore that and vote leave, and we should respect that.
Wera Hobhouse
This is a debate about democracy. Like the hon. Gentleman, I am confident that people make good decisions in the end. The decision made in June 2016 was a single decision that warranted another decision. He has just accepted that the people make interesting decisions, so why will he not allow them to make another decision on this issue, which is far more far-reaching now that we are going to face a deal on the decision?
Steve Double
The answer is simple: if that decision goes the other way, do we have a third and a fourth? Do we just keep going until we get the decision that some of us want? No. We made it clear to the British people. As has already been said, the former Prime Minister said that it was a once-in-a-lifetime decision and that there would be no opportunity for people to change their mind and go back. That was it, and we need to respect that.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
I would gladly take up the challenge to stand up for a people’s vote in my constituency. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), my postbag in Bath is full of letters from constituents who are worried sick about Brexit. We speak endlessly in Bath about the most important issue facing our nation, and I think that is a good thing. That is democracy and I trust people. That is why I think that the people should take back control, but if we are having a debate, I wish it was much more along the lines of why the European Union is the best place for us.
The European Union is the greatest peace project in the modern era, with 28 countries working together, resolving differences peacefully. It is too little understood that countries with competing interests work together through a rules-based system—the rule of law and common regulations. Each country within the European Union passes its own laws, but those laws must be applicable as fairly to its own citizens as to the citizens of the other 27 countries. That is called solidarity. It delivers justice and greater opportunity. We help other countries and other countries help us. We all benefit.
Looking back to June 2016 and the debate we had leading up to that referendum, where were these arguments? There were arguments about pennies: “What is in it for us?” and “£350 million a week for the NHS” on one side, and “Economic meltdown the day after the referendum” on the other side. Then there was the “taking back control” argument. Sixty million Turks would arrive at our borders, swamping the country. It was a Conservative-on-Conservative referendum, and two years on, why are the Conservatives making such a mess of it? Because for them, every argument is still framed within British-only interests. There is never anything about 28 countries working together. It is only ever about a narrow self-interest.
Wera Hobhouse
I really cannot because we have very little time left. The Conservative Brexit vision is for a Britain and a Europe from before the European Union was formed. Their vision is for a continent of competing nation states, but the profound vision of the EU—we see this most clearly in the island of Ireland—is that people can have multiple identities. We can be British and Irish, British and French, and British and Polish. To be British and Irish is to have no border in Ireland, but it also means staying in the single market and in the customs union. People are now beginning to realise that it is also about staying in the European Union.
Gareth Snell
Many of my constituents would describe themselves as British-Pakistani. To suggest that somehow people can only retain that identity if we have some sort of open-border policy is somewhat ridiculous.
Wera Hobhouse
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and absolutely—I passionately believe in multiple identities and I used to live in an area in the north of England where there were many people with Muslim and British identities. However, I think that, in this country, we simply fail to understand the idea of multiple identities, and in the Brexit debate, that is also a big failure.
Where do we go from here? In June 2016, the people voted narrowly to leave the European Union. Liberal Democrats believe that it was not a blank cheque to this Government, or indeed any Government, to do anything that they like. Democracy did not stop in June 2016, but it seems for this Government that it did. The will of the people on that date is their mandate for anything that they want to do now. The shocking thing is that the politicians who argue that they are enacting the will of the people are the same politicians who refuse to ask the people again now, after many things have changed—after we are not getting £350 million back for the NHS and after we know how complicated it is to extract ourselves from the customs union without creating a border in Northern Ireland.
Ask the people again. From Magna Carta onwards, democracy in this country had to be fought for. The people have woken up to this. This Government are acting in the name of the people without the people’s consent. Ask the people now. The people must finish what the people have started.