Early Parliamentary General Election Bill Debate
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Kevan Jones
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Early Parliamentary General Election Bill
Kevan Jones ExcerptsTuesday 29th October 2019
(4 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
I think we have had a filibustering of democracy for much of the last year. We have had endless games and arcane procedures to prevent Brexit, and we are seeing the same games today to prevent a general election. I think this Parliament is really reaching new levels of absurdity. In the Leader of the Opposition, we have—perhaps for the first time in history—a man who can neither lead nor oppose. I still do not quite understand whether he is supporting an election today. We need an election or we need Brexit. The Labour party voted against the Brexit timetable motion, which means that we cannot proceed. Therefore, we have to go for plan B, which is an election.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
May I say to the hon. Gentleman that he is just wrong? On the morning of the vote on the first programme motion, the Labour side of the usual channels asked for a meeting, but it was refused by the Government. It is now up to the Government to lay down a new programme motion, but they have refused to do that. It is still within the powers of the Government to do it.
Mr Jones
No, it is worse than that. In the morning, the Labour Chief Whip asked through the usual channels whether he would be able to sit down to talk about a programme motion. It was the Government who refused to do that, and it is the Government who are refusing to bring back a programme motion. The idea that somehow this House is stopping debate on the withdrawal Bill is absolutely not true.
Mr Jones
We opposed the programme motion because a major constitutional Act would have been put in place that was going to be discussed within 48 hours? The Wild Animals in Circuses Bill got more than that on the Floor of the House. The Government could have come back and said, “Right, we’ll negotiate on a programme motion”. The usual channels on the Labour side were offering that, but it is up to the Government to do it. We have always said—this has been said by the Leader of the Opposition—that we would sit down to talk about a programme motion. It is the Government who have refused to do it, not the Opposition.
Mr Seely
I am not giving way because I want to answer the point made by the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones). It is really important, and I would like to continue to make my point. Three times we had a withdrawal agreement this summer, and three times it was voted against, but now we are told you want that withdrawal agreement again. Whatever the right hon. Gentleman votes against, a week later they say, “Oh, why didn’t we get that back again?”
Mr Kevan Jones
I ask the hon. Gentleman a simple question. If the Government are so proud of the withdrawal agreement they have drawn up, why do they refuse to let the House discuss it? The House proposed a programme motion that could actually move it on today. If anyone is stopping Brexit, it is the Government.
Mrs Main
I want to give my hon. Friend a bit of a breather. I understand his frustration. Until the last incarnation of the withdrawal agreement, the Labour party—Her Majesty’s official Opposition—had set their face against a withdrawal Bill. Only five Members of Parliament—
Mrs Main
No. I am making an intervention on my hon. Friend. Eventually there was a consensus on the withdrawal agreement, so the next point of attack became how long we could discuss it. It is obvious to the country that there is a process that is coming to a conclusion. The conclusion should be that the withdrawal agreement is passed to give business and people certainty. Arguing about it will not get us anywhere.
Mr Seely
My hon. Friend is spot on. To answer the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly), I think that the Prime Minister is acting in good faith. I personally have found him entirely reasonable in my dealings with him in the past couple of years. He was very supportive of a project that I helped to write earlier this year—he did not have to be.
The Prime Minister is trying to keep a promise that was made to the British people. In the Labour party manifesto, which Labour Members stood on, there was a promise to respect the referendum.
Mr Seely
Roughly, yes. About 10 minutes ago, I was making the point that we needed a new Parliament, before I faced a host of helpful interventions from Labour Members. We need a new Parliament because we spend so much time talking about the same old thing; talking about Brexit endlessly, when there is so much else out there.
Mr Seely
Please let me make some progress. I will let the right hon. Gentleman intervene a little later.
We need a new Parliament because there are so many other things that we need to debate. I am interested in debating the rise of autocracies in the world. We have significant issues regarding Huawei.
Mr Seely
I suspect the answer to that is that I am sure the hon. Gentleman will enjoy telling his electorate why Brexit has not been passed. The hon. Gentleman believes that that is a competent answer. We look forward to seeing him back here. I clearly hope very much that I will be back here too, but I need to explain to my electorate why Opposition Members keep voting against Brexit and, thus far, keep voting against a general election.
Mr Kevan Jones
The hon. Gentleman says that Labour Members are constantly voting against Brexit, but he should remember that for two years and eight months this House had no say on Brexit because it was an internal debate within the Conservative party. He says that the Labour party opposed the deals. If he reads the Labour party manifesto, he will see that I stood on a clear commitment to not support no deal, and that a customs union and close integration with our European allies was key. My colleagues and I have stuck to our manifesto, and the idea that we have spent three years discussing Brexit is just not true.
Mr Seely
I would say that we have arguably spent 25 years debating it, certainly in some parts of Britain. We then spent months before an election campaign and a couple of years afterwards debating it. The right hon. Gentleman is right to point out that those of us on the Government Benches are not perfect and that there was argument within the Conservative party. Arguably, we spent too long trying to work out the sort of Brexit that we wanted. I accept that point. It would be churlish of me to say that we are perfect and that the right hon. Gentleman’s side is not, but there is a basic principle here which I am very happy to explain to the good folks on the Isle of Wight. It is this: we have tried repeatedly to push through a realistic and sensible Brexit deal. We tried three times this summer. We tried again with the Prime Minister’s very good withdrawal deal. Granted, I did not like some elements relating to Northern Ireland, but we have to move on and try to make the best of what we can. We have not got that, because it has not been supported by this House. We then said that we need to go back to the people, but that has not been supported by this House. That is why I said a few minutes ago that the right hon. Gentleman’s leader is the first Leader of the Opposition in history who has not led and not opposed. I want him to do that because we need to have a general election.
Mr Kevan Jones
It was the Prime Minister and members of the European Research Group who voted down the previous Prime Minister’s deal, so the idea that he is somehow blameless in the process of stopping Brexit is not the case at all.
Mrs Main
Yes, we are discussing a Bill about having a general election. My point is that we need a general election because we have moved so far away from the original concept of the referendum, which was a choice between in and out, not a party political choice. Now, we are in a sclerotic position. We cannot move forward in here, and the only obvious answer is to ask the public to decide.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
The question before us today is: do we want a general election? Do the public want a general election and do the politicians want a general election? I do not think that anybody wants a general election. If we have an election in December, it will be the third time in three years that my electorate have been asked for their vote, and I hope that they give the same answer this time. But what people do want is Brexit to be delivered.
My constituency of Sleaford and North Hykeham voted overwhelmingly to leave. The country as a whole voted to leave, but even the constituents I meet who voted remain—including business owners and people who run businesses—also want Brexit done. They tell me, “Look, we really wanted to stay and to start with we thought another vote might be a good idea, but now what we see is that the ongoing uncertainty—this kicking the can down the road all the time—is more damaging to our business than any form of Brexit, and we want you to get it done and respect democracy.” So why has it not been done?
There has been much talk of whether we are representatives or delegates, and whether the 450 MPs who represent constituencies that voted to leave should also want to leave. We are representatives, and as such we can choose whether to follow the majority of our constituents. I have followed the majority of mine in supporting Brexit, because that is what they voted for. In this case we have a very unusual situation, whereby we representative politicians gave the choice to the British people. We delegated the responsibility for this one decision to them, asking them, “What do you want us to do? This is such a momentous decision that we want you to make it for us.” They said that they wanted to leave, and it is up to us as representatives to deliver Brexit on their behalf. But we have now a perfect storm, whereby the representatives do not agree with the delegated decision of the British people, and the Government lack a parliamentary majority with which to deliver their will. Under this Prime Minister, the Government have tried every single avenue open to us to deliver Brexit.
Mr Kevan Jones
What the hon. Lady is saying is not exactly true, is it? It took her party two years and eight months to put anything to this House. The Government now have a Bill that has passed its Second Reading and could actually go forward, so it is not the case that an election is somehow going to deliver Brexit. The architect of stalling the Brexit process was the present Prime Minister, when he voted against the former Prime Minister’s original withdrawal deal.
Dr Johnson
My right hon. Friend is exactly right.
The Prime Minister was told that he could not reopen the withdrawal agreement, but he did. He was then told that he could not remove the backstop from that agreement and could not gain other important changes, but he did. He was then told that he could not get a deal that, in principle, was voted for and supported by this House, and on Second Reading he did. But then the Opposition voted to prevent it from being discussed, because it cannot be discussed without a timetabling motion, and they voted against that.
Dr Johnson
I have given way to the hon. Gentleman already.
This is a question of trust. The British people trust us to deliver on our promises, and if we do not deliver on our promises we undermine the basis of democracy. The leaflet that came out during the European referendum said: “We will implement what you decide.” Many people, some of whom had never voted for the whole of their lives because they felt it did not make anything change, went and voted in the European referendum because they thought it would make a difference. It was the biggest democratic exercise in our country’s history and a majority voted to leave—and leave we must.
The Opposition are playing party politics, because their only determination is to try to make sure that Brexit cannot happen by the 31st. That is because they think the public are stupid. They think the public will say, “Ah—the Prime Minister did not deliver Brexit by the 31st, so we can go to the country and say that he did not keep his promise.” But actually the public are not stupid. They can see that the reason we have not delivered it by the 31st is that the Opposition voted to institute the European Union (Withdrawal) No. 2 Bill, which surrendered control of when we leave to the European Union.
I want to deal with the issues in the amendments. The first amendment would allow all EU voters living in this country to vote. Quite apart from the fact that this has not been properly debated, it is very difficult to add 3 million voters to the register at very short notice. It would also have—
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
I agree. I plan to say a number of things, but I want to follow up on some of the things that have been said during the debate. There has been a huge amount of talk about being honest with the public, political expediency and turning the referendum into a party political thing. The hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) seemed very concerned that the referendum and how we vote on Bills has been used for political expediency. I would like to gently remind everybody of the time that the Prime Minister got a camera crew to come and take a picture of him as he signed his little resignation letter to Theresa May—sorry, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May). Some might say that it had been politically expedient and, lo and behold, he is now the Prime Minister. Gosh forbid that anybody should use things for political expediency or that Conservative Members have always voted for the Bill.
The trouble with the arguments we are having is that the Government have continued to behave like a Government who have a majority, regardless of the fact that they do not. The right hon. Member for Maidenhead suffered exactly the same problem after the referendum, which was not won decisively by one side—it was a marginal win—and after the 2017 election, when again the country was split, and the idea of bringing forward a Bill that we could all sit down and work on was literally never ever taken forward.
I have listened to Conservative Members saying today, “Well, you shouldn’t be allowed to amend the Bill”, or “You only want time to amend it”. Er, yes—that is absolutely right, because that is the job of this House. Different people come here from different backgrounds and make laws that are not just for one sort of person, but that represent this country. I seem to be in a twilight zone where the Government and the Executive seem to think that they just write a line and then go, “Er, well, it’s my way or the highway”. Welcome to parliamentary democracy!
Mr Kevan Jones
Does my hon. Friend agree with me that it is even worse than that because Parliament was excluded from this process for two years and eight months while the Conservative party had an internal debate about what type of Brexit they could get through, and it was only then that this House was let in to the arguments?
Jess Phillips
I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend. It is ridiculous.
I represent a leave seat, and, as we enter this general election, I may face the fate for my beliefs that the hon. Member for St Albans fears that she will face—and that is okay. She thinks it is okay, and I think it is okay that I may have done something different from what the majority of my constituents did, regardless of the fact that 10,000 extra of them voted for me post the referendum.
The reality is that the Government have only ever wanted obedience. They have looked on people like me and said, “Do as we say, little girl. We’re not going to let you do anything to our precious Bill.” But that is not the meaning of this place. What nobody in this place can answer is how will it end if what is returned is another hung Parliament. We did not think we were going to be here before, yet here we are. I believe the right hon. Member for Maidenhead thought that she would be having a considerably nicer time when she was next to Lord Buckethead on the evening of the general election, yet here we are.
What has happened since then is like a Rorschach test. The hon. Member for St Albans can look at the exact same result as the one I can look at, and we can say, “In this piece of toast, I can see the Virgin Mary”. We say that the voters think exactly what we think, regardless of what they actually said, because the question is fudged. We did not do so when we asked them in a general election, and we are not going to get a decisive answer on the issue of Brexit.
I spoke to the Prime Minister in the Lobby the other day. He was loitering around outside the private Members’ Bills ballot, which I invited him to enter as it seems he would struggle to change the law otherwise. He asked, “What will it take for you, Jess, to support this Bill?” Am I allowed to say my own name? Is that allowed? He asked, “What will it take for you, the honourable— the incredibly honourable—Member for Birmingham, Yardley?” I said, “What it will take for me is that you ask the people where I live if they are happy with the deal”. It is as simple as that. He looked at me as if this was brand new information—“This is the first time I’ve heard such a revelation”—which I thought was odd, but, you know, he is an unusual man.
Then the Prime Minister said to me, “Don’t you think another referendum will be dangerous for this country?” To that, I said, “I’m not entirely sure why you think it would be any different from a general election”. We are all sitting in here talking about this general election, but pretty much no one has actually talked about general elections, apart from a few party political broadcasts about people’s museums in their constituencies and how beautiful the islands are. The reality is that we have all talked about the referendum. This is going to be a Brexit referendum whether we like it or not, except that we will not be being clear and we will not be being honest—none of us will be—and in what we get back we will be able to see whatever we want to see.
I have heard people in here say that I as a Labour voter voted to deliver Brexit based on the last general election, and that is simply not true. I did not do that. As a Labour voter, I voted for many, many things that I believe in about Labour values. My vote had nothing to do with the Brexit position of my political party and I would say the same if I was not a representative of it. We are going to dishonestly use a general election. It will not be about the fact that people in my constituency cannot send their kids to school five days a week, or about whether the NHS is serving them properly, or about whether they are happy with something that the Conservative party might say. We are going to use the general election for political expediency. Can we all stop pretending that it is about anything else?