Early Parliamentary General Election

Part of Deferred Divisions – in the House of Commons at 9:14 pm on 4 September 2019.

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Photo of Sandy Martin Sandy Martin Shadow Minister (Waste and Recycling) 9:14, 4 September 2019

I am absolutely desperate to have a general election. I want to see a Government who will halt the privatisation of the national health service, who will properly fund our public services, who will stop the wealth of this country being squirreled away in tax havens in the Caribbean and who will care about the majority of people in this country and not just about the very wealthy, but that is not why the Prime Minister is calling for a general election. The Prime Minister is not calling for a general election so that we can have a Labour Government. The Prime Minister is calling for a general election so that, when and if we were to vote for it, he would be in sole control of what happened in this country, and there would be no Parliament here to hold him to account when we leave with a no-deal Brexit.

In my constituency of Ipswich, more than 50% of the people who voted in the referendum voted to leave. It was not much more than 50%, but it was more than 50%. I would not vote for a straight vote to revoke article 50, because that would be wrong. After there has been a referendum and people have voted to leave the European Union—albeit by a narrow margin—it would be entirely wrong for this House simply to go against those wishes.