Name: Westminster Hall
Uploaded: 2026-10-12T15:30:00+00:00
Duration: 10788 s
Description: Westminster Hall debate: e-petition 749128 relating to the UK applying to rejoin the EU

15:50 - 15:56

Speaker 1

Oh, we're starting, are we? Order, order. Tony Vaughan to move the motion.

15:56 - 17:24

Speaker 2

Thank you, Sir Edward.

I beg to move that this House considered e-petition 749128 relating to the UK applying to rejoin the European Union. It's a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward, and I thank Robert McMaster, who's sitting in the public gallery, who is the petitioner from Reading Central who started this petition, as well as the 111,687 people who signed it, including 199 of my own constituency of Folkestone and Hythe. Sir Edward, one of Mr. McMaster's biggest frustrations about Brexit was that it was never defined. It was not about what our future relationship would look like. It was simply about leaving the treaties on the European Union.

And the post-Brexit relationship with the EU that we did get has left Britain worse off than if we had remained a member. Now, people can feel that, and the polling shows that most of the British public now regard Brexit as a mistake. And in whose interests, and in whose interests was Brexit? It certainly was in the interests of countries like Russia, who want to see Britain's influence weakened and Europe fractured.

And with Brexit and I will in a moment and with Brexit with Brexit that is what they got. And with Russia doing everything it can to provoke further division and war in Europe the this petition is a good time to ask ourselves not just whether we should rejoin the EU but the much bigger questions of what is the relationship with Europe that we do want and why and how do we get there and I'll take an intervention.

17:24 - 17:55

Speaker 3

I thank the honorable member for giving way. Many of my constituents in Ealing Southall voted to leave the EU because they were bombarded with lies from the mythical 350 million pound a week for the NHS that never appeared to the lie that immigration will come down when it actually trebled. Does the honorable member agree that the Prime Minister's announcement of the new National Center for Information Defense will help my constituents and his to be protected from foreign state influence as we now go on to consider our relationship with the EU again?

17:55 - 18:30

Speaker 2

Well I thank my honorable friend for her intervention because she raises a fundamental point.

These are very real things that have been known for a long time, but which we have not moved quickly enough to address. And so I do welcome the Prime Minister's announcement about this threat centre, because it is the only way that we can drill down beneath the surface of what is being said online and really understand who is influencing our politics. Now, to answer the question of what our future relationship should look like, those answers will determine how we secure our prosperity for the future. And I will take an intervention from my honourable friend.

18:30 - 19:11

Speaker 4

I'm really grateful to my honourable friend giving way.

My honorable friend will recognize that in Glasgow South West, two-thirds of my constituents recognize the folly of Brexit because they realized the 20,000 jobs in Glasgow City that depended on them. And now they realize the 250 pounds additional extra that goes onto their food bill. Does he agree with me that solidarity is always better than separation and the unintended consequences of smashing apart a union is evident in the Brexit conversation? And therefore the optimal arrangement for my constituents in Glasgow South West and in Scotland is to be part of a strong United Kingdom inside a better settlement with the European Union.