That of course is what Article 50 was about but it is also true that, during the election and during the referendum campaign, many commitments were made over and over again that we would honour the result of the referendum.
The most objectionable part of the original amendment, Grieve mark I, was the use of the word “direction”. To my mind, it obviously was impractical for Parliament to direct the Government in every aspect of the negotiation if there were a situation in which there was no deal. It is one thing for Parliament to direct our own Government as to what they can accept or propose, but what it has no control over is what the other side will accept. Therefore, by saying that Parliament would direct the negotiations, we would be forcing the negotiators to go to the other side with a list of things that we knew it would be able to accept, and, as I say, all flexibility would be removed from the negotiations.
Then we have the question: if Parliament is going to be directed, how will it be directed? There are 650 different Members of Parliament—