European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 5) Bill

Debate between William Cash and Yasmin Qureshi

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir William Cash]

I must admit that if I were to, there would be quite a lot of fireworks in the European Parliament—I can assure the hon. Gentleman of that.

I have no doubt whatever that what those involved are doing by creating circumstances in which the European elections could take place is not only to undermine the vote that was taken in June 2016, but, in addition, to humiliate this country by virtue of the fact this is all effectively being created by our subjugation to the European Union and by our Government crawling on their hands and knees to the European Council—this is something imposed upon them. The idea is not only that we should be put in a position of subjugation but, in terms of the letter the Prime Minister wrote on 5 April, which is a begging letter to the European Council, that we are effectively giving ourselves over to the European Union, which is a humiliation of this country. In no circumstances whatever should we have allowed this ever to happen.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way, but does he not agree that words such as “humiliation”, “submission”, “begging”, “traitors”, “hang them” and “violence” are not appropriate in these types of debate?

[Sir William Cash]

They most emphatically are, because, unlike what has been going on in this House, which is a perversion and a distortion of our constitutional arrangements, the very essence of our position is to defend democracy, to defend the vote that was taken by the British people, and to stand up for the repeal of the European Communities Act 1972, which was passed and is the law of the land. That is where we are right now.

Section 1 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 says that European Communities Act 1972 will be repealed on exit day. All that this Bill does is to move exit day. And by the way, exit day will move, if it ever does, in lockstep with the repeal of the 1972 Act unless someone is prepared to get up and tell me that they intend to repeal the repeal of the 1972 Act. We are still going to repeal that Act, and I think that that is completely lost on Opposition Members.