Brexit Deal: Referendum

Geraint Davies Excerpts
Monday 11th December 2017

(6 years, 3 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Geraint Davies Portrait Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
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Thank you for calling me to speak, Sir David. It is a joy to speak about this issue at the same time as the Prime Minister, and to follow the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), on the day that I published my Terms of Withdrawal from EU (Referendum) Bill, which calls for the people to have the final say on the exit deal. In the event that they rejected it, we would stay in the EU, and the status quo and the rights and privileges we currently enjoy would be maintained.

Swansea overall voted narrowly to leave the EU. I believe that my constituency voted narrowly to remain. Since then, things have changed. At the 2017 election, I said, in essence, “Back me or sack me. If I am elected, I will do everything I can to ensure that we remain part of the single market and protect the 25,000 jobs in Swansea bay that depend on exports to the EU.” My share of the vote increased from 40% to 60%. I note that something like 186 people from Swansea West took the time and trouble to sign the petitions in favour of a final say referendum, and 16 signed the petition to say that they do not think we should have one.

The idea of an exit deal referendum came to me on the Sunday immediately after the vote on Thursday 23 June 2016. I conferred with a couple of constitutional lawyers and actually introduced the first version of my Bill a week later. But I need to make very clear my respect for people who voted to leave. They did so for a number of good, sound reasons. They voted for more money. They were told on the side of a red bus with a strange blond man standing in front of it that we would have £350 million a week more for the NHS, and they believed that. They were told in the 2015 Conservative manifesto that we would get market access. That document promised both a referendum and that we would stay part of the single market, so they felt that their jobs in exports—two thirds of exports from Wales go to the EU, compared with 43% of UK exports—were secure and that we would have market access. They were also told that we would take control and limit migration.

We have just been told that, instead of having £350 million a week for the NHS, the divorce bill being imposed on us will cost something like £1,000 for every family in the United Kingdom. It is approaching €39 billion, and its cost in pounds keeps rising as the value of the pound depreciates. We are told that we probably will not get market access. The deal has been made and we have to agree to pay that money irrespective of the trade deal, which will be made in the interests of the EU27. People see that the promises that were made were false and are not materialising, and they want a final say.

Julian Knight Portrait Julian Knight
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Is the hon. Gentleman’s principled personal stance on the single market and the customs union shared by his party leader—yes or no?

Geraint Davies Portrait Geraint Davies
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The Labour party is a democratic party and the nuances of its position on Brexit have evolved over time, but my position has been clear and consistent throughout. Other people in the Chamber and beyond have their own views, and I respect those views. Obviously, I would change my view if the facts suggested that I should do so, but I have already anticipated the emerging facts of economic catastrophe and the loss of rights and protections, which I will come to. My position is clear: I have always felt that we should stay in the EU. However—

Geraint Davies Portrait Geraint Davies
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Let me say this before the hon. Gentleman comes back in. If the people, with the facts at their disposal, vote in principle to leave, as they did, that is fine. Having ordered a product, as it were, they now need to look at whether what they received reasonably represents what was described and what they were promised. If they still want to go ahead, I am happy that we leave. However, if the hon. Gentleman buys a mobile phone that claims to be able to take colour photos, for example, but when it arrives it only does black and white, he should have the right to either send it back or accept it. I know he likes to see the world in black and white, so he would probably accept it despite being promised colour, but a lot of people would not do so—they would reject it.

Let me use another analogy: if the hon. Gentleman goes into a restaurant thinking he is going to get a free steak but ends up with a chewed-up bit of bacon that costs €40, he should have the right to send it back. He, however, would choose to eat it. He would say, “I ordered food and even though I thought it would be free”—remember that it costs €40—“and it’s bacon, I’ll eat it, because that is what I said.”

Tom Brake Portrait Tom Brake
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It is €40 billion.

Geraint Davies Portrait Geraint Davies
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I know; I am just talking about an individual case.

Geraint Davies Portrait Geraint Davies
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I will take the intervention of the bacon eater over there.

Julian Knight Portrait Julian Knight
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I am certainly not looking forward to dinner now. There is no question whatsoever about the hon. Gentleman’s principled stand. He has said clearly, as he stated in his election leaflet, that he would stand in support of the customs union and the single market. I ask him again, however, whether he thinks that his leader also supports that. What does he think of colleagues in his own party who have said different things in different constituencies on this issue?

Geraint Davies Portrait Geraint Davies
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It is true that people have said different things at different times—things are evolving. It is not for me to comment on everything that everyone says. The hon. Gentleman will know that a couple of weeks ago his own Brexit Secretary claimed that he had enormously detailed impact assessments—so detailed, confusing and even boring that he could not reveal them. Then, the next moment, apparently he did not have any at all. Obviously there are inconsistent views on that.

I am a proud member of the European Scrutiny Committee, to which the current Chancellor gave evidence before Brexit, when he was the Foreign Secretary. I remember asking him what economic assessment had been made of swapping the generally older, retired people from Britain who live in Spain and consume its health service—among other products in Spain, which are of course very nice—in exchange for hard-working Polish people in Britain who contribute tax. We will be swapping people who take public expenditure for people who are giving tax. He said, “Well, the answer to that is that no assessment at all has been made of the economic impact of Brexit, because we don’t intend to leave.” In fact, I can reveal—I know this from secret sources—that before the EU referendum, all the top civil servants were sent an email by No. 10 saying, “Under no circumstances should you do an assessment, economic or otherwise, of the impact of Brexit, because the media would find out and think we were anticipating leaving. That would encourage people to vote that way, because they would think that the Government thought we were going to leave, and we don’t want to give that idea credibility.”

There has been a long period during which the Brexit Secretary and the Treasury could have put together an impact assessment. Of course, the Treasury made an implicit assessment in the Budget. It is remarkable for the hon. Member for Solihull (Julian Knight) to talk about a shift in nuance in the Labour leadership—a gradual warming, if I can put it that way—towards the customs union and the single market, which I embrace, and to ask, “What about that inconsistency?” when we have a Brexit Secretary who one moment says that he has all these impact assessments, but then, when he opens the cupboard, the cupboard is bare.

Martin Vickers Portrait Martin Vickers
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The hon. Gentleman is speaking passionately. He made the interesting, supposed revelation that the Treasury did no assessment prior to the referendum. He will accept, then, that “Project Fear” was based, as we thought at the time, on absolutely nothing other than figures plucked out of the air.

Geraint Davies Portrait Geraint Davies
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What I said stands. Obviously, scenario plans were done in terms of the aggregate impact, and no forecast is perfect, but what we do know about the impact of Brexit was that, overnight, the hon. Gentleman’s salary and assets were devalued by something like 15%, because the financial markets took their own view that this was crazy. We are all worse off for it. People living in Britain have not really seen it, but gradually the impact of that devaluation is coming through in inflation, on top of low wages. People were told, and sadly it has happened: the poor have been made poorer. The leave campaigners said, “The reason you are poor is foreign people from the EU,” when in fact the average person from the EU contributes 35% more in tax than they consume in public services. The poor—and all of us—will become even poorer without them, and we have seen this awful devaluation.

The evaluations were not good enough, but there were dire predictions. Let us take as an example a Japanese car company. I know there have been lots of under the table, secret negotiations with car companies, but the reason they are here is that we are a stable democracy and economy, and provide an English-speaking platform to the biggest market in the world. Once we are not in that market, they and other investors will move. The economic impact on Britain, from an intuitive, a priori point of view, is wholly predictable.

Lee Rowley Portrait Lee Rowley (North East Derbyshire) (Con)
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Will the hon. Gentleman explain what is dire, catastrophic and crazy about five consecutive quarters of economic growth?

Geraint Davies Portrait Geraint Davies
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The hon. Gentleman will know that we have got the lowest growth in the G7—it is absolutely appalling.

Tom Brake Portrait Tom Brake
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From top to bottom.

Geraint Davies Portrait Geraint Davies
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From top to bottom, as the right hon. Gentleman says.

So now we have what can be characterised as the “Bad Friday agreement”. Our great Prime Minister was phoned up at 5 o’clock in the morning, dragged out of bed and required to fly to a meeting in Europe to be told, over breakfast, what she will receive for Brexit. She will have to pay between €35 billion and €39 billion, with no strings attached on trade. She will have to ensure that the single market and customs union operates within Northern Ireland, which is obviously a recipe for companies from Britain to move to Northern Ireland so that they can be in both the UK and the single market. She was told that 3 million EU citizens will basically still enjoy all the rights and protections from the European Court of Justice while British citizens will not—we will be second-class citizens in our own country. She was told all that, and she said, “Oh, that sounds all right. I’ll go and talk to Parliament about that.” Sadly, we are not able to view that statement in its entirety.

We have seen the devaluation, the inflation and the lost trade, and we have had problems with market access. The people in Swansea and elsewhere who voted leave were told, “Don’t worry: we’ll have single market access,” but already we are seeing an exodus of jobs. I am not just talking about the European Banking Authority or the European Medicines Agency, but those basic strategic units of key importance are being dislocated from the British economy. Indeed, many multinational headquarters are in London so that they can be next to the City and have access to Europe. Companies are considering relocating for that reason as well.

If we exit and have to do our own thing with other countries, I fear for Britain. We would turn our back on the biggest market in the world and turn to the United States and the open arms of Donald Trump—I hope you have not eaten recently, Sir David—who has already placed tariffs on and shown aggression towards Bombardier. At his inauguration he said, “Foreign companies are taking our jobs, making our products and stealing our companies”, and that he would ensure that new trade deals would at least achieve parity or ensure a trade surplus for the United States. I am fearful of the sorts of trade deals we will get with regard to money and qualitatively speaking. They sell asbestos, chlorinated chicken and the like—that is something to look forward to from the United States.

People are suddenly realising that what was promised is not going to materialise, and that what is materialising is something awful. The Prime Minister has also agreed a two-year transition period—which is two years on death row, in my view. Companies now have two years to make an orderly transition out of Britain. They can relocate to somewhere they will not face massive tariffs or restrictions on skilled workers or product parts moving across borders so that they can make their products and sell them.

What is more, people were told that they would take back control. We have been debating the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, which, in a nutshell, was meant to translate the rights and privileges of the EU constitution into British law, but which in fact is drafted so widely that it gives Ministers the right to change things as appropriate, so that those rights and privileges can be crossed out by future Governments. There is no guarantee for them. It is drafted so broadly that the courts are unable effectively to exercise judicial review over those rights. Finally, the enforcement agencies are not in place to deliver those rights. For example, in essence the European Court is enforcing air quality standards that we fail to meet in Britain; we would just be able to decide in future that we will not have air quality standards. Rights and privileges that we currently enjoy can be taken away by future Governments and the Government have concentrated power in Ministers, away from Parliament. Instead of taking back control, we are losing it.

Julia Lopez Portrait Julia Lopez (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)
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Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

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David Amess Portrait Sir David Amess (in the Chair)
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I call Julia Dockerill.

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Julia Lopez Portrait Julia Lopez
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The hon. Gentleman talks about taking back control, but does he accept that the EU is not a static organisation but one whose key leaders recently stated a desire for much deeper political integration among member states in the years ahead? If we halted Brexit would he tell the people of Swansea that rather than taking back control he would be comfortable handing much more control to the EU, to carry out the vision of people such as President Macron, Martin Schulz and Mr Juncker?

Geraint Davies Portrait Geraint Davies
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I congratulate the hon. Lady on her marriage.

Strangely enough, just before the Brexit vote I turned to the present Foreign Secretary and said, “Boris,”—this is what I say to taxi drivers, by the way—“can you name one law in the EU that you do not like?” I thought he would know because he was leading the campaign. He scratched his head and said, “There are three directives on bananas.” This is a true story. I said, “Well, the thing is, you can buy bananas in Tesco and the Co-op. There isn’t really a problem with bananas. Can you think of something else?” He scratched his head a bit longer and said, “REACH.” He was hoping I did not know anything about the regulation for registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals. I said, “Do you mean the regulation that ensures that manufacturers are required to prove that a chemical is safe before it is marketed, as opposed to the American system where they can sell what they like and the United States Environmental Protection Agency must prove that it is hazardous before banning it, which is why asbestos is still legally sold in America?” I said, “Given that, don’t you think the precautionary principle that we use, through REACH, is the right one?” He said, “Oh, I think John, over there, has got to talk to me,” and walked off.

Similarly, when I spoke to the present Environment Secretary I said, “Mr Gove—Govey—can you think of an EU law that you don’t agree with? You are leading this campaign with Boris,” and he scratched his head awhile and said, “I don’t know: the clinical trials directive.” Again, he thought he could throw these things in, hoping that I did not know anything about them. I said, “The clinical trials directive requires that pharmaceutical companies and drug companies publish their tests and trials before marketing a product, as opposed to what happens in America, where they could have a number of trials and choose to just publish the positive outcomes of those trials and not the negative ones. So if someone is making thalidomide or something similar they could say, ‘Look, we have had these five trials and there is nothing wrong with it.’ So what is wrong with that, Michael?” He said, “I have got to go and talk to Freda” —or whoever it was—and went off.

The question that was asked was whether I would be comfortable with more laws passed in Europe, and the answer is yes. Do I want deeper, closer and greater political union? No. Obviously the people of France and Germany, where there have been elections recently, have shown that they want maximised devolution and sovereignty within a partnership that collectively works for the good of all. That is the essence of the EU, not some sort of monolithic, bureaucratic, centralised system that generates laws that people do not like—and some of the architects of the disaster that is going on cannot even think of any such laws.

Wera Hobhouse Portrait Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
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I apologise for being late, Sir David. I was listening to the Prime Minister’s statement. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is tragic that discussions that bring out what the EU is like—how we trade, what our relationship is, what our consumer protections are, and the environmental protection —are happening now, 18 months after the referendum? Would not it have been much better to have them before the referendum? Given that we did not have a proper debate, is not now—or the next six months to a year—the time to have a proper referendum on the deal, because that is when we have all the information?

Geraint Davies Portrait Geraint Davies
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That is precisely the point. We all bear our own responsibility for not talking about Europe enough in the past. Everyone said, “We don’t want to talk about that; it is really boring.” The Labour party has some responsibility for that. In the approach to the 2014 European election the Labour party campaign was about the cost of living crisis—to send a message to the Conservatives that it was terrible. Next to that was a leaflet from the UK Independence party saying, in various ways, “Europe’s rubbish.” If you are a normal person—I appreciate you are not, Sir David. [Laughter.] You are super-normal. If people get literature saying, “Europe’s rubbish,” and then something saying, “Send a message to the Conservatives about the cost of living crisis,” will they be bothered to vote?

I put out some literature saying that 25,000 jobs in Swansea bay depend on being part of the European Union, that people should vote Labour for the European Union—to keep that going—and that they should remember that their four weeks of paid holiday and the quality of the air they breathe and the water they bathe in rely on protection and guarantees from the EU, which is therefore a good idea. My vote went up in that election, comparing like with like and contiguous seats, with a big turnout and a big Labour vote. I think that was simply because we respected the fact that the election was about Europe, and we talked positively about Europe, as opposed to anything else.

The point that I am trying to make is that although the arch-fundamentalist Eurosceptic ideologues who seem to have hijacked the Conservative party, plus their UKIP bedfellows, keep going on in a monotonous, manic way about how awful Europe is, now that they are taking over, those of us who realise the benefits of Europe remain quiet. Worse still, Europe has been regarded as an embarrassing relative locked in the top cupboard of the house.

It is belatedly time, now that there has been a vote in principle to leave, because everyone was a bit worried about it—they do not know why, when asked—to talk about the issue and say, “Did you know that, if we go, it will be more difficult and expensive to go on holiday; we will lose all these jobs and our universities will not have such collaboration; we will no longer have the weight of the EU in negotiating trade deals but will be on our own, and the people we are negotiating with will know that and exploit it, and we will therefore be subjected to a battering of our rights and privileges; and business will say that we face tariffs and therefore cannot afford four weeks of paid holiday and all the red tape and health and safety?”

Now that people realise that will happen, they are saying, “Hold on. I thought that what was happening was that there were all these foreign people over here taking our jobs and services. I didn’t know they were contributing, net, to the Exchequer and helping me. I was led to believe something quite different. I didn’t know I would lose my job and there would be inflation. Now that I see that what is under the headline of ‘Brexit breakfast’ is something appalling, rather than what was on the menu, I should have the right to send it back, because it does not represent what I was offered.” In a nutshell, people are telling me, “This isn’t what I voted for, and I want to have the final say.”

Regarding those comments about the political parties, there has not been much political leadership toward giving people the final say on the exit package, but people are asking for it of their own volition. The news is very biased; I am not talking about the BBC here, but some of the gutter press have an almost manic obsession with saying, “We’ve got to get out at any cost; it doesn’t matter.” They have an obsession with leaving Europe, perhaps because Europe has the collective will to bring in regulations that bring people’s taxation to account and ensure that we live in a civilised world that is not becoming increasingly polarised. The people, as the recent Survation poll shows, are now saying, “Yes, we want to have a final say on the exit package. We voted in good faith, but this is not what we voted for.”

I believe that this is a one-way road, not a flip-flopping of British opinion. Every day, people are saying, “This isn’t what we voted for.” They are suddenly coming to that realisation. The important thing is that nobody blames the people for voting in good faith for what they believed to be the case, because they were told that it was true, but it has emerged that it was not true. As Keynes famously said:

“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?”

The answer, from a lot of Conservatives in particular, is, “Well, I just continue as if I didn’t know.” We can say, “Oh no. If you keep walking down this road you will go off a precipice.” They say, “Well, I’ve decided to walk down it anyway.” That is where we are headed.

Caroline Lucas Portrait Caroline Lucas
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The hon. Gentleman is making an eloquent speech. The poll he just mentioned, showing that more people want to stay now, also showed that young people are disproportionately among those who want to keep a close relationship with, or stay inside, the EU. Is not one of the tragedies of Brexit that we are betraying the futures of those young people? They will live with the Brexit decision much longer than any of us will, and their voices should be heard much more loudly in this debate.

Geraint Davies Portrait Geraint Davies
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That is an absolutely critical point. As the hon. Lady will know, the fact is that only one third of 18 to 34-year-olds voted in a referendum that will have such a massive impact over their lifetimes, and indeed their children’s lifetimes. Something like 80% of the over-65s voted. Of course, what follows is that, tragically, many of the people who voted to leave will have since passed away, and many of the people who were 17 at the time will now be 18. There is no doubt in my mind that, if there was another referendum, more younger people would vote. We saw that in the general election: a lot of the Labour vote, in my view, was from people who thought, “Hold on. I missed out on this Brexit thing. I’ve been sold down the river by all these older voters who participated, and that’s my future.”

One of my daughters said, “I’ve got a long time to live on this decision. Don’t you think that my vote should be weighted by the amount of life I’ve got left? There might be people who voted to leave who will sadly be gone from this world in 10 years, and I’ve got another 70 years.” I am not saying that she should have that weighting, but we should bear in mind that the future of all our young people is at a turning point. The idea that we should say, “It doesn’t matter if people have changed their minds. It doesn’t matter if the facts have changed. They said this then, based on a load of rubbish, so we’ve got to do it anyway,” about such a profound change is an indictment of the whole democratic and parliamentary system.

Our parliamentary system sends the people in this room, and in the larger Chamber, here to represent the best interests of their constituents. It might be the case from time to time that, because we spend our time thinking about these things, we like to think we have some inside knowledge or information to make those decisions. To subcontract and say, “You make the decision on the basis of a pile of lies on a red bus,” is disgraceful. I believe—and it is constitutionally true—that the vote was advisory. That was confirmed by the Supreme Court, which is why the Government were forced to have the article 50 vote.

The situation is changing. In fact, public awareness seems to be growing faster than awareness here, because they suddenly want a vote and the people in here do not want one. Once it hits a certain threshold—I think it will hit 60% within the next few months—we will find MPs saying, “If that is what they want, then we will have that,” which I think is fair enough.

Catherine West Portrait Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
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My hon. Friend is making a convincing speech. The hon. Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez) asked him about his constituents in Swansea. I wonder what assessment he has made of the impact on the Welsh economy, particularly given some of the grants the area might have received. Is he aware whether one of the secret papers that the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union might have in his drawer—or wherever they are—has made any serious assessment of the impact of stopping those grants and how much our national Government will step in on that question?

Geraint Davies Portrait Geraint Davies
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I am pleased that question has been asked. The reality is that Wales has 70% of the gross value added of the UK average. In other words, wages overall are massively less. That is why my area of Swansea bay and west Wales is the poorest part of the whole EU. It therefore gets convergence funding to support it. We have had a doubling of our great Swansea University, with an extra bay campus, and so on. Those things would not have happened had we not been in the EU. The big question is why people in Wales did not vote to stay if they get all these benefits—and they do get them.

I have a personal admission to make. The Welsh Assembly elections were held in the May before June 2016, and the whole focus of the Labour party was on trying to maximise representation in the Welsh Government. The view was therefore, “If we talk about Europe all the time, we are very divided; some Labour voters are for and some are against. Let’s just talk about the Assembly and what it does on health, education and everything else.” We then had a month left to talk about Europe. During that whole period, because we have proportional representation, the UK Independence party used the opportunity to spread malicious claims, such as, “Europe’s terrible. Isn’t it awful? We pay all this money for Europe.” Of course that is a lie in Wales’s case, since we are a net beneficiary, by billions of pounds. After the Assembly elections we had a month left, and people were already predisposed.

We have ended up with a farcical situation in which Wales will lose billions of pounds, and on top of that we will have the divorce bill thrust down our throats—£1,000 per family—and on top of that big infrastructure projects such as the Swansea bay tidal lagoon and electrification of the railways are being scrapped to pay for the Brexit bill. It is a great tragedy for Wales, and opinion in Wales is changing as people wake up to the reality—“Hold on; this wasn’t such a good idea after all.” They, like everyone in the UK, deserve a final say on the Brexit deal.

Sadly, we have had an interim agreement from the Prime Minister, but the worst is yet to come. If we have the new trade deals that people have talked about, “CETA-plus-plus” and the like, and we have buccaneer Britain on the high seas, hoping to carve up those trade deals, but with no experience of doing them in the past 40 years and no expertise, I fear for Britain.

I had better bring my remarks to a halt. People do not want this massive bill, higher prices, lost rights, an exodus of jobs and devaluation of wages and capital; they want to take back control from a team of incompetent Ministers who do not even do an impact study before going into negotiations. They want to take back control from incompetent Ministers who would carve up shoddy deals under pressure and behind closed doors. They want to have the final say so that, instead of paying more money for less, we have the option of going back to the successful partnership we previously enjoyed.

We all know this reality to be true. The great majority of MPs know in their hearts that it is not in Britain’s interests to leave the EU. They know that, but they say that the people said they wanted it. They also know that the people were misled, and that the people know that they were misled. As things change, politicians will come to the unstoppable truth that the people will demand —and will have, in my view—the final say on the exit deal, and I hope very much that we will remain in the EU.

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Geraint Davies Portrait Geraint Davies
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Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Peter Grant Portrait Peter Grant
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I am just about to refer to the hon. Gentleman, so I might be about to cover his point. He commented on the clash of dates in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, which had vital national elections just a few weeks before the EU referendum. It was not realistic to expect all in those elections not to campaign on issues for which the individual Parliaments were responsible and concentrate on the EU referendum.

The franchise has been mentioned; 16 and 17-year-olds, who statistically had more to gain or lose from the referendum result, were the one group excluded. EU nationals were not allowed to vote. Who anywhere in the UK has been more affected than EU nationals? The rules that usually control funding in elections in Great Britain did not properly apply, so a £500,000 donation was able to be channelled into the leave campaign—from who knows where—via the accounts of a political party in Northern Ireland, where, for understandable reasons, there have been more moves to retain the confidentiality of those who fund political parties.

As has been said on numerous occasions, there was no process whatsoever to hold anybody to account for telling the biggest pack of lies ever told during the referendum campaign. The £350 million on the side of a bus was certainly the biggest in terms of the size of the letters, but it was not the only or the biggest lie that was told.

Peter Grant Portrait Peter Grant
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I will give way first to the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) and then come back to the hon. Gentleman.

Geraint Davies Portrait Geraint Davies
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The hon. Gentleman likened the situation to a court making a decision, and mentioned the process. Surely the other issue is fresh evidence, and an abundance of evidence is emerging every day that people will pay more and more jobs will be lost. Now that people are realising what the evidence is, they are changing their minds.

Peter Grant Portrait Peter Grant
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I will come back in due course to the wider question of whether the circumstances have changed significantly or whether people simply understand the circumstances better now.

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Paul Blomfield Portrait Paul Blomfield
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Many of us have described it as a step on the road to what our future relationship might look like, but it is only the first step; the big issues remain unresolved, and will continue to be unresolved by the date that the right hon. Gentleman suggests for another referendum.

Geraint Davies Portrait Geraint Davies
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Will my hon. Friend give way?

Paul Blomfield Portrait Paul Blomfield
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I will not, actually, because my hon. Friend has had plenty of opportunity to contribute to the debate.

From day one, the Opposition have argued that Parliament should have the final say on our deal before March 2019, and that that should be a meaningful and real decision, with all the choices in front of us.

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Robin Walker Portrait Mr Walker
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I will give way to the hon. Member for Swansea West, seeing as I mentioned him.

Geraint Davies Portrait Geraint Davies
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As I explained at the time—the Minister has probably forgotten—I was in Strasbourg, making a speech on how disastrous Brexit would be. If those people who voted in good faith for Brexit now find that, because of the €40 billion, they have less money, rising inflation, higher costs, lost jobs and lower prospects and therefore change their mind and say, “Look, I was wrong,” should not they have a right to a say on the Brexit deal? Why not—

Robin Walker Portrait Mr Walker
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I should perhaps ask the hon. Gentleman to give way. He is in danger of making another speech. I do not share his pessimism. I believe we can achieve a successful outcome to the process. The premise of his question is, therefore, wrong.

The hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) made an interesting speech. He talked about manifestos and elections. Indeed, it is worth noting that at the general election earlier this year more than 85% of people voted for parties that were committed to respecting the result of the referendum. Both the Labour and the Conservative party manifestos made such a commitment clear. The people have spoken and the Government have made it clear that we have listened. Rather than second-guess the British people’s decision to leave the European Union with a second or third referendum, the challenge now is to make a success of it, and that is how we are approaching the negotiations—anticipating success, not failure

It is vital that we try to reach an agreement that builds a strong relationship between Britain and the EU, as neighbours, allies and partners. I respect the point that the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) made—indeed, it is one I have made in previous debates, including the last time we had one on the referendum—but we need to bring people together through that process, and I believe that the Prime Minister’s speeches in Florence and at Lancaster House set out to do exactly that.