Having made one earlier, I knew that the House could not wait for another statement from me. I should like to make a very short statement this evening regarding Monday’s business. Before the House considers the Second Reading of the Environment Bill, Members will have an opportunity to debate and approve a motion relating to an early parliamentary general election. The business for the rest of next week remains as I announced earlier.
I thank the Leader of the House for making this business statement. Tomorrow, we will find out what extension has been granted. We opposed the Prime Minister’s withdrawal agreement Bill but it passed Second Reading. Several of my Labour colleagues have voted for that Bill, not because they support the Prime Minister’s deal, but because they wanted to scrutinise it, amend it and debate it—[Interruption.]—as is the normal process in this House. We offered the Prime Minister our support for a proper timetable to enable the withdrawal agreement Bill to be dealt with properly, but the Prime Minister has rejected our offer in his letter to the Leader of the Opposition because he does not want that scrutiny.
I want to make it clear that Her Majesty’s Opposition, the Labour party, will back an election once no deal is ruled out, and—wait for it—if the extension allows.
The right hon. Lady says that the Prime Minister has not made sufficient time. In his letter to the Leader of the Opposition, my right hon. Friend says:
“we will make available all possible time between now and 6 November”.
We are willing to start work tomorrow, Mr Speaker, if you are willing to recall Parliament. We are willing to work 24 hours a day between now and 6 November. What are the words of that hymn?
“e’en eternity’s too short
to extol thee.”
It seems to me that eternity is too short for the Opposition, because their opposition is fantasy opposition. They do not want Brexit, and, however much time we give them, they will come up with some foolish objection.
This will be the third time that the House will have voted on a general election. Can the Leader of the House recall any other occasion on which the Opposition have been offered an election three times and rejected it?
Earlier today, I was actually praising the Leader of the Opposition, and now I am able to quote him. His words are words of wisdom. On 24 September 2019, exactly one month ago, he said:
“This crisis can only be settled with a general election. That election needs to take place as soon as this government’s threat of a disastrous No Deal is taken off the table”.
We have met the condition that he set. The Prime Minister has got a deal; no deal is off the table. And yet, for some reason, the Opposition still do not want a general election. We know why that is: we know why they will not have an election. It is because they are afraid of the voters. So alienated are the voters—so disenfranchised do they feel by their socialist friends—that the socialists are running away from an election.
What an extraordinary business statement, once again, from the Leader of the House.
This simply confirms that the Queen’s Speech has been nothing but a charade, a simple electioneering stunt. For us the priority remains the same: we need to see an extension secured, and that extension must be long enough to protect us from the cliff edge of a no-deal Brexit. We have seen the Prime Minister’s letter to the Leader of the Opposition, and we need to know that this Tory Government cannot play any games or tricks to use an election period to engineer a their way to secure their no-deal Brexit. The Scottish National party is clear: we want the opportunity to stop this Prime Minister, and to stop this toxic Tory Brexit that Scotland did not vote for. If there is to be an election, that election should be a chance for people to deliver their verdict on the deal and for the House to reflect it. That should come first.
Tomorrow the EU will make a decision on an extension, and we patiently await confirmation from Brussels and the terms that the Prime Minister proposes. We will not be pushed today by this Prime Minister. He may be hoping that the electorate will fall for his con tricks, but the SNP certainly will not.
Is it not saddening that “Scotland the brave” used to be the call but now it is “Scotland the runaway,” “Scotland the let’s not have an election”? The SNP, who wish to challenge the Government, actually want us to stay in office; I never thought that the broad coalition of the United Kingdom would have the Scottish National party supporting a Tory Government remaining in office. I look forward to that appearing on our election leaflets. It occurs to me that tomorrow is St Crispin’s day, the anniversary of Agincourt; what a good day it might be for us to meet and show our independence of spirit.
I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement, and may I just remind him that people in this House are blocking Brexit in the name of the sovereignty of Parliament, but whose is this sovereignty? What sovereignty do we hold that does not come from the British people? And should the British people not now be allowed to decide who represents them in this House?
As so often, I bow to my hon. Friend’s constitutional expertise. It is quite clear that the sovereignty of this House did not fall upon us like a comet from heaven; it comes to us from the British people. It is the people’s sovereignty delegated to Parliament. We need, as we are incapable of using it, to return it to them and ask them to have another election and decide how their sovereignty should be used.
This is absolutely fascinating, but we are not going to embark upon a philosophical discussion on the matter of sovereignty. This treats of the business of the House for Monday, nothing more, nothing less; brevity is required.
Irrespective of whether people are Brexiteers, remainers or reversers, does my right hon. Friend agree that the fundamental question before the House on Monday regarding an early general election is about their democratic decision to be governed by themselves through their representatives in Parliament?
This House had 41 days for Maastricht and 25 for Lisbon, and now the Prime Minister expects us to rush through this legislation in less than a dozen days, and he expects us to do that because he has failed. He tried to prorogue Parliament to rush this through and get us off the cliff without a deal; he has failed. The Liberal Democrats will not support this until we can be sure that this country will not be crashed out of Brexit and the electorate has the choice.