This Tuesday and Wednesday saw the debates on the second reading of the Bill that will allow Theresa May and the Government to trigger Article 50 and formally start negotiations for Britain’s exit from the European Union. On Wednesday afternoon, I made my contribution to proceedings, placing my faith in the Prime Minister, warning of the dangers to certain industries like aviation that do not have WTO rules to fall back on and urging the Government to engage with businesses and experts as they negotiate with the European Union. I also made clear that I intend to vote to trigger Article 50.
I said: “The manifesto I stood on in 2015 not only promised an In-Out referendum on Europe, it also stated that we would honour the result of the referendum whatever the outcome. And I committed during the referendum campaign that I would personally respect the result even if it was decided by just one individual vote. In the end the difference was more than one million votes; and that 72% of the population turned out showed just how seriously the British public took the task of deciding their future. In my constituency the turnout was over 80%. Contrast this with the 58% of people who turned out in the recent US presidential election, an election with enormous consequences not only for the USA but for the world, and yet one in which nearly 100 million Americans couldn’t be bothered to turn out to vote.
As others have stated, the referendum was not a consultation but an instruction, and today I will do my duty and vote to trigger Article 50. And then the work really begins. If we use the analogy of a flight: we have boarded the plane and we are leaving Europe, but while we know the general direction, we do not yet know the destination. Some passengers believe that we are heading for some sort of tropical paradise; some passengers believe that we are heading towards some icy wasteland. But luckily we do have a pilot who has a clear flight path, and I suspect that after flying around for a while we will not land on an icy wasteland, we will not land on a tropical paradise, but actually we will land somewhere quite familiar to where we actually began. Because while I don’t wish to belittle the great challenge we have ahead of us, the fact is that the British economy is strong, resilient and dynamic. I never for one minute believed that in leaving the EU the sky would fall in.
But different segments of our economy will inevitably be impacted in different ways by Brexit: some will obviously benefit, some will obviously struggle, and all are impacted to some degree by uncertainty. So we must work hard and quickly to reduce that uncertainty, and we must provide every support and comfort to those sectors of the economy that we know are at most risk from Brexit. We must listen to people with deep knowledge and expertise and sectors that are perhaps not well represented in this place yet face some particularly complex challenges from Brexit, such as the aviation industry, digital and creative industries and those sectors where there is no clear WTO alternative. I encourage the Government to keep engaging with industry and engaging with experts, and I look forward to playing my part by providing constructive input and holding the Government to account to ensure that it delivers a successful deal that helps Britain and secures my children’s future”
The video for my speech can be found at this link:
http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/6c20216a-6561-414d-8ad9-2d3a0036cab1