The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
PM’s deal has ‘no chance’
MP dismisses Prime Minister’s EU agreement during Peterborough Brexit debate
There were heated exchanges as MP David Lammy and UKIP city councillor John Whitby took part in a special Brexit debate in Peterborough ahead of next Tuesday’s historic vote in Parliament.
Mr Lammy, the Labour MP for Tottenham, who was educated at The King’s School in Park Road when he was younger, joined Peterborough councillor Mr Whitby at the South Grove Community Centre in Woodston on Sunday, nine days before MPs vote on Theresa May’s EU withdrawal agreement.
More than 100 Peterborough residents were in attendance as Cllr Whitby, speaking on behalf of the Brexiteers, said: “We have a situation in this country where laws and decisions are being made for us by people who we do not know, who do not understand or care for our culture in the same way that we do, and what concerns me the most is that whenever we object to the rules being imposed upon us, the EU simply ignores it.
“What I am most deeply concerned about is that the Brexit voted for has not been delivered as it was promised, and that Prime Minister Theresa May will now never provide this nation with the democracy that it deserves.”
Mr Lammy, speaking on behalf of Remain, agreed with Cllr Whitby that Theresa May was not truly delivering Brexit.
One woman in the audience asked: “What will really happen to our economy when we leave the EU?”
Mr Lammy replied: “I worry about Theresa May’s vision of Britain post-Brexit with this deal she is tabling. It’s a Britain that could very well become the 51st state of the United States.”
This prompted some members of the audience to clap while others booed and shouted the MP down.
Mr Lammy continued: “If Trump comes looking for a trade deal he will do it when we are out on our feet and down on our knees.”
He later added: “It fills me with fear that my mixed-heritage children are growing up in such a divided country, where the rhetoric surrounding race and difference is as loud as I have ever known it to be. In the end, human beings have way more in common with each other than is different.”
Mr Lammy said there was “no chance” of Mrs May’s deal being passed by Parliament.