Andrew has provided a follow up video update on Brexit ahead of the possible indicative votes being held in Parliament tomorrow. You can watch Andrew's speech on his Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/andrewpercyofficial/. A transcript of the speech is copied below.
A few residents have been in touch saying, “Can I put another video up or a post up about what’s happening with Brexit?”. As you can see I’m here in my Parliamentary office, I’ve not been in the chamber yet so I’m still quite casual. I just thought I’d give you a quick update on where I think we’re at.
First things first is we were supposed to be leaving this Friday, on March the 29th. Parliament voted a week ago to extend Article 50, so we’re not leaving on Friday. I voted against that, but Parliament overwhelming voted for us to seek an extension. So, the Prime Minister went off and got that extension. So, if we agree the Prime Minister’s deal, we will leave on May the 22nd now. If we don’t, then the EU has said that the leave date would be April the 12th, unless we came back with something else.
Now, the reality of that is, because there is big majority in Parliament against us leaving on the deal (if we haven’t agreed the PM’s deal next week), the likelihood is that we would end up getting an even longer extension, which I think just means Brexit wouldn’t happen. However, since then we had some votes yesterday in Parliament in which backbenchers voted to take over control of Parliamentary business from the government, which is ripping up our constitutional settlement, which I oppose. I voted against that.
But what will happen now is that I think a series of indicative votes will happen, which is where groups of backbenchers will put different options on what should happen. That could be no deal right the way through to revoking article 50. Then, the House of Commons will, through some mechanism, will vote on each of those proposals. I will vote for every proposal that gets us out of the European Union. So, I will vote for no deal, even though its not my preferred option. I’ll vote for the Prime Minister’s deal if that’s put again tomorrow, but it probably won’t be. I’ll vote for a Common Market 2.0. I will vote for whatever option gets us out of the European Union because my fear is, there is a big remain majority in Parliament. They are trying to undo this result bit by bit by bit, which is why they want one delay. They’ll want another delay. The consequence of all of these delays is that we won’t end up leaving. So, these indicative votes won’t be binding on the government and the government has said if the House of Commons passes something which is against what was in the manifesto I stood on and other Conservative MPs stood on, then it won’t be able to implement it. So, those will be indicative votes. They will probably take place tomorrow. What will then happen is that the government, probably next week, maybe this week, will put another proposal down for the PM’s deal, which would be binding. So, I will vote for that again.
Interesting today to see some of my fellow Brexiteers now saying what I have been saying for months—so we had Jacob Rees Mogg saying it today—that it looks like it’s the PM’s deal or no Brexit. This was blindly obvious to me from about six months ago and I have been so frustrated with Brexiteer colleagues who have gone through the lobbies with people who want to overturn Brexit and voted down the PM’s deal on two occasions now. If they hadn’t done, we’d be leaving the EU on Friday of this week. We’d have this transition period. So, the withdrawal agreement only covers 18 months. So, there are some things in it I don’t like, but at the end of the day we can live with them for 18 months to deliver on us getting out of the EU. We would have been leaving, but because these Brexiteers who are now, 6 months later, saying what I’ve been saying for months, we aren’t. So, I am quite annoyed by that, but, anyway, we are where we are.
So, that’s how I’ll vote this week. I’ll vote for every option that gets us out of the EU and then if we bring the PM’s vote back, I will vote for that as well. I’ve just got a message now, so I’ve got to get on and do some work. But, I thought I’d post an update because a couple of people have asked me what was going on.