Leaving the EU

Debate between Peter Grant and Gordon Henderson

Wednesday 18th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[Gordon Henderson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, because it allows me to emphasise again that not only is that his interpretation and mine, but it is the EU’s interpretation. What he says is quite true: once we have invoked article 50, that is the end of the matter —we will be leaving the EU. That is my understanding of the process, and I would like confirmation that I am right.

I would also like the Minister to clarify what will happen should the Supreme Court uphold the High Court’s ruling that Parliament should have a vote on any decision. As the Prime Minister made clear yesterday, leaving the EU will entail divorcing ourselves from all of the EU’s institutions, rules and regulations, including the single market, the customs union and the free movement of people—except under terms negotiated between the UK and the remaining member states. That is what my constituents understood, and it is what they voted for by a large majority in last year’s referendum.

Nationally, the United Kingdom voted by a margin of 52% to 48% to leave the EU. Some Members have said that that result is indecisive and should be ignored, but most of those Members were elected to this place with a lower percentage of the vote than 52%. Does that mean that we can ignore their opinion? I should add that, in my constituency of Sittingbourne and Sheppey, the margin in favour of leave was 62% to 38%.

I also add that my constituents who voted to leave are absolutely livid that some professor at Cambridge University called Nicholas Boyle is reported to have said:

“The referendum vote does not deserve to be respected…Like resentful ruffians uprooting the new trees in the park and trashing the new play area, 17 million English, the lager louts of Europe, voted for Brexit in an act of geopolitical vandalism.”

That is a disgraceful slur on my constituents and the rest of the 17 million decent people who voted to leave the EU—many of whom were Irish, Welsh and, indeed, Scottish.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman may have anticipated my point. I was going to say that, although he correctly pointed to the respective statuses of the United Kingdom and Great Britain earlier, there is clearly a massive flaw in the quote he read out. It was not 17 million people only from England; sadly, there were some in Scotland who voted to leave as well—although not very many.

[Gordon Henderson]

It was not my quote; it was by a professor of German from Cambridge University. He is a far more intelligent person than I am, but I understood that it was not only English people who voted to leave. I should add—the hon. Gentleman will probably realise this from my name—that my father comes from Glasgow. He is a proud Scot, but has lived in this country for 69 years. He is first and foremost British and considers himself so. Not only are those people called lager louts and vandals by this two-bit academic, but they are accused by other remainers, including Members of this place, of not understanding what they were voting for last June and of not being aware of the implications of an out vote. In addition to being insultingly patronising, that accusation simply does not stand up to even the flimsiest scrutiny.

Before the EU referendum campaign even started, the then Government sent every household an expensive leaflet, funded by taxpayers, setting out why people should vote to remain in the EU. Let me quote verbatim from that leaflet. It said that voting to remain would

“protect jobs, provide security, and strengthen the UK’s economy for every family in this country—a clear path into the future, in contrast to the uncertainty of leaving.”

That was a pretty clear warning, but still 17 million people voted to leave the EU.

The remainers also tell us that although a majority voted to leave the EU, they did not vote to leave the single market. Let me quote from the Government leaflet again:

“Remaining inside the EU guarantees our full access to its Single Market. By contrast, leaving creates uncertainty and risk.”

That, too, was pretty clear: a vote to leave the EU was also a vote to leave the single market. But still 17 million people voted to leave.

Having lost the referendum, some remainers are attempting to change the rules of the game. They are now saying that the referendum was only advisory. That is twaddle. Let me read another couple of quotes from the Government leaflet. The first is this:

“This is your chance to decide your own future and the future of the United Kingdom. It is important that you vote.”

That is reinforced by a second quote:

“This is your decision. The Government will implement what you decide.”

Voters in the United Kingdom as a whole decided to leave the EU. It is now for the Government to deliver what was promised and get the process started by invoking article 50. They should not be preventing from doing so by those remainers who are unable to come to grips with the result of the referendum.

Some remainers argue that article 50 should not and cannot be triggered without first obtaining the approval of Parliament. I do not remember those people pointing out during the referendum campaign that the Government’s promise to implement any decision taken by voters was illegal. Instead, it is only now that they are trying to subvert the will of the people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am pleased to sum up on behalf of the Scottish National party in this debate, and I commend the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson) for securing it.

In his opening speech, the hon. Gentleman reminded us that the requirement of the UK Government is to deliver and implement article 50 in accordance with the United Kingdom’s own constitutional requirements. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for reminding us, among other things, of the very special—indeed, unique—place that Northern Ireland has in the constitutional requirements of the United Kingdom. I hope that, whatever else happens, nothing in the implementation of article 50 will jeopardise in any way the very fragile and tenuous peace process that is still, thankfully, just about in place in Northern Ireland.

The hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey quoted some figures and made some assumptions about the percentage of the vote that various MPs received from the electorate. I must say that my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) actually bucked the trend that he referred to, because she got just under 57% of the vote in her election. Modesty forbids me from telling the House that I got just under 60%. Members will have worked out immediately that both those numbers are higher than 52%; indeed, they are also both higher than 55%, which is a number that is quite significant for some of us. Admittedly, though, they are far short of 62%, which is the percentage that matters most to me in this debate, because 62% is how many of my people said they wanted to stay in the European Union.

[Gordon Henderson]

I will just point out that 62% was also the majority in my constituency here in England.

[Peter Grant]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for his great persuasive powers in achieving that result. I delicately remind him that I did not say 62% in my constituency; I said 62% in my country. There is an important difference.

The final comment that I will make in relation to the hon. Gentleman is that I share his distaste and despair at the tone of some of the debate before, during and after the referendum, and I certainly completely distance myself from the description that he referred to, which was used against all of the 17 million people who voted to leave the EU. I respect the right of people to take their own decisions. I may sometimes be horrified, dismayed, appalled or disappointed by the decisions that they take, but I will respect the decision that the people of England have taken and I also respect the decision that the people of Wales have taken. I ask Members to respect the views that have been expressed by the people of Scotland.

However, I gently have to remind the hon. Gentleman that it is not the first time in the last few years that opponents of change have told packs of lies to the population during a referendum, and I also have to say that I do not remember him protesting as loudly the last time it happened, which was in Scotland.

The debate is about the process for leaving the European Union, but it would be foolish to try to talk about the process without talking about where we want to be at the end of it, because knowing where we want to be can have a huge impact on the process that we choose to follow, and the way that we implement the process can significantly affect our chances of getting the results that we want.

What are the objectives and how have they been arrived at? Well, we have got some clarity on the first question, but not a great deal of clarity on the second. We now know something about the objectives. We now know that the Prime Minister’s objective is not to have free movement of people, but we do not know exactly what she wants instead. We now know that the Prime Minister does not want to be part of the single market; we just do not know what she wants to be part of instead. And we now know—well, we knew already—that when we negotiate this avalanche of new trade deals with everybody and their dog, who, according to the Foreign Secretary, are queuing to do deals with this wee pocket of land in the north Atlantic, those deals will not be subject to adjudication by the Court of Justice of the European Union; we just do not know whose jurisdiction they will come under. In other words, we know a great deal about what the Prime Minister does not want, but we are not an awful lot further forward in knowing what she does want.

Shortly after the referendum, the Liberal Democrats—yes, they do sometimes have their uses—came up with the phrase that the referendum result told us that people wanted to leave but we did not really have any idea about where they wanted to go, and I am not convinced that things have changed very much since then.

We cannot even get reliable and consistent answers from the Government about how they will decide on their objectives. Yesterday, in answer to my question about the Scottish Government’s paper, “Scotland’s Place in Europe”, the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union told the House:

“I gave him”—

That is, Mike Russell MSP—

“an undertaking that we would debate that paper at the next JMC (EN), as it is known in Whitehall jargon, and that is what we will do. I have been very careful not to comment publicly on it”.—[Official Report, 17 January 2017; Vol. 619, c. 798.]

He was referring to the Scottish Government’s paper—