New Partnership with the EU

Matt Warman Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend is right that a level of unskilled migration is likely to continue. Where from and how it is to be controlled will be matters for the new immigration policy, which will be under the control of this House—a point to which I keep returning. My job is to return the policy here; it will then be the job of this House to make the right decision in the British national interest, and I am sure that it will.

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

My constituency voted, as Members know, more strongly than anywhere else in the country to leave the European Union, and I know that many people in Boston and Skegness will welcome the clarity and tone of today’s announcement. Does the Secretary of State agree that when the people of Boston and Skegness voted for this country to be able to control its immigration policy and do our own trade deals, they were voting knowingly to leave the customs union and the single market?

[Mr Davis]

I do not want to get into trying to interpret everybody’s inner thinking, but the simple truth is that advocates on both sides of the argument made it plain during the campaign that they thought leaving the European Union meant leaving the single market. I cannot think that the decision was made in ignorance.

The Government's Plan for Brexit

Matt Warman Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

Over the past few days, Mr Speaker, I have not seen as much of you as I might have liked, partly because I have had the privilege of being up in my own constituency and partly because I have been in the neighbouring seat of Sleaford and North Hykeham. Until that seat is represented again in this place—I very much hope that the excellent Conservative candidate, Caroline Johnson, will have that privilege—I hope that you will permit me to report what is being said on the doorsteps of Lincolnshire. Whether it is in Boston, where 77% voted to leave the EU, or in Branston, which is in Sleaford and North Hykeham, where 62% did so, there is a single line that honest, decent voters use again and again: they doubt that the Government will deliver on their word and trigger article 50 by the end of March. They say firmly that the Prime Minister is the right person to do it, but the Lincolnshire public doubt that politicians in the House are on their side.

I hope that, through this debate, the message goes back loud and clear, both to Boston and Skegness and to Sleaford and North Hykeham, that Parliament will not seek to set the Government up to deliver anything other than the best possible deal for the UK by asking them to put all their cards on the table and that we will trigger article 50 by the end of March. We on the Conservative Benches know that that is the right thing to do, and Members on other Benches or those in the Supreme Court seeking to make a different case should accept that to take another view is to go further than questioning Brexit: it is playing with the fundamental principle of democracy that the people must decide.

Some remainers say that that is not what they seek to do, but I would say this to them, in line with what the people of Lincolnshire have been saying to me. The argument that was lost in June was not lost in six weeks. It was lost over years and decades. We in the House govern with the consent of the people. To maintain that consent all of us must bear in mind the fact that we laid out a case in June. Now we must make sure, unused as some of us are to doing so, that we do as we are told. Not doing so risks far more than our relationship with Europe.

EU Referendum Rules

Matt Warman Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Umunna]

I do not disagree with that. I will move on from thresholds, but the danger is that they may be seen to ignore views on either side.

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, in my constituency of Boston and Skegness, the turnout was 77% and the vote to leave was also 77%. His point cuts both ways. If we were to have a second referendum, the sense of disempowerment in a constituency such as mine—and of going against democracy itself—would be palpable.

[Mr Umunna]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I was going to mention his constituency, where he kindly hosted a visit for me. For the record, he represents the area that had the highest leave vote. I represent the area that had the highest remain vote. I wanted to go to see whether we could perhaps heal some of the divisions in society. That miraculously takes me to my first point on the substantial issue and whether we should have a second referendum.

My first point is that, yes, the referendum clearly delivered a decisive result, but it was not a landslide for leave. Different generations voted differently and I certainly saw that in the constituency of the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness. Different areas of the UK voted in different ways, as did different ethnicities. It is incumbent on all of us, given all that I have just mentioned, to see how we can stitch together this fragile democracy of ours. It was very much in that spirit that I made the visit to Boston and that I came to this issue.

The second issue that I want to raise is this. I campaigned all over the country for us to stay in the European Union. I led the Labour In for Britain campaign in London. I was one of the main national spokespeople for Britain Stronger In Europe. However, it would be disingenuous to deny what has partly powered this petition: a split has arisen in the remain camp post the referendum result. Half of remainers think that Britain has voted to leave; that is what the polls show, and now the Government have a duty to carry out its wishes and get the best deal in order for us to leave the European Union. Slightly less but about half—I am sure that many of those here who applauded would fit into this category—think that we should ignore the vote to leave or seek to overturn it by way of the second referendum that we are talking about today. So inevitably what I am going to say will disappoint half the people I have been campaigning with over the last few months.

It is true that a lot of overblown claims, misleading promises and the rest were parroted by the leave campaign. The right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) said that perhaps there were a few overblown claims on our side as well. However, in the end, the leave campaign won, and it is important that it is held to account now for what follows, because it was the victorious side in the debate. That is why I, the right hon. Gentleman, my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) and the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) have set up Vote Leave Watch—to scrutinise what comes out of the deal and to seek to ensure that people are held to account. Frankly, it is as much to give a voice to the 48% who voted to remain as it is for the 52% who voted to leave to see whether promises have actually been delivered. In so doing, we will hopefully try to forge a national consensus and bring the two together.