I beg to move,
That this House has considered e-petition 226071 relating to not holding a second referendum on EU membership.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. As of about an hour ago, the petition had 122,320 signatures. It follows a number of petitions that we have considered on Brexit over the last couple of years. Recently, we debated having a second referendum—I cannot remember how many signatures that got. For the purpose of Hansard, I will read the full wording of the petition:
“Stop possible second referendum on E.U. membership. There is a growing band of people that want to reverse the result of the democratic vote of this country to leave the European Union and are calling for a second referendum. This is mainly by the people that lost the vote two years ago and cannot accept the democratic vote of the majority decision. Although not legally binding the referendum on whether we stay or leave the EU carried out on the 23rd June 2016 was the clearest indication of the will of the electorate. At that time our Prime Minister David Cameron assured us that the result of the referendum would be carried out. We must ensure the democracy rules”.
I could sit down, having said that I agree with every word and that that is the Government’s policy, but you will rely on me, as a Member of Parliament, to expand a little, Mr Hollobone. In the Petitions Committee we bring petitions to debate to allow people to have their voice, and the debate is part of the campaign—it is not the end result. Having this debate will not end the debate about Brexit, not least given that we are about to embark on a large exercise in the main Chamber as of tomorrow.
I appreciate that there is strong feeling on either side. Some people are passionate about pretending that the referendum never happened—they wish that they could wake up with Brexit having gone away. Other people just want to leave tomorrow, perhaps because they are ambitious for this country and want to look for global trade; there could be any number of reasons why they wanted to leave. But there is a great chunk of people in this country who are sitting in the middle.
I had a moment of clarity this time last week while I was chatting to a couple of friends. One said, “Can we please just get Brexit done? I’m so bored with it!” The other chap looked up from his phone and said, “Would you like to see a video of my dog singing with a tennis ball in its mouth?” Brexit sits firmly behind the love of his dog, the trivial stuff on the internet, “I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here” and “The X Factor” final. All those things divert people’s attention away from the wall-to-wall noise about Brexit.
Next week, we will take one of the most important decisions—if not the most important decision—in this place. Over the next few months we will steer this
country out of the European Union in an orderly way, to ensure we have a bright future and our best years over the next 40 or 50 years. That is why that decision was taken. The choice was clear. It was an unambiguous vote: do we want to stay part of the European Union, or do we want to leave the European Union?
I remember leading a petition debate when the Government spent £9.4 million on a leaflet that said that they would adhere to the result of the vote. The leaflet laid out clearly the Government’s position on Brexit, and 17.4 million people voted to leave. After that, 499 Members of Parliament voted in favour of invoking article 50, and 122 voted against. A clear majority legitimised that referendum. People say the referendum was advisory, but we took the decision in this place to abide by the result and to invoke article 50.