I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:
That this House declines to give a Second Reading to the EU Referendum Bill because it fails to meet the gold standard set by the Scottish independence referendum in terms of inclusivity and democratic participation, in particular because the Bill does not give the right to vote to 16 and 17 year olds or most EU nationals living in the UK, the Bill does not include a double majority provision to ensure that no nation or jurisdiction of the UK can be taken out of the EU against its will, and the legislation does not include provision to ensure that the referendum vote cannot be held on the same day as the Scottish, Welsh or Northern Ireland elections.
I congratulate the Prime Minister on his singular achievement—his 31-day achievement. Thirty one days does not seem like a huge amount of time, but in terms of holding the Conservative party together on Europe, the last 31 days have been a great achievement. Hannibal crossed the Alps in 17 days, but that pales into insignificance compared with the 31 days of calm before the Bavarian blunder of yesterday blew the gasket on the Conservative party’s divisions over Europe.
It said in The Times today that quoting your own speeches is the first sign of political madness. On that basis, the Prime Minister is pretty far gone. I want to share with the House the full bouquet of the absurdity, apparently in all sobriety, of the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday. What he said, quoted on the front page of The Times today, was:
“That is what I said. I feel that there was a misinterpretation, which is why I woke up and read the newspapers and thought: ‘I will repeat what I said and make that very clear.’”
Well, that puts that one to bed, doesn’t it?
At Question Time today, I lost count of the number of times the Foreign Secretary started to answer a question by saying, “It’s very clear”. I have always had an enormous suspicion that when members of the Treasury Bench start their answer to a question by saying, “It’s very clear,” we can all be sure that it is pretty opaque. Opaque is exactly what the Prime Minister’s position is right now on collective responsibility.
As was said to the Foreign Secretary at Question Time, this is not the hypothetical question of whether the Prime Minister and the Government will recommend
a yes or no vote, although most of us, if we could get a bet on that one, would be pretty certain of the outcome. This is the simple question of collective responsibility. When the decision is reached, whatever it may be, will it pertain to all members of the Government? Will collective responsibility apply?