It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger, and to speak in this debate.
When is a deal not a deal? When is an agreement just a draft agreement? Here we are, two years after triggering article 50, and Parliament now has before it a document of 500-plus pages that sets out how we will go about leaving the European Union, and a seven-page political declaration about our future beyond that point. It is almost as if we had a technical drawing of the taxi that we will get there in—it might have only three wheels and some of us might not be able to get out at the end, but we will still enjoy ourselves—and only a bland sketch on the back of a napkin of what it will look like where we are going.
That is the context of the petition before us today, which I support and which has been signed by 206 of my constituents. Is it a cry for help—a cry for sense? In the referendum, East Lothian voted by 64.6% to 34.4% to remain in the European Union. That overwhelming majority was reflected across the whole of Scotland. I grant that it was not the view of the whole United Kingdom, but people are very worried about a no-deal Brexit, which is a distinct possibility threatening us if the Prime Minister is unable to get her deal through Parliament in a meaningful vote.
The petition realistically encapsulates the political stalemate between our political Executive and the legislature. Ministers have spent the weekend pushing the idea that this deal is better than no deal. That is a false dichotomy. I remember a time when no deal was better than a bad deal. Hope and expectation rather than cold facts have driven decision makers into this position. At what stage should we hold to account those who promised that such a utopia was down the road, but instead delivered a dog’s dinner—or a dog’s Brexit-fast? It is nonsense to suggest that a democratic decision is binding for ever. People are entitled to change their mind when they find out the facts and when democratic legitimacy is questioned. If no democratic decision could be revisited, Parliament as an institution would be defunct.