When I talk to people on Dover high street about the situation with Europe, they say to me, “Why haven’t we left already?” I tell them, “Well, we are now having debates on things like meaningful votes,” and they reply, “But we had a meaningful vote—we had a meaningful vote in a referendum two years ago, and you guys up in Westminster are just endlessly rediscussing that referendum.” In that referendum, I backed remain.
I thought that leaving Europe would be big project that would take up a lot of our capacity as a country, and I urged caution on my constituents, but they were really clear that they wanted to leave the European Union.
We need to respect the result of the referendum. I take a very pragmatic approach that, having had the instructions of my constituents and knowing their clear view, my duty is to discharge the instructions that I have very clearly been democratically given by the people. Those people are my master and I am their servant, so their wishes and requirements ought to be honoured. And that goes for the country as a whole. The country as a whole had a referendum and made a decision. We need to make this work and we need to get the best position for Britain.
That brings me to the next question. When people say, “Parliament should approve this,” what do they really mean? What will they think across the channel? What deal will they want to offer us? The people in the European Commission are not stupid. They can see how the numbers stack up in our Parliament. They can see that, if this provision on a meaningful vote is passed, they could offer us any kind of rubbish deal and the Government would be in a position whereby the Commission would have this country over a barrel. If we want this country to have a really bad deal, measuring the level of this country’s problems in billions of pounds, and if we want to get the worst possible accommodation and the worst possible departure from the European Union, this is how we would achieve it.
That is why, while I have the utmost respect for my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), I would say to him that his proposal is not the right way to proceed. We cannot micromanage the negotiation but, worse than that, we cannot have a negotiation where we cannot walk away from the table as the other side knows that we will never be able to do so. I urge the House to take the pragmatic approach of supporting the Government’s amendment in lieu, which will enable us to have an effective negotiation and support the national interest.
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