No, I do not agree. I talked to my right hon. Friend the Brexit Secretary earlier today. He simply said—he does understand these things—that all the amendment tabled by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) would do would be to implement what the House of Lords wants to do in fewer words, so I do not accept that, I am afraid. We have to bite this bullet now. We have to support the Government and reject the amendment.
As I was asking, what would be the result—we do not operate in a vacuum—if the House of Lords had its way? Of course it would be a catastrophe for the Government. There would be banner headlines in every single newspaper tomorrow saying that the Government had been defeated and that the whole Brexit momentum was in danger. Much more important than that—this is why I think the argument is disingenuous—is the fact those who support the House of Lords are dressing up their arguments in terms of parliamentary sovereignty. It is in order, is it not, for Parliament to debate and amend a Bill, as the House of Lords can do? That is what we do all the time, but what the Lords really want to do is to create a situation in which the whole process is frustrated.
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As has been said again and again, we ourselves voted six to one to transfer this decision from ourselves—uniquely in our history—to the people. They decided to leave. The decision had to be made and Members then voted overwhelmingly. Virtually every single Labour and Conservative Member voted not only to accept the result, but to implement article 50. We have taken the decision. We are a sovereign Parliament. We have made the decision, but we had given that decision to the people.
I go back to my argument about what would happen if the House of Lords had its way and the Government lost this afternoon. Opposition Members are, of course, entitled to cause confusion in the Government ranks. I accept that they may have their own motives, but I appeal to my hon. Friends: what would be the result to our Government if we lost this vote today? It would be a catastrophic blow. I return to the question that I put to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State earlier: what would the European Commission think of that? My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) had a bit of fun about this. He said, “Oh, of course the European Commission knows that there are some arguments and debates.” It would be an open invitation to the European Commission to pave the way for this catastrophic situation in which there is no deal, because it knows that if there is no deal—if there was going to be a disorderly exit—the House of Commons could unpick the whole process, block Brexit and, as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) said, reopen the whole process.