European Union (Withdrawal) Acts

Peter Kyle Excerpts

Saturday 19th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

I say with all respect and humility to the former Prime Minister that a lot of people watching who have listened to her words will feel strongly that the only con trick was a Prime Minister making a solemn promise to the public that under no circumstances would there be a border down the Irish sea, and then traipsing through the Lobby to vote for precisely that. I would have expected a little more humility from her.

All of us who participated in the referendum debate noticed one thing: in the prospectus for Brexit, it was very poorly defined. It was difficult to gauge precisely what Brexit would mean for our country. However, when the former Prime Minister signed the article 50 treaty, she had the legal right to define Brexit. She came to the House with her deal, which had over 500 pages defining Brexit. For almost a year, she and the Government said that the deal respected the will of the people.

Now we have a separate deal, brought back by a separate Government, who say that this fundamentally different deal, with different customs arrangements, different regulatory systems, and a different order for the United Kingdom, represents the will of the people. Both deals cannot represent the will of the people. I say this with all humility: if we want to know what the will of the people is—what they were voting for—we can ask them. Their response will be based not on promises, but on facts, because we have the facts now.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) and I have been working on a compromise—and it is a compromise, because it means we could become the remainers who open the door to Brexit. Fundamentally, it is about breaking the gridlock in Parliament. It is based around a deal.

[Mr Gyimah]

I have been listening to the hon. Gentleman with interest. Does he agree that though the referendum settled the question of leaving, it did not settle where we were going? That is why the House has, over the last three and a half years, debated different ways of leaving the EU. Some people believe in the May deal; some want a May deal minus backstop; some want a Northern Ireland backstop; some want a customs union; some want no deal; and some want a managed no deal. Does he agree that that is why any deal that the Government put before us should be put to the people for a final say?

[Peter Kyle]

I am extremely grateful for a thoughtful intervention. Of course I agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I speak as someone who has voted for three separate versions of Brexit. I have not opposed it; I have voted for Brexit in this place more often than most members of the ERG. The key question is: how do we break the gridlock? How do we get past this impasse? The idea of a referendum based on a deal is that it would be a confirmatory referendum. We would put the prospectus to the people and ask, “Is this good enough for you?”, in exactly the same way we did in Northern Ireland with the Good Friday peace agreement.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, back in February 2016, before the referendum, that suggestion was put to the then Prime Minister, who said at the Dispatch Box that the very idea was absolutely ridiculous. Nobody in the House disputed that then. Where was the hon. Gentleman?

[Peter Kyle]

I was here in the House, working constructively with Members from across the House. I voted for three separate versions of Brexit; I have done my bit to try to get it across the line, but because the prospectus for Brexit was defined not at the start, but only at the end, of the process, many people in this House have a different version of it, and that is why we are irreconcilably divided.

We propose a compromise whereby we allow the deal to pass through Parliament in return for inviting the public to have the definitive, final say on whether the deal should pass. The public can decide whether the deal is good enough for them, their family, their community, their job and our country. If they decide that it is, we can leave directly on those terms, without any need to return to the matter in this place. If they do not, we can remain with the deal we have. Those are two propositions, based in international treaty and law, that are implementable straight away.

We gained growing support for this across the House when we pushed it last time. People repeatedly said to us that, if the deal of the Prime Minister at the time was defeated, they would want to come and consider this, but they would not want to consider it before any defeat. The problem was that we did not get the opportunity to press for a vote straight afterwards, but now we do have such an opportunity. Because the Government are pushing two motions tonight—one on their deal, one on no deal—we will have an opportunity to vote after the House has spoken on the main deal.

To all the people who want to support the deal, I say this: focus on the deal and support the deal, but accept one thing. If the deal does not succeed in the first vote tonight, we have to make a choice, and there is a choice on the table that keeps the deal alive and keeps the deal intact. It is the only way, in those circumstances, that the deal can proceed. In those circumstances, I hope that people from across the House will decide that the country needs resolution, and an option remains standing that will break the gridlock, that will get Brexit out of Westminster and back into our communities for one definitive final say, and we can bring this nightmare to an end.