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European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 5) Bill

I will press on, if my hon. Friend will allow me.

I have addressed the enforcement point, but let me come back to the question of legitimacy. The issue is not just the illegitimacy of the whole process, and the

concept of the House legislating to instruct Ministers in a way that is outside the control of Ministers. As I said, there has been a huge Government campaign�some might call it a fear campaign�supported by the second referendum campaign and other very well funded lobby groups and business interests. The arguments in favour of leaving without agreement have pretty well been disposed of by default. They do not get a hearing. One can think of one or two broadcast outlets that delight in ridiculing perfectly respectable arguments.

I have a document here called �30 Truths about Leaving on WTO Terms�. It goes through all the canards, and it sets out how leaving without an agreement would leave us with an extra �39 billion to spend on our priorities, which over a couple of years would increase the GDP of this country by about 2%; how it would end uncertainty much more quickly; and how every party involved with the Irish border has said that there will be no infrastructure there in the event of a no-deal Brexit. So it goes on. I shall not detain the Committee with those arguments now, because this is not the time to make them; I just make the point that these arguments have simply not been made. Despite that, a very recent poll conducted by YouGov shows that where an extension is an option, 40% would support no deal. Only 11% would support an extension, though 36% would still support remain. The point is that the most popular option in the polls at the moment is leaving without a deal, so who does the clause represent? This is despite the deluge of propaganda that has been emptied�[ Laughter. ] Opposition Members laugh, but no effective leave campaign has been conducted in favour of no deal, and the Government, who pretended to say they agreed that no deal is better than a bad deal, have not conducted a campaign to reassure voters that leaving without a deal is a sensible option. Despite that, the British people want to leave.

Who in this House was elected to put this Bill through Parliament? Who is this House was elected by saying, �When I am elected, I am going to put a Bill through the House to delay article 50�? The right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), who is promoting this Bill, was not elected by saying that. She was elected on a manifesto to leave, and she is now defying that manifesto and voters in her own constituency, who voted to leave. When the extension option is removed in the YouGov poll, the percentage of people in favour of the no-deal option goes up to 44%, against 42% who are in favour of remaining. No leave campaign has been conducted in this country for the past two or three years, yet that is what the British people think.

9.30 pm

Just imagine if this country had a Government who were really enthusiastic about leaving the European Union and had conducted their policy positively, explaining the benefits of leaving the European Union, if necessary, on WTO terms. Such a Government would be by far the most popular option in the polls today. I believe that if the Government took us out of the European Union on WTO terms, even at this late stage, our party would enjoy a huge leap in credibility with the British people. [ Laughter. ] Oh, not in this House, because this House is full of people who voted to remain and who want to stop Brexit, despite the vote of the British people in the referendum.

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

657 cc1184-5 

Session

2017-19

Chamber / Committee

House of Commons chamber
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