EU Referendum Rules

Peter Grant Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman has made an interesting start. Does he agree that if both sides of the campaign are supposed to be balanced, it is irresponsible for anyone to deliver literature in the closing days of any referendum campaign strongly advising people, “If in doubt, vote for the status quo”? If people are in doubt, they should not vote.

[John Penrose]

My point was that had we set up a super-majority as the petition suggests, we would have tilted the rules unfairly in favour of the remain campaign. With a fair and level playing field, both sides are free to make their cases as strongly as they can and to rebut the other side’s case if they feel that it is wrong. The hon. Gentleman clearly feels that some of the points that were made were entirely incorrect, but the correct response was to argue against them and engage in democratic debate at the time, not to try to tilt the playing field towards one side or the other.

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[Mr Lilley]

In that case, let me say two things. First, the hon. Gentleman and the remain side were singularly ineffective in rubbishing that claim, despite the fact that I heard it being rubbished many times. Secondly, he says that working-class voters—Labour voters—would have voted to stay if they had known it was only £200 million a week, but were prepared to vote to leave for £350 million. He has put a price on their vote of the difference between those two sums, which I do not find true.

[Peter Grant]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Lilley]

I will continue, if I may.

If it was a lie for the leave side to refer to our gross contribution without netting off the money we get back, were not remain campaigners just as dishonest to focus on money we get back without mentioning the contribution we make? Remainers frequently claimed, with no rebuttal from the BBC, that the EU gives millions of pounds to universities, researchers, farmers, regions and so on, with no mention that British taxpayers contribute £2 or £3 for every £1 returned to us. They cannot have it both ways and say it is wrong for one side to mention the gross figure, but not for the other. I doubt if the outcome would have been any different if the leave battle bus had painted £200 million per week on its side, rather than £350 million. I met countless voters who said, “My heart is for leave, but my pocket says stay.” They were convinced by “Project Fear” that they would be worse off if we left the EU.

The Treasury analysis of the immediate economic impact of leaving the EU said that

“a vote to leave would represent an immediate and profound shock to our economy. That shock would push our economy into a recession and lead to an increase in unemployment of around 500,000, GDP would be 3.6% smaller, average real wages would be lower, inflation higher, sterling weaker, house prices would be hit and public borrowing would rise compared with a vote to remain.”

On top of that, we were promised a punishment Budget that would take away benefits from the sick, the disabled and the elderly. None of those things, I am happy to say, have occurred. There has been some hope from one or two Opposition Members that they will occur in due course.

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[James Cleverly]

The hon. Member for Streatham has pre-empted my next paragraph, so I thank him for that. He may read my speech to prove to him that I am not retrofitting anything.

Although it is not incumbent on the Government to take on board the campaign ideas and slogans of Vote Leave, it would be unwise of any Government to ignore some of the fundamental issues that came to the fore during the referendum campaign, such as the desire for greater domestic sovereignty for this country, for the reprioritisation of Government spending to domestic expenditure—for example, a significant upturn in spending on the national health service—for the control of borders and for greater international trade. Without a doubt, through the negotiation process and in the aftermath of our exit, the Government will need to put to the British people a credible plan on those issues and a whole host of others to have a realistic chance of being returned to government.

That brings me to my fundamental point. The way parliamentary democracy and parliamentary accountability work is that prospective Governments should put forward their ideas. Those ideas should be voted on by the British people, and those Governments should be held to account for the delivery or otherwise of that agenda.

It is helpful to think about the chronology. We are likely to see article 50 invoked relatively soon, I suspect. Then over the next couple of years, as timetabled by article 50, we will see a negotiated position, which I suspect will be in the public domain in the lead-up to the 2020 general election. The Prime Minister will no doubt put forward the Conservative plan for what Brexit will look like in real terms, including on immigration policy, public spending policy, trade policy, defence policy and so on. I am sure the Labour party—I will rephrase that: I hope the Labour party—will be able to put forward an agenda for what its impression of Brexit looks like, including its public spending priorities, immigration plans and international trade plans. The Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National party will do likewise. If one of those parties wishes to say, “Actually, do you know what? None of the deals on the table is good enough. We will rejoin the EU and overturn the explicit mandate from the EU referendum,” good luck to them. They can put that in front of the British people and let us see what they come up with.

[Peter Grant]

The hon. Gentleman is painting quite a tempting scenario. Is it not the case, first of all, that once article 50 is triggered, the United Kingdom will not have any unilateral right, and if we do not have a negotiated deal within two years, Europe will then be entitled to tell us what the deal is? Secondly, is it not the case that deciding to remain in the European Union is relatively straightforward? However, if the United Kingdom were to try to get back in as a new member state after leaving, the UK as it is now would fail the democracy test and would not be eligible for EU membership,

[James Cleverly]

I take the hon. Gentleman’s point on board. Although I disagree with some of the fundamentals underlying it, it is a valid point, but the status quo is as I described it.

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[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

This is an interesting debate to attempt to sum up. I clearly do not have time to address all the interesting points that have been made. I apologise to Members whose constituencies I am not familiar with, and also if I miss out their “right honourable” titles. If I do not have time to get around all the points that have been made, Members can assume that if they said something that I agree with, their point was very well made, and if they said something that I disagree with, their arguments were fatally flawed and really should not be heard again.

I have a huge amount of sympathy with the intentions of the 4 million-plus people who signed the petition, but in my heart of hearts I cannot support the petition because of its wording. Nor can I support its general thrust, which is that we should have another referendum on EU membership. The most fundamental of my political beliefs is that the people are sovereign. The sovereignty of the people means that people have the right to be wrong and to take decisions that I personally disagree with. I have had quite a lot of practice at being gutted and devastated about referendum results and at having people who trust me to act on their behalf begging me to force a rerun because there must have been some mistake. I have had to say to them, “I’m sorry, it’s not the way I wanted it to happen.” In both cases, the result did not reflect the way people in Fife voted, but it reflected how the people as a whole voted. We have to respect that. As part of that, though, I will demand and insist that the people of my country have their wish respected as well. That is a red line as far as I am concerned.

We cannot ignore the frustration we are seeing. It is wrong to impugn the integrity, character and honesty of the 4 million people who have asked for a second referendum. I do not impugn the integrity or honesty of the 4 million people who voted UKIP—I suspect that there is not an awful lot of overlap between those two groups of 4 million. However passionately and fundamentally I might disagree with someone else’s view, I will always stand by their right to express it. One of the ills of the politics that we are now seeing come to fruition is that we are far too quick to criticise people’s integrity and question their motives just because they have views that differ strongly from our own. I welcome the contributions that have been made on both sides of the debate, even though I felt that some of them showed poor analysis and I could not possibly agree with them.

I shall pick up on one or two key points. A Labour Member made an interesting intervention early in the debate—I am sorry, but I cannot remember who it was and whether they are still present—suggesting that the demand for a second referendum is damaging to our democracy. No, the demand for a second referendum is a strong symptom of the fact that our democracy is already severely, if not fatally, damaged. A fundamental test of any democratic process should always be that the losers accept that the contest was fair. In this case, a substantial number of the losers do not believe that. If they are honest about it, a substantial number of the winners are probably also not happy about the way in which the contest was won.

Nevertheless, we cannot attempt to rerun the contest. Like other Members, there may be circumstances in which I would support another referendum to confirm our exit from the European Union, although I am not yet convinced about that. We have to stop and ask ourselves: how have weaknesses been allowed to develop for so long in this, the so-called mother of all Parliaments, such that a Government can embark on a course that leads to something that the vast majority of that Government, including the then Prime Minister himself, were convinced would be catastrophic for the nations they had been elected to serve and to lead? How can a Government who had the support of only 36% of those who bothered to turn out and vote lead four nations of 60 million-plus people down a path on which that same Government did not want to embark, when two of the four equal partner nations were determined not to embark on that path? We have been led into a position from which I can see no way for England and Wales to retain their membership of the European Union. If or when they change their minds and try to get back in, I wish them the best of luck, but I cannot see an acceptable way for them to retain membership.

It is unacceptable to suggest that Scotland and/or Northern Ireland just have to follow suit. What the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) said was interesting. I agree with him that we can never say, “Thank you very much for giving us your opinion, but damn you, we’re going to ignore you,” but 57.8% of people in Northern Ireland said that they wanted to stay in the European Union. I am not prepared to say to those citizens of one of the nations of these islands, “Damn you, we’re going to ignore you and take you out of the EU, even if you don’t want to go.”

There has been a lot of discussion about the nature of the wildly untrue statements and promises that were made during the referendum campaign. It genuinely scares me that Members of Parliament—honourable Members of Parliament—can sit here in an open forum and say, “Yeah, but people tell lies in general elections and council elections. It is just part of the system.” It should never be part of the system. It is appalling that a Member of this Parliament was found by a court of law to have told a blatant lie, but the law does not provide for that person to be forced to seek re-election through a by-election. There is something fundamentally wrong if the political system not only tacitly but now explicitly accepts that telling lies is an accepted part of the political process. If this whole shambolic affair does nothing more than create a situation in which lies and politics and public life are no longer allowed to coexist, perhaps the cloud will have a bit of a silver lining.

As I mentioned, I have been through two referendums—I hope I do not lose the third, because I think if I lose three times I am out altogether—and the contrast between them could not have been more marked. Other Members have mentioned the Electoral Reform Society report, which highlighted many concerns. I shall give one example. On the Sunday after the Scottish independence referendum, I, along with a lot of campaigners on both sides of the debate, was invited by my local church to attend one of the services of reconciliation that took place the length and breadth of the country. Yes, no and don’t know campaigners and activists literally joined hands in prayer—or whatever was appropriate for those who do not have a particular faith.

The immediate response to the Brexit vote was a substantial and horrific increase in racial violence. If that does not tell us that the Brexit referendum has left a legacy that is far more toxic and poisonous than it needed to be, we are certainly not watching what is really happening in these islands. I commend the two Members who are no longer present for the initiative they took to try to heal the divisions. I do not think those divisions were caused by the referendum. The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) referred to the referendum having laid bare the divisions. The malaise in the political process has been brought to a focus by the referendum. That was always going to happen.

The referendum was provoked by the desire of the then Prime Minister to fend off a challenge from the extreme right—not only the extreme right in the Conservative party, but those who were too extreme for his party—rather than facing down the xenophobes who wanted to demonise immigration and hold immigrants responsible for all the ills in our society. It is sad and shameful that neither of the two major political parties went into the last election saying, “You know what? We are not going to be bullied by the keyboard tappers of the Daily Express and the Daily Mail. We are going to tell it like it is. We are going to say that we stand for immigration being a positive contribution to our nations. If you want to vote for a Government who say something different, you can have that Government, but we will not be part of it.” Neither of the two major parties was prepared to do that, because getting elected was more important to them than saying what they fundamentally believed in.

I cannot believe how the Labour party produced election material saying, “Vote Labour for strong immigration controls”. I was brought up in the Labour party. The second time in my life that I voted was when I voted for a Labour MP. Interestingly enough, the first time that I voted was in the 1979 devolution referendum, and when we were cheated out of that one it nearly put me off voting for life. I cannot believe how the party I was once pleased to support can have any truck with those who want to demonise immigrants and immigration and blame them for the ills of society. When Labour made that concession—when it started to try to appease the far right, just like the Government of the day—that put us on a headlong course at the end of which Brexit was perhaps inevitable, and the horrific racist and racialistic legacy that has been left in too many of our communities will take a long, long time to put right. I hope that it is put right in time for my friends in other parts of the United Kingdom to be welcomed back into the European Union, but I can tell people something for nothing—Scotland is a member of the European Union now, and I intend for us to stay that way.