European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 5) Bill

Debate between Wes Streeting and John Redwood

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood]

My hon. Friend is right. The nature of that solemn and binding treaty will be to lock us in, for 21 or 45 months, to every feature of the European Union without representation, vote or voice, and it might mean that we end up in large sections of it—the customs union and single market alignment—in perpetuity, thanks to the Irish backstop.

It is a massive delay, and I say to my hon. and right hon. Friends on the Front Bench that, if they are offering the public either a guaranteed delay under the withdrawal agreement or a shorter delay that they wish to negotiate, a lot of leave voters would rather have the shorter delay but, of course, all of us leave voters do not want any delay at all. That is why people will be scandalised by what this House is rushing through again this evening.

The shortage of time is completely scandalous. This is a massive issue that has gripped the nation for many months. It dominates the news media, it sucks the life out of this House on every other issue and now, when we come to this big crunch event and when leave had been led to believe that we would be leaving the European Union without an agreement if necessary, they are told at the last minute, for the second time, that all their hopes for their democratic outcome will be dashed again. This Parliament does that with grave danger to its reputation.

I urge all those who wish to get this lightning legislation through again to ask themselves what they are going to say to all their leave voters, and what they are going to say to their remain voters who are also democrats and who join leave voters in saying, “Get on with it. Get it over with. Why do we have to sit through month after month of the same people making the same points that they put to a referendum and lost?”

This Parliament needs to wake up and get real. It needs to move on, it needs to rise to the nation’s requirements and deal with the nation’s other business, and it needs to accept that this was decided by the public. It is our duty to implement it. Leaving without this agreement is going to be just fine. We are prepared for it. Business is ready for it. Business has spent money. Business has done whatever it needed to do and, in many cases, feels very let down that it is not able to use all its contingencies, on which it has spent good money.

I would say this to all Labour MPs, particularly those with a majority of leave voters in their constituency: understand the damage you are doing, understand the damage you are doing to this institution, understand the damage you are doing to our democracy and vote for us to leave the European Union.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

It really is no good Government Members complaining about the lack of time—the lack of time to debate this Bill or the fact that we are days away from crashing out of the European Union with no deal. In fact, we would have done that already, were it not for the interventions of people from all parts of this House and in the other place.

Why are we in this position? There is some serious revisionist history going on tonight. It is because after the referendum, a Parliament in which a majority of Members voted to remain none the less said, “We accept that people have voted to leave the European Union.” When the Prime Minister—after she had been dragged through the courts, incidentally—was eventually forced to ask for permission to trigger article 50 and begin the process of negotiations, as has been said, the vast majority of MPs, myself included, voted to give the Prime Minister that permission. That was Parliament’s sole role in the matter: being asked for permission and giving the Prime Minister permission.