Let us not pretend that the people have spoken, because not all of them
have. In fact, only 27% of people of the country voted to leave
I reproduce in full
the speech delivered by David Lammy Labour MP for Tottenham during the Article
50 debate Jan 31st 2017. Along with a vintage contribution by Kenneth Clarke, Lammy made one of the most thoughtful and telling contributions.
'Many hon. Members
have long believed that the United Kingdom’s interests would be best served
outside the European Union. They campaigned passionately for what they believed
in, and their view is that we must now leave the European Union. The Prime
Minister says that she wants to deliver a Brexit that works for all and that
unites our divided country. I, too, want to bring the country back together.
Members right across the House will have experienced just how divided the
country became in the months leading up to last June and how divided it has
become since, but we cannot bring the country back together if we pretend that
it has spoken with one united voice.
People who voted to
leave did so for all sorts of reasons, many of which have absolutely nothing to
do with the European Union, so when the Prime Minister speaks of the will of
the people, her interpretation is frankly no clearer or more precise than
anyone else’s.
Let us not pretend
that the people have spoken, because not all of them have. In fact, only 27% of
people of the country voted to leave. Some 13 million did not vote, another 7
million eligible voters were not registered and 1 million British ex-pats were
not allowed to vote. Even though the futures of 16-year-olds were on the ballot
paper, they were denied a say. Only two of the four nations that make up the
United Kingdom voted to leave, and there was no quadruple lock. There was no
two-thirds supermajority, which is common in all other countries making major
constitutional change. Even so, we are told that the people have spoken.
Look at what we
have been allowed to become. In a matter of months, our public discourse has
been consumed by vitriol and abuse. Hate crimes rose by 40% in the aftermath of
the referendum, and we do not yet know what forces will be unleashed on our
departure.
Yet it is on these
terms that we are being asked to rubber-stamp a blank cheque for the Government
to deliver the most extreme version of Brexit imaginable. We are being asked to
ignore the fact that leaving the European Union will saddle us with a £60
billion divorce bill. We are not going to get tariff-free access to EU
customers while rejecting free movement; that is not on the table. We are not
going to get a more favourable trading agreement with Europe from outside the
single market; that is a paradox. We are not going to come to a full agreement
with Europe within two years; believing otherwise completely flies in the face
of precedent and all evidence.
Exiting without a
deal and falling back on the World Trade Organisation rules is being talked
about as though that is a good option. That is totally wrong—it would be an
absolute disaster for this country. Even on the optimistic assumption that we
can sign trade agreements all over the world, this does not even come close to
making up for the loss of the single market. We are facing a return to a hard
border in Northern Ireland and a breakdown of the Union with Scotland. We are
not reclaiming sovereignty, another promise that falls apart under any
scrutiny: we are transferring it to a negotiation behind closed doors.
Doctors are against
it, scientists are against it, the financial services sector is against it, and
manufacturers are against it because of their exports, but these people are
dismissed—and why? - because these days we do not listen to experts.
Yes, we are
leaving, but it is the EU nations that decide how we leave and what we end up
with. Where will this end in 2019? We do not know. Outside the single market,
for sure, and outside the customs union, with no trade deal with Europe or
anywhere else, our only friend President Trump—a man who has demonstrated why
we should worry greatly about a free trade agreement that will probably lead to
Kaiser Permanente running the NHS.
We should not fool
ourselves. This is not, and never has been, a debate about the economy; it has
always been about immigration. We are staring down the barrel of a hard Brexit
because immigration has been prioritised over everything else: the economy,
jobs, and living standards.
We were told during
the campaign that we could cut immigration without hitting our economy. We were
sold the lie that immigrants come here and take more than they contribute.
Between 1995 and 2011, European immigrants made a net contribution of £4.4
billion to our public services. In the same period, our native population cost
us £591 billion. Our economy cannot exist without people coming here to do the
jobs that people in the country either do not want or do not have the skills to
do.
It is almost half a
century since a Member of this House, in a very different era, made these same
warnings of
“wives unable to
obtain hospital beds in childbirth…children unable to obtain school places”
and
“homes and
neighbourhoods changed beyond recognition”.
How far we have
fallen when a black British Member of Parliament, of African and Caribbean
descent, has to stand here quoting Enoch Powell. It is the easy option to blame
migrants who come here with skills instead of successive Governments, both
Conservative and Labour, who have failed: failed to educate our own to compete,
failed to build affordable housing, failed to fund our public services, and
failed to ensure that growth is felt outside of London and the south-east.
A hard Brexit will
not deal with any of the long-standing structural problems highlighted by the
Brexit vote—it will make them worse. The real tragedy is that Whitehall and
Parliament, so consumed with Brexit for the next decade, will have no capacity
to deal with these hard-pressing issues.
There are
Conservative Members who have been dreaming of a low-tax, low-wage,
low-regulation offshore tax haven for decades, and now they have it in their
grasp, they salivate at the thought of us becoming the new Singapore. I am not
going to stand with them. If we let the Prime Minister pursue this reckless
course—this Brexit at any cost—we know who will suffer. It will be the poorest,
many of whom are in my constituency.
The referendum was
not just about votes from the north; 52% of leave voters lived in the south of
England, 59% were middle class and 58% voted Conservative in 2015. I remind my
colleagues who are worried about this, and who are thinking of voting with the
Government, of those things.
Let me finish by
asking one simple question, which was once asked by one of our most celebrated
parliamentarians:
“Is it prudent? Is
it possible, however we might desire it, to turn our backs upon Europe”?
When Churchill
spoke those words, he was talking about appeasement, and he was going very much
against the prevailing wind. The same is true today. Patriotism requires more
than just blind faith. We must remember our history, our values, what we
represent and what we stand for. Most of all, we must remember what we stand
against. For all those reasons, and for the sake of this country that I love, I
will be voting against triggering article 50'.