Why do I say that? It is because the plan, as the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) knows—he is nodding from a sedentary position—is actually for the great repeal Bill to entrench European law into British domestic law. All these laws that the leave campaign have honourably objected to for so many years will actually be put into British law. The notion that that is a proper means for this Parliament to take a view on the eventual outcome of the negotiation is also baloney, if I am allowed to say that in this House.
The four reasons that I have heard offered for why this House should not provide consent do not stack up. There is another reason, which could be the case—I really hope it is not—which is that the Government do not like the answer they will get if they ask this House for its consent. In other words, they do not believe there is a majority for hard Brexit in the House of Commons, so the thing they are desperate to avoid at all costs is getting the consent of this House, because they think they will end up in a negotiation in which they do not like the thing they are negotiating for. Well, I am afraid that is tough, because they need the consent and the confidence of this House on an issue as big as this, when there is no mandate from the referendum, certainly no mandate from the manifesto—which, let us remember, said yes to the single market—and no mandate for a Prime Minister who, let us not forget, was a remainer. I know she was a relatively silent remainer, but she advocated remain. She did not advocate leave and suddenly get swept to power, surfing on a wave of euphoria because she was in the leave campaign. She was in the remain campaign.