I agree with my hon. Friend, who, as ever, is thoughtful and makes the right choices about moving forward as a country. We begin the task of moving forward by accepting the mandate in full and rowing together in the national interest. Finally, in doing so, let us be clear, as my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset was earlier, that we are taking an irreversible decision. In fact, it was taken for us on 23 June. Like William the Conqueror burning his ships on the beach at Pevensey, we have no choice: we have to make a success of this. All the genius of Parliament and of this country should not be focused on recriminations or petty politics, but on the life of the nation to come.
I have always believed—I was brought up to believe it, and I am teaching my children to believe it—that pessimism and cynicism are cop-outs and self-fulfilling prophecies. Parliament should be in the future business. As a country, we spent the best of my parents’ lives managing decline, until Margaret Thatcher’s Government put a stop to that. I do not intend to spend the best days of my life looking backwards, feeling remorse, talking down the prospects of this country. Unlike what the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg) implied, but as the noble Lord Hague would say, some of us will be here in 20 or 30 years’ time, and we intend to make a success of Brexit. As Shakespeare would say,
“some have greatness thrust upon them”.
Greatness has been thrust upon each of us in this House and across the country as a result of the referendum, and the only question is how we meet it. As Shakespeare would have finished:
“be not afraid of greatness…Thy Fates open their hands. Let thy blood and spirit embrace them.”
10.46 pm