Parliamentary Scrutiny of Leaving the EU — House of Commons, 2016-10-12
Topic: International Affairs
Kwasi Alfred Addo Kwarteng (Conservative, Centre-right): It has struck me often during this debate, Mr Speaker, that you are chairing a group therapy session. There are many, many ranges of response to the referendum of 23 June. We have the five stages of grief: some people are still in denial; some people feel very angry; others are in the bargaining stage; not a few are depressed; and a large number accept the result. We all need to accept this result and to move on The Prime Minister said that Brexit means Brexit, which is a palpably obvious tautology. It means that we know what it does not mean. We know that it means that we are leaving the EU and that Britain is not continuing its relationship with the EU—the basis of which formed the architecture of the EU, which has lasted for 43 years. Things have to change, and they will change. With a full debate and the full scrutiny of this House, we will reach a conclusion that will put us in a different place. We have respected our constituents, as my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles) has suggested. We have listened, absorbed and moved on, and things have changed There are many different strands of opinion on the single market. It was said again and again by the previous Prime Minister and the previous Chancellor that if we were to vote to leave on 23 June—this was part of their argument—we would have to leave the single market. I accept that that is still open for discussion, but it was very clear to me and to millions of people that the single market was, in effect, one of the silver bullets of the remain case. Those campaigners used "Project Fear". They said that house prices in London would go down 20%. One or two even suggested that we would not have Europeans in our premier league. All sorts of claims and allegations were made, many of which were proved false Interestingly, I have never seen Labour Members so keenly following the stock market and the currency markets—I regard the fact that they are doing so now as an encouraging development. Ahead of the vote, they said that the stock market would crash. The day after the result, the stock market did fall, and they said, "There you are, the stock market has fallen." Now they are saying, "Well, the stock market has gone up because the currency has gone down, so therefore we were right." They cannot argue it both ways Finally, let me throw out this thought: the single market has now become the last redoubt—the last bastion—of the remain campaigners. The first outer walls have been stormed, and now they are retreating to this totem of the single market. They should examine what the single market is. There is this absurd delusion that, somehow, retaining access to the single market means that we have to be in the single market. Yet we know that most countries in the world have plentiful access to the market, but they are not members of the market. It is not a binary thing, just as it is not a binary thing to say that we want to control immigration, but not to end it. These are false oppositions that are endlessly being rehearsed. I am afraid that they demean the debate by obscuring what should be clear points that we are all making on behalf of our constituents and on behalf of this country.