Name: Westminster Hall
Uploaded: 2026-10-12T15:29:38+00:00
Duration: 9193 s

00:58 - 01:04

Speaker 2

Order, order. Tony Vaughan to move the motion.

01:04 - 02:33

Speaker 1

Thank you, Sir Edward. I beg to move that this House has 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 in 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 wasn't 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, 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 from my honorable friend.

02:33 - 03:03

Speaker 4

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?

03:03 - 03:37

Speaker 1

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 center because it is the only way that we can drill down between the, 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.

03:37 - 04:17

Speaker 3

I'm really grateful to my honourable friend giving way. My honourable friend will recognise that in Glasgow South West, two thirds of my constituents recognise the folly of Brexit because they realised the 20,000 jobs in Glasgow City that depended on them, and now they realise 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?

04:17 - 05:21

Speaker 1

I thank my honourable friend for his intervention. He's absolutely right about that. It's not just what his constituents think, it's what many constituents think across the country, and the polling shows most people, in fact, think. And what he alludes to is in fact not just an economic argument, but a much wider argument about where we belong. But I just want to dwell on the point about the economics here, because I think it is important to start with that.

Sir Edward, my constituency of Folkestone and Hythe is a good place to look to see where things have gone wrong. We are home to the Channel Tunnel, which is the gateway to Europe, one of the main gateways to Europe, and for us the relationship with Europe directly affects whether lorries move, whether businesses can recruit, and whether exports reach customers, as well as our young people see opportunities abroad. And Mr McMasters' case, I think it's fair to say, is above all an economic one. He argues that our relationship with the EU has made our economy smaller and our trading relationship with our nearest and largest market more difficult. I will take an intervention.