Contribution
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right; Sir Bill’s political career has not ended; his parliamentary one has. I can, like my right hon. Friend, acknowledge that Sir Bill has texted me this afternoon, along with no doubt many others—[Interruption.]—including my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green, I just gathered. This tension—between the will of the people as expressed in the 2016 referendum, and the prevailing assumptions of what I described earlier as the liberal establishment—underpins this debate.
In the spirit of generosity, which I tend to employ—there are exceptions, by the way; Members can intervene on me, if they like—I note that there are those on the Government Benches, such as the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy), who acknowledge, albeit grudgingly, that the referendum result cannot be reversed and that we cannot go back into the EU. That was not what those people said immediately after the referendum, of course. They fought hard for ages to try to frustrate the outcome. They used every parliamentary technique they could conjure, as well as extra-parliamentary techniques, including well-funded legal cases, to try to derail Brexit.
The scepticism personified by my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey), who said she was doubtful about the Government’s intent, is well founded. I know that the Minister will want to reassure us, when he rises at the end of the debate, that that scepticism—in his case, at least—will not prove to be a prediction of what might happen next. Scepticism is well founded, though, because of the history. It was a Labour politician who said, “You don’t need a crystal ball when you’ve got the record book”—Aneurin Bevan, of course. We have the record book when it comes to Labour, and, worse still, when it comes to the Liberal Democrats.
I hope the Minister will be crystal clear, as he has been invited to be throughout the debate, on dynamic alignment, or, as I think it would be better described, dynamic realignment: realigning our relationship with the EU. Such alignment would bring us closer not to our friends and neighbours in Europe—of course, co-operation and collaboration is a natural part of mature policies—but to the EU, in terms of governance, regulation, law, interference in our affairs and, crucially, jurisdiction. It is the exercise of authority that we are really debating here—not the ability or, indeed, the willingness to share, but the danger of succumbing to a power that takes authority further and further from the British people.
The hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) talked about some of the challenges the world faces and the answers to those global challenges. He was right to do so, by the way; I thought the first half of his speech was very good, although it got worse as it went on. The answer to those challenges is not to become more globalist or to give in to the forces he described that exert power in an unaccountable way, but to bring power back to the people.
When those of us who advocated Brexit spoke of taking back control, we did so partly because we wanted power to be vested in this Parliament, which is accountable to the people whom that power affects. You, Madam Deputy Speaker, are almost a model for this, and others would do well to follow your model. We are answerable to and known by our constituents; they understand that we make decisions on their behalf. New Members of the House will be coming to terms with what that means and its relentlessness. I do not mind it myself, but I can see how it could wear down souls less forceful and robust than me. It is that constant interaction with our constituents that is the lifeblood of democracy.
Whoever knew who their Member of the European Parliament was? I could not remember who the Tories were, let alone the Members from the other parties. People certainly did not enjoy that kind of intimate relationship and sense of mutual ownership when we were members of the EU. We feel as though we own our constituencies and they feel as though they own us, and quite right too. [Interruption.] I am being chided, Madam Deputy Speaker. I first heard of my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox) when he arrived here—I never knew who he was before then. I say that without disrespect.