2. Debate on the EU Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:00 pm on 4 December 2018.

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Photo of Lynne Neagle Lynne Neagle Labour 3:00, 4 December 2018

Can I be clear at the outset that I will be voting in favour of amendment 3 in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth, and have received dispensation from the Labour group to do so? 

Llywydd, I will not be voting to endorse in any way Mrs May's Brexit. Like many in this Chamber, I represent some of the poorest people in Britain, and I won't vote for anything that makes them poorer, and that is what all of us know this or any other Brexit will do. It is an individual choice for every one of us, but at heart, it is a fundamentally moral decision. I don't think anyone here, even people I disagree with about so many things, came into politics and public life to make people worse off. But if we vote to endorse Brexit, that is exactly what we will be doing. Some Members may disagree. That is their right, and I respect them far more than anyone who says we have to vote for Brexit because of the previous referendum. No vote removes our moral culpability, and we should remember that and be brave—now more than ever. 

Llywydd, the debate on Brexit has been dominated by false choices, false choices that are too often exposed when it is too late to do anything about the falsehood on which they are founded: falsehoods like, 'We should vote for Brexit to bring £350 million a week to the NHS'; falsehoods like the claim that staying in the EU would put our borders on the edge of Syria and Iraq; falsehoods like the idea that we held all the cards in the negotiations, and that getting a good deal would be the easiest thing ever. All of those were empty claims made by people who should have, and in many cases did know better. Today, we have another one, that we have to back the Prime Minister's deal, or else we are staring into the abyss of a 'no deal' Brexit. So, let me make it clear: if the choice ever was between Mrs May's Brexit and a 'no deal' Brexit, that moment has passed. The choice today is between whatever sort of miserable Brexit deal the UK Government, UKIP, the European research group ragtag and bobtail managed to unite behind, and, instead, staying as full members of the European Union: full members with all our rights; full members with a say, a vote and a veto; full members with the influence that a country like the United Kingdom can and should have, rather than being reduced to somewhere that has to beg for crumbs from Donald Trump's table. A people's vote is the way to settle this, and I believe it will come. Like a boulder that has been rolling down a great distance from the mountaintop, we still cannot see it, but now everyone can hear its rumble.