Leaving the European Union

Steve Double Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner]

The OECD says all those things, but people in the motor industry are very clear that the uncertainty is an absolute killer when it comes to long-term investment. Of course, many of the decisions are not being made here, but in Japan. Those decisions are already being made, and are doing us huge harm. Of course there is a range of factors, but it is hard to imagine such instability not causing problems to our industries and universities.

The Government’s no-deal impact assessment, published two weeks ago, states that

“food prices are likely to increase”

and that customs checks could cost business £13 billion a year—an extraordinary sum of money. I have just come from an event that was about how our maintained nurseries are facing closure for want of a fraction of that amount. Why on earth are we doing it?

The Government’s report also said that the worst-hit areas economically in a no-deal scenario would be Wales, losing 8.1%, Scotland, losing 8%, Northern Ireland, losing 9.1%, and the north-east, losing 10.5%. It is no comfort to those of us in the west midlands and the east that it would be marginally better for us. Reportedly, even the most enthusiastic Brexiteers acknowledge that there could be problems in the short term. At least on that we can probably all agree.

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

Is not part of the challenge that we had all these debates in 2016? The fact is that all the doom and gloom of the economic predictions regarding a vote to leave did not materialise. Most people chose to ignore them, and had the courage to vote on the basis of sovereignty. Re-rehearsing the economic arguments does not seem to be having any effect on the views of the British people.

[Daniel Zeichner]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman is very confident. I am sure that he is so confident that he is keen to see that tested in a further vote—I will come to that in a moment. One of the good things that has come from the process is that we all know so much more than we knew three years ago, not just in the country but in this place. As people begin to lose their jobs, and as the people of Cambridge begin to up and go elsewhere, it has become increasingly clear that it is no longer about possible projections, but what is actually happening on the ground.

I will pay the petitioners the tribute of finishing their petition before going further. In its final paragraph, the petitioners explain their view of the European Union’s perspective on the deal and the backstop. They say:

“The issue is that EU have firmly stated that they will not re-open negotiations with the UK over the agreement and remove the backstop.”

One of the most dismal aspects of the last three years has been a consistent failure on this side of the channel to understand how any of this looks from outside. The narrative of the evil European Union trying to punish Britain has, of course, been carefully burnished by some pursuing the Brexit cause, and their friends in certain newspapers, and will certainly continue to be promoted vigorously. Of course the European Union has its own interests, and it will fight for them. Why would it not? It has plenty of problems of its own to worry about.

The European Union has always been pretty clear that it would prefer that we had not decided to leave, but it has also been consistent and clear in its arguments. The UK has offered no workable solutions to the backstop issue. The EU has implored us to suggest something that would be fit for purpose, but the UK Government have suggested no mechanism that provides strong enough protections on the island of Ireland. It can hardly be a surprise that there has been so little progress.

I will try to bring the four paragraphs together, and summarise the petitioners’ case, which I take to be that years of work by officials, politicians, campaigners and more led to the withdrawal agreement and political declaration, but despite all that work it was overwhelmingly rejected by the House of Commons. On the issue of the public mood, interestingly, Professor John Curtice—one of the highest authorities on polling in this country—told an event just last week, hosted by the Economic and Social Research Council in a room adjacent to this Chamber, that that lack of confidence in the Prime Minister’s arrangements is shared by the public. Apparently just 30% of leavers support the Prime Minister’s proposals, and 22% of remainers, which I find slightly surprising, but there we go.

The 1998 Belfast agreement must be respected. That creates a near insoluble problem on the island of Ireland if the Prime Minister is going to continue opposing a UK-EU customs union. A no-deal option is economically highly dangerous, and the EU will not move further, given that it feels that it has already made substantial concessions, and the Prime Minister refuses to change her red lines. That, in substance, is the case being made by the petitioners.

Members will note that this has been a very brief account of some of the most complicated and contentious issues that this place has dealt with in many years. Many hours have been devoted to arguing about every aspect; before the debate started, we reckoned that the Petitions Committee has already brought six or seven such debates to this Chamber. I have chosen not to re-rehearse every argument in depth, because I am not sure that it would add much of value.

We are where we are—at the beginning of a week in which the whole country hopes that we can make some progress; in which the millions of non-UK EU nationals living in the UK, and the millions of UK citizens living in the EU, desperately hope that the uncertainty that blights their lives will end; in which the businesses desperately making plans for the uncertainty that risks wrecking their hard-earned investments in just a couple of weeks could see that uncertainty also come to an end; and in which the long-term sick, worried about security of supply of their vital medicines, could see an end to their anxiety. All that and much more could be done this afternoon—this very hour—were the Government finally to listen to the 48%, who voted for something achievable, rather than those who voted for a vague, wild and sometimes imprecise set of aspirations.

The petition sets out a compelling case. We have exhausted the first two of the Prime Minister’s options: the deal is dead, completely rejected by Parliament, and a no-deal exit would be irresponsible, plunging the country into chaos and hitting the most vulnerable hardest. It follows logically that we should go for what the majority of the country now want. If that is disputed, I say we put it to the test: have the vote on the work done by the Prime Minister and her Ministers. To finish with the Prime Minister—finish with her, not finish her—her deal, no deal, or no Brexit? Frankly, there is no contest. Simples: revoke article 50 now, and let the country move on.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Redwood]

Yes, indeed. My hon. Friend makes his point very well: Parliament gave people the decision and people took it.

The Conservative manifesto was very clear that we would leave on 29 March. It also said, clearly and correctly, that

“no deal is better than a bad deal”,

so that if it appeared that the deal on offer after the negotiations was a bad deal—as it clearly is at the moment—the preferred option should be no deal. It further said, very wisely, that negotiations on the future partnership should proceed in parallel with the negotiations on the withdrawal agreement. I accept that the Government have made mistakes; their mistake of not keeping the two negotiations in parallel has led to a withdrawal agreement that most MPs could not possibly accept, because it is a surrender document and a disgrace—it is not Brexit as Brexiteers want it, and it is not something that remain voters want either.

The Labour manifesto was also crystal clear that the Labour party accepted the verdict as a decision. It did not offer a second referendum, nor did it think that the public had got it wrong. It set out a very imaginative and different United Kingdom independent trade policy at some length; I did not agree with all the detail, but I was delighted that the Labour party wanted a completely independent UK trade policy. Such a policy would be completely incompatible with staying in the customs union and/or the single market, because it would require all sorts of freedoms to negotiate higher standards and negotiate different deals with the rest of the world, which would not be compatible with staying in the EU’s version with lower standards and the customs union arrangements.

We are told that the petitioners think we should now revoke article 50 because we have not reached an agreement that Parliament can accept. That means no Brexit—turning down the views of the majority. The hon. Member for Cambridge tried to put the best possible spin on this by coming up with these specious numbers and saying that 50 million people did not vote for Brexit, therefore it cannot carry. That figure includes all the children in the country—I am interested to hear that, in his view, two and three-year-olds have a view and should have a right to a view. It is also assumes that everybody who did not vote in the referendum would, if they had bothered, have voted against Brexit, although there is absolutely no reason to presume that. On samples and polling, one would assume that the people who did not vote had exactly the same split of views as the people who did vote. There was nothing in the referendum to say, “If you want to remain, you might as well stay at home.” If people wanted to remain, there was every point in going to vote, just as there was clearly every point in voting if they wanted to leave.

[Steve Double]

If the view is to be taken that 50 million did not vote to leave, does my right hon. Friend agree that it is therefore also true that 51 million people did not vote to remain in the European Union?

[John Redwood]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. It is also a question of understanding how representative democracy based on elections and referendums works. In all other cases, Members of different parties in the House accept two things. First, they accept that when we have had an election, it is the votes that were cast that determine who gets to govern. We do not say, “Oh well. Many millions of people didn’t vote, and they wanted a different Government.”

Secondly, we also accept that it was the voters’ decision. We do not say, “Oh deary me. I’m still in Government. You tried to throw me out of Government—I’m sorry, electorate, you’re too stupid to understand. I’m doing a wonderful job and I’m actually going to carry on in Government, because I don’t agree with you. I might give you another vote in two three years’ time if you still haven’t come round to my point of view, but we’re just going to ignore the vote.” No right hon. or hon. Member would dream of saying that—not even members of the SNP, who have bitter experiences of referendums. They say they love referendums, but every time they hold one, they lose it. Every time they lose one, they then say, “That one didn’t count. Can we have another one?”

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I thank the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), a fellow member of the Petitions Committee, for introducing it.

Although I fundamentally disagree with the premise of the petition, I absolutely understand some of the frustrations that people feel. I admit that there have been many times over the past few months that even I—somebody who is passionate about leaving the European Union—have wondered whether it is not too much hassle, and whether saying, “Let’s call the whole thing off,” might be the easiest course of action. However, I believe that if we did that, we would be fundamentally wrong, and would be making a huge and damaging mistake. It would be hugely damaging to our democracy for us to seek to undo the democratic decision that the British people made in the 2016 referendum.

This House was absolutely clear at that time that we were allowing the British people to make the decision in that referendum, and that we would carry out the instruction that they gave us. If we do not deliver on that commitment, we will further damage, and perhaps destroy for a long time, the last bit of trust in this place and our democracy. We all accept that trust in politics is at a pretty low ebb. Given the way that this House and many Members and former Members have behaved in recent months, we can hardly blame people for having a very low opinion of it. It is sad to say that none of the main political parties comes out of this process with any credit, given the way we have gone about things. Ignoring the result of the referendum would do lasting damage, and I believe that there would be a significant backlash from the electorate.

[Mr Nigel Evans]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one reason why people in every constituency in Lancashire, and people in the north-west, the north-east, the south-west and the south-east, voted to leave was that for far too long they had felt as if they did not have a voice? This Parliament suddenly gave them a voice via the referendum, but it now wants to reinforce the view that their voice does not matter. It would be hugely dangerous not to carry out the wishes of the British people.

[Steve Double]

I am not sure whether my hon. Friend has been looking at my notes, but that was going to be my next point. He has made it very well for me. Many thousands of people up and down the country, particularly in the parts that he highlighted, voted for the first time in their lives, or certainly for the first time in a very long time, in that referendum for the simple reason that they thought that, because it was a nationwide referendum, their vote would count and their voice would be heard. It would be an absolute denial of that if we did not deliver on the referendum.

Not delivering on the referendum would not just damage our democracy. We should think about what message it would send to the EU if, having gone through all this for almost three years, we turned round and said, “You know what? It’s a bit too difficult. I think we’ll reverse this, because it’s a bit too hard for us. It’s too tough a decision for us to make.” It would be a national embarrassment if, having gone through this process, we do not actually deliver on the referendum. It would weaken our position in the EU. Let us not pretend that, by revoking the triggering of article 50 and pretending that none of this ever happened, somehow we will go back to pre-2016 times as though nothing had ever happened. It would undermine and damage our position in the EU in a way that would be massively damaging to our country.

If the conclusion is that it is too difficult, too complex and too politically challenging ever to leave the EU, that would be the final confirmation, if one were needed, that we have surrendered our national sovereignty and are trapped in a political union that will inevitably lead to further integration with the EU. That would be the only conclusion that could be drawn if, after voting to leave and spending nearly three years trying to get out, we cannot do that. Clearly, we would never leave the EU. It would show the EU that we are too weak and timid, and that we lack the courage, faith and optimism in our nation to leave.

Let us be clear that many people feel frustration because we are not where we want to be. We should never have been in this position. It is clearly an understatement to say that we are not where we wanted to be. This close to the deadline, we should not still be debating whether we will actually leave. It is absolutely ludicrous that, after all this time, the question of whether we will actually leave the EU is still on the table. That issue was settled when this House voted to give the people of this country a referendum, and when, after people gave us their decision, a huge majority of this House voted to trigger article 50. The decision was made then that we will leave. It should not be in any doubt. This matter should have been settled once and for all. It is a failure of leadership—of politics—that we have not been able to settle this issue clearly and finally.

Many people up and down the country—particularly some of those we were referring to earlier—who voted in that referendum because they wanted their voice to be heard do not believe that we will ever leave. I speak to them in my constituency every weekend that I go back. They come to me and say, “Please tell me that we are actually going to leave.” I say, “Well, as far as I’m concerned, and if I have anything to do with it, yes we will.” They go on to tell me that they genuinely believe that we are in the midst of an establishment stitch-up that will somehow find a way to ignore the referendum result—some clever parliamentary shenanigans to undo it—and we will not actually leave. Thousands of people across the country think that. If we prove them right and allow Brexit not to happen, we will reinforce their view. That will be hugely damaging to our society.

[Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

I do not know whether my hon. Friend’s constituents are aware—I am sure that many of mine are not—but under the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration, our defence and intelligence would be subordinate to Europe, after 40 years of our trying very hard to avoid that. Are we not a tier 1 military power? We have some of the best intelligence services in the world. We are now signing up to EU defence structures “to the extent possible under EU law”. That is a massive change that mortally threatens our relationship with the United States and damages the Five Eyes.

[Adam Holloway]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Five Eyes and our relationship with the United States are mortally threatened? The British people do not realise that.

[Steve Double]

I am deliberately trying to avoid being drawn into a debate about the withdrawal agreement because I am not sure that that is what the petition is actually about, but my hon. Friend makes a good point. There are many serious concerns about the content of the withdrawal agreement, and he has highlighted one about defence and security. My fundamental problem with the withdrawal agreement is that it puts our country in a worse and weaker position than now, which is why it does not have my support as it stands.

Part of the problem is that this House has been gripped by fear. Far too many people in positions of responsibility in Parliament and in Government seem paralysed by the fear of the unknown. Let us be clear: that is what this is partly about, because some argue that we do not know what Brexit is going to mean. Yes—that is the point. We do not know because we are breaking free of the security blanket of something to which we have belonged for 40 years, and we cannot answer every question. But do you know what? The British people had the guts and courage, and the faith in our country, to vote for it anyway.

[David Linden]

I reflect on my experience in 2014, when the Bank of England and all the establishment figures whom the hon. Gentleman is currently railing against told the people of Scotland how difficult things would be if they broke away from that security blanket. Does he not understand that there is a bit of an inconsistency in that argument?

[Steve Double]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but no, there is not, because despite all those arguments, a majority of the people of the United Kingdom had the courage to vote to leave anyway. That is exactly the point.

We have to ask: what has happened in our politics when, it appears to me, the average voter in the United Kingdom has more courage and more faith, confidence and optimism in our nation’s ability to get through Brexit, to make it a success and to thrive than the political and business leaders and the establishment? I ask myself: what has happened to put us in a place where the British people have more confidence in our country than many of our leaders?

[Ronnie Cowan]

To paraphrase the hon. Gentleman, the people of Scotland did not vote “Yes” in the 2014 referendum because they were cowards.

[Steve Double]

I say to the hon. Gentleman that those who promoted leaving the Union clearly did not sell their positive message enough to get people to vote for it. In the European Union referendum, however, that clearly did happen.

[John Redwood]

In truth, the independence movement in Scotland did not want to be independent, because they would not say that they would have an independent currency or that they would leave the European Union. We really do want to be independent and that is why we won.

[Steve Double]

It is well documented that I have not been the biggest fan of our Prime Minister during this process. I believe that many mistakes have been made that have led us to where we are today, such as the lack of a clear starting position for negotiations, allowing the EU to dictate the timetable and nature of negotiations, and not preparing properly and early enough for a no-deal Brexit, to name a few. Clearly, we could have done so much better and, with better leadership, we could have been in a better position.

I am also very clear that not all the blame rests with the Prime Minister. Many Members of both Houses—and former Members of this House—have played a part in undermining her negotiating position almost every step of the way. Every one of them must share responsibility for our position. It is now quite clear that members of the Cabinet and other senior members of Government have publicly and vocally said that they support the Government’s position of “no deal is better than a bad deal”, while crossing their fingers behind their backs the whole way. When it appears that no deal might actually arise, they make it clear that they do not support that position and threaten to resign if it happens. To find out that those people, who supposedly supported a Government position, did not really mean it, is enough to undermine trust in our politics.

[Mr Nigel Evans]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, in any negotiation, being able to walk away makes our position stronger? If the person who we are negotiating with knows that we ultimately have to accept a deal under whatever circumstance, the deal is not going to be very good.

[Steve Double]

My hon. Friend makes the point very well. If we say that we can only leave the EU with an agreement, we are actually saying that we can leave only on the terms that the EU dictates. If it knows that we will not walk away without a deal, it will dictate the terms—as in any negotiation—and that has been part of the problem all along. Too many people in this House—those on the Opposition Front Bench have certainly contributed to this position—have told the EU, “We will not allow Parliament to take the UK out of the EU without a deal,” and it has believed it. The EU has not been willing to come to the negotiating table in good faith and negotiate a good deal because it has known all along that Parliament was very unlikely to allow us to walk away without a deal.

Too many Members of this House have also said publicly “We respect the referendum result”—some even stood on manifestos that said so—while working tirelessly behind the scenes every week to undermine the result and find a way to prevent it from happening. That has also been hugely damaging to trust in our politics.

We will find out only in the years ahead, when all this is over and the history books about this period have been written, exactly how damaging those who have sought to undermine the Prime Minister’s negotiating position have really been to our country. I believe they have been hugely damaging and have largely contributed to where we are today. Only when the history books have been written will we really understand all that has gone on behind the scenes to give the message to the EU that we will stop the UK leaving if we can, in any way that we can. That has been massively damaging to our chances of getting a withdrawal agreement and future deal that this House can support.

[Ronnie Cowan]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that another part of the problem is that, at the outset, the UK Government stated that nothing was agreed until everything was agreed? Had we gone to the negotiating table, had some debate and arranged something, we would have created a working relationship between us and the EU27, which we could then have built on, implemented and fine-tuned over time. We started off on the wrong foot, where we have stayed for two and a half years.

[Steve Double]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman; as I said earlier, many mistakes were made, and some of the serious ones were made right at the start of negotiations, when we started negotiating from a very weak position without really knowing what we wanted from all this. His point falls in that category. We should have been much clearer and much stronger.

Those who seek to promote a second referendum, and have done so for a very long time, have also massively undermined the Government’s negotiating position. Those people have given a message to the EU that the referendum result can be overturned. That has encouraged the EU to give us a bad deal. Everything points to the fact that if there is to be a second referendum—I will do everything I can to stop that happening—and the deal on the table is bad enough, no one will vote for it and we will stay in. Clearly, some of the unguarded comments by leading members of the EU have betrayed that. They think that if they give the UK a bad enough deal, we will reject it and eventually reverse the decision and stay in. Those calling for a second referendum have contributed to our being where we are today.

I do not know whether the Prime Minister will come back from Strasbourg with something. I genuinely wish her well, and I hope she can come back with something substantial and a genuine change to the backstop that is legally binding, which hopefully we can get behind. I hope that happens, but if it does not, it is imperative that we leave the EU on 29 March, as we voted for and time and again have said we will.

Everyone talks about uncertainty. Let us be clear: virtually every business I talk to says that uncertainty is killing them. They would rather know what will happen, even if they do not particularly like it, to have certainty rather than drag this out for months or years to come. Any extension of article 50 will do no more than prolong the uncertainty, the agony and the debate, with no clear answers for business.

I have come to the conclusion that unless the Prime Minister can get substantial changes to the backstop, the only way to deliver on the referendum result—to keep our commitment to the British people and deliver what people voted for—is to leave on 29 March with no deal. That is what I will be working to achieve.

--- Later in debate ---

[Steve Double]

Is the hon. Lady’s experience the same as mine? When I have asked businesses in my constituency if they would prefer a no-deal Brexit or a Labour Government led by the current leader of the Labour party, every single business I have spoken to said, “I will take a no-deal Brexit every time.”

[Jenny Chapman]

The hon. Gentleman is cheap. We are 18 days away from leaving the European Union. His party does not have a negotiated deal that could get through this Parliament. That is where he is; it is his party that has done that, not my party. Businesses ask me what a Labour Brexit would look like, and I can tell them. They say to me, “Yes, that is a future I can work in. That is an economic framework that I can keep my business thriving in.” They look at what is happening now, with the hon. Gentleman’s party in power, and they are horrified. I am horrified, and he should be horrified. It is nothing to be proud of. He can make cheap comments about my party leader if he likes—everyone knows my views about this—but it is his party leader who has misled and mismanaged this process, not mine.

We now have two options. My party leader, who the hon. Gentleman so derides, has written to the Prime Minister outlining a sensible deal that is negotiable. It has been well received by colleagues in the European Union, and is actually quite well received by Members on the hon. Gentleman’s Benches. The options set out in that letter ought to be put to the test of a vote in Parliament. Why is the Prime Minister too afraid to do that? It is because when we put a customs union to the vote in June, and the Prime Minister whipped against it as hard as she could, we lost by a grand total of six votes. I suggest that that is something that could find support in Parliament, and I would like to get it before the House of Commons so we can test it.

Such a deal would be supported by businesses, trade unions and the CBI, as well as in Northern Ireland—the Ulster farmers have been crying out for it. Everybody who has any real interest in this issue and has looked at it carefully has come out and supported that proposal. It is a real shame that the Prime Minister is so cowed by her own party that she will not put it before the House of Commons.

The Labour party wrote to the Prime Minister. We asked for a

“comprehensive UK-wide customs union…Close alignment with the Single Market…Dynamic alignment on rights and protections…Clear commitments on participation in EU agencies…Unambiguous agreements on the detail of future security arrangements”.

The right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) is never going to agree with that; it is not his vision for Brexit. I am not going to attempt to persuade him that it should be, because we would be here a long time. I accept that. He is entitled to vote for a different vision of Brexit, if that is what he feels is right. Surely, Members are entitled to vote for what we think would be the right outcome, if, as we believe, it is negotiable even at this late stage. If the deal does not get through tomorrow, it behoves the Minister and his colleagues to work out how it would work and what the process would be to enable us to have a vote on a different type of deal, which we could negotiate with Brussels.

Whatever happens, we cannot have a border in Northern Ireland; everybody accepts that. However, nobody has provided a credible means of achieving that. We have had suggestions about “alternative arrangements”—whatever they are—and there has been talk about technology. Our team visited the border between Norway and Sweden, which is the most technologically advanced in the world. There is infrastructure there to make checks, take payments and provide security, because it is a border between two different customs territories. There is nowhere on the planet where there is a border between two different customs territories and no infrastructure. Try as we might to find a different solution—and we did try—we have been unable to do so. It seems as if no one else has been able to find one either. It is impossible not to have border infrastructure if there is no customs union. It cannot be done. For that reason, as well as all the benefits to manufacturing that are important to me in north-east England, we have concluded that we need to be part of a customs union after we leave the European Union.

[Stewart Hosie in the Chair]

The other thing I hear all the time from businesses is that they do not want us to leave at all without a deal. It seems odd that the Government are persisting in keeping that option open. I note that a couple of weeks ago—the last time she was confronting heavy defeats—the Prime Minister said that, should her deal not succeed tomorrow, Parliament would have the opportunity to vote against leaving without a deal. I know the Minister does not have a crystal ball, but it would be helpful to colleagues if he could clarify exactly what we will be voting on tomorrow. Who knows? Will this be a straightforward vote on the Prime Minister’s deal, whether it be the same deal we voted on previously or an amended deal? When will we find out what we will be voting on? If it is a different deal, will we be given an opportunity to examine that deal prior to the debate tomorrow? When will that motion be laid before the House? Will there be opportunity for colleagues to amend it? That is something we have discussed at length previously, and it is only fair that Members are given that opportunity.

That is tomorrow. What about Wednesday? Assuming that the deal does not go through tomorrow, we were promised by the Prime Minister that there would be an opportunity to vote on leaving without a deal. Will that still be the case on Wednesday and, if it is, what position will the Government take? Will Wednesday be the day when, finally, the Government of this country say to businesses, the public, communities such as mine and their own colleagues that they do not intend to take the UK out of the EU without a deal? We need to know. Do the Government still intend on Thursday, as the Prime Minister promised, to have a vote on whether we need more time? If that promise is kept, how much more time does the Minister intend we should have, and what does he intend to do with it? What form will the motion on Thursday take? I am not asking him to foretell anything very far ahead; just the next three days will do. We need to know what MPs will be asked to decide on this week, on behalf of our constituents. These are probably the most important decisions that we shall ever be asked to make. We were promised by the Prime Minister that they would be taken this week, but we have not had confirmation of that or information about what the votes will look like.

The chaos we have seen, the way the negotiations have been mishandled, and the situation we are in, just days away from 29 March, make me embarrassed for Parliament. Unfortunately, the blame can only be laid at the door of the Prime Minister, because of the way she has led the process. The Minister is a decent person, and it falls to him—