EU Withdrawal Agreement: Legal Changes

Debate between Robin Walker and Caroline Lucas

Monday 11th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

I know that my right hon. Friend speaks with considerable experience in these issues. The alternative arrangements have been a crucial part of this conversation, and they will continue to play an important part in our negotiations. We are seeking legally binding changes.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Does the Minister care at all about the real impact of his Government’s utter incompetence on real people? In my constituency, American Express, the biggest private sector employer, is deeply concerned about recruitment problems because of his recklessness. Will he answer a very simple question? Will he himself vote against no deal if the Prime Minister’s deal is lost tomorrow?

[Mr Walker]

I want to take the first opportunity to vote against no deal by voting for the deal in a meaningful vote. That is the best way to secure the absence of no deal and to secure the interests of this country.

Brexit Deal: Referendum

Debate between Robin Walker and Caroline Lucas

Monday 11th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Mr Robin Walker)]

First, I congratulate the Petitions Committee on arranging this debate and the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) on presenting and sponsoring it. Like her, when I studied these petitions I noted that a wide range of views were reflected in them, but she did an excellent job of reflecting those views in her engaging introduction.

As my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) described, a veritable smorgasbord of EU referendum-related issues has been put before us. However, the motion largely considers the case for a second referendum, or, indeed, as the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) described it in his usual perceptive way, a third referendum on the deal for the UK’s exit from the European Union.

The Government’s position remains the same. We said at the time of the EU referendum in 2016, which I remind people that Parliament voted to hold, that we would respect the result, and that is what we are doing. The result of the referendum on 23 June 2016 saw a clear majority of people vote to leave the European Union. This Parliament overwhelmingly confirmed that result on 8 February this year, by voting with clear and convincing majorities in both Houses for the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill. The Bill was passed by Parliament on 13 March 2017 and it received Royal Assent from Her Majesty the Queen, becoming an Act of Parliament on 16 March 2017. The UK voted to leave the EU and it is the duty of the Government to deliver on that instruction.

[Caroline Lucas]

The Minister says that the people voted for Brexit, but the ballot paper had no clear option regarding the single market and the customs union. Will he not accept that the Government have no mandate at all for the kind of extreme Brexit they are pursuing, whereby we would be out of the single market and out of the customs union? That was not on the ballot paper and he cannot claim that it was.

[Mr Walker]

I say to the hon. Lady that we have been very clear that we respect the position of the European Union but the four freedoms are inseparable, and therefore the Prime Minister was clear in her balanced Florence speech that our approach will be to come outside the single market and the customs union, and to negotiate a new relationship with the European Union, which I will come to.

The 2016 referendum was one of the biggest democratic exercises in British history. Turnout was high, at 72%, and more than 33 million people had their say. As my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire made clear, at that time the Government made the implications regarding the decision that people were taking very clear.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton), I campaigned for a different outcome, but I also spoke out repeatedly in this House, both before and during the passage of legislation for a referendum, about trusting people on this matter. As I have emphasised to the House before, and as I think the hon. Member for Sheffield Central made very clear, this was not a decision made after just a few weeks of campaigning, but one that came after a debate that had exercised this House and our country for decades. Indeed, as the hon. Gentleman said, this debate should not be seen as a debate on a second referendum so much as a debate on a third referendum, but each of those previous referendums were billed as the decision for a generation and we should respect that.