MPS should be allowed to halt Brexit with free vote, insists Major
Former prime minister enrages Eurosceptics as he warns that Government’s approach is a grand folly
MPS should be allowed to halt Brexit with a free vote in the House of Commons, Sir John Major said yesterday.
The former Tory prime minister urged MPS from all parties to listen to their constituents and, if necessary, ignore their party manifestos by stopping Brexit or changing its terms.
Sir John also held out the possibility of a second referendum to halt Brexit in its tracks in a speech in central London.
The comments from Sir John sparked a furious reaction from Eurosceptics who accused him of hypocrisy because he had refused to grant a free vote on enshrining the Maastricht treaty in UK law when he was prime minister in the Nineties.
In his first speech on Brexit in a year, Sir John said Mrs May had to take a “brave and bold decision” and “invite Parliament to accept or reject the final outcome on a free vote”.
He said: “A meaningful vote has been promised. This must be a decisive vote, in which Parliament can accept or reject the final outcome; or send the negotiators back to seek improvements; or order a referendum.”
In a question-and-answer session afterwards, Sir John urged MPS to listen to the concerns of their constituents when deciding how to vote.
Sir John said: “Members of Parliament have a range of different responsibilities – one of them beyond any doubt is a responsibility to the party and to the party’s manifesto.
“But they have also a responsibility to the constituents who elected them and the well-being of those constituents.”
Jacob Rees-mogg, the leader of the 60-strong European Research Group of Eurosceptic Tory MPS, said Sir John had shown “complete hypocrisy” with a speech that was not “statesmanlike”. He said: “This is one of someone grubbing around the reeds for weak arguments. Did John Major give a free vote on Maastricht? This is where he really is guilty of being a complete humbug.”
A government source said the speech was an example of “extraordinary hypocrisy from a useless PM whose predictions in the referendum have already been proved wrong”.
Downing Street sources said Theresa May would be “whipping the vote on the final deal as it is party policy to deliver Brexit”. A spokesman said: “The Prime Minister is confident of getting the right Brexit deal and anticipates MPS from across the House will support it.” Describing the Government’s approach as a “grand folly”, Sir John said: “If it flops – there will be the most terrible backlash.” Sir John said the Government’s duty was to “negotiate a Brexit, but not any Brexit, not at all costs and certainly not on any terms”. It was “not credible” to expect to leave the single market, customs union and European Court of Justice while at the same time seeking à la carte access to European markets, he said.
He warned: “Unrealistic aspirations are usually followed by retreat. That is a lesson for the negotiations to come. They will be the most difficult any Government has faced. Our aims have to be realistic. I am not sure they yet are.”
The Government’s red lines in the EU talks had “boxed” the UK into a corner, with a majority in both Houses of Parliament opposing them, he said.
Britain had to compromise with the EU or get no deal on Brexit at all and “focus around accepting single market rules (as Norway does) and paying for access”. Sir John denied that he was undermining Mrs May, or behaving like the Eurosceptic Cabinet ministers in the Nineties who he described privately as “bastards”.
Sir John said he would not quit the Conservative Party over Brexit, saying he had been in the party “a good deal longer than most of the people who are undermining [Mrs May] by telling her what she must negotiate” in the talks.