The hon. Gentleman predicts my next point, but let me first say something about the situation in Scotland, where 62% of the people voted to remain in the European Union. By all polling evidence, if that question were asked again it would be more like 68% to 70%, so the opinion is quite different in Scotland from in England and Wales.
The attitude of the minority SNP Government in Scotland, when faced with a question of what to do with this result, where Scotland had voted one way and the rest of the United Kingdom had voted another way, is interesting. We had tried, as colleagues will remember, in the debate on the European Union Referendum Act 2015 to get some provisions in the Act itself that would recognise the different nations within the United Kingdom, but we failed in that endeavour.
The Scottish Government did not say, “Oh well, we don’t recognise the result in the UK because we are against Brexit and this is the Scottish position.” Quite the contrary: a Government that believed in and aspired to an independent Scotland and membership of the European Union produced a detailed document that advocated neither of those things. “Scotland’s Place in Europe”, published in December 2016, was a detailed and comprehensive policy analysis of how Brexit could take place in a way that would not have such effects on the Scottish economy and would better respect public opinion in Scotland. We were basically arguing, as we still argue to this day, for a compromise on what has become known as a Norway-plus position, where we aim to stay in the single market and the customs union. We have not yet been successful in that endeavour, but it is interesting that for 24 months the Scottish Government have been trying to offer this compromise and to get a discussion going about it, and for 24 months they have effectively been ignored.
That brings me to the point about how the Government have managed this process. Here we are, 30 months after the original referendum result, a result that was, by any observation, a narrow and divided one, with the country clearly split. A better Government would have taken that result and tried to steer a course that respected the majority of public opinion to leave the European Union and no longer formally be a member of it, but also recognised that almost half the country valued their European citizenship and tried to find some compromise that would allow Brexit to take place in a way that minimised the depression of their European identity.
The Government did not do that—not at all. The Government took an absolute position and said, “This is clearcut, it is black and white; the 52% won and we are now no longer going to talk about the 48%.” They were written out of history as if their opinions did not matter. That is one of the things that has caused so much resentment and anger and is now fuelling the demand for a people’s vote. In fact, it is even worse than that, because the 52% were disrespected as well; we had every right-wing cause in the country trying to tack its ideas on to the 52% as if that was a mandate for what they wanted. Many people in the 52% were misrepresented as well.
If we had had a Government that could have been more inclusive in their approach and had a dialogue with people, with Opposition parties, with local government and with the national Governments in the devolved legislatures, we might be in a slightly better position. We might have had more of a consensual approach that could possibly command support on the Floor of the House next Tuesday. But we are where we are; we do not have that, and we have a Prime Minister who, Canute-like, seems to be just ignoring wave after wave of concern and opposition that is expressed.
Over the next five days we will spend a lot of time talking about the detail of the 585-page withdrawal agreement and the 24-page framework document, so I will not go into that here. However, the Government getting themselves into this position is calamitous. It did not need to happen. Even at this eleventh hour they could pull back. They need to understand that, by setting their impossible red lines in the first place, they put themselves on a course to deliver a product that was
never going to command the support of the House and, worse, does not really seem to satisfy anyone in the country, never mind the 52% who voted to leave in June 2016.
In many ways, the Government have to think again. It seems to me that, once we get past next Tuesday, giving people the opportunity to vote again on this question may provide the Government with a lifeline to try to get out of the mess they have created for themselves. If they do not do that, I certainly agree that the time has come for this Government to get out of the road and be replaced by a Government that will do a better job.
5.20 pm