I had forgotten all about the famous EU Second Referendum debate poll, when I got pinged by email that the parliamentary debate had taken place.
So the MP's all had a good debate about it, passions ran a bit high as expected, people went a bit off piste and had to be steered back to the original question, should their be a 2nd EU Referendum?
But here are the excerpts or most interesting bits of the closing statement from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, Mr Robin Walker (what a mouthful!)
As we have heard, the referendum was one of the biggest democratic exercises in British history. Turnout was high, at 72%, with more than 33 million people having their say. More than a million more people voted leave than voted remain. The turnout was bigger than in any general election since 1992 and it was the second-highest popular vote of any form in our long and distinguished democratic history...
...Like many people who signed the petition, though by no means all of them, I campaigned for a different outcome, but I also spoke out repeatedly in the House, both before and during the passage of the legislation for the referendum, about trusting the people on this matter. On 24 June I might have preferred a different result, but I did not falter in my belief that it was right to give the British people their say. Both the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (William Wragg) spoke passionately about people going through the stages of grief. One of those stages is denial, but the one thing we cannot do is deny the outcome of the vote. To deny the outcome or the validity of the referendum is to deny the clear mandate of the British people—in this House, as hon. Friends have pointed out, we are their servants and not the other way around.
There will be no second referendum, no attempts to remain inside the EU, no attempts to re-join through the back door. Indeed, that would fly in the face of democracy and, I believe, entrench the sense of a disconnect between the country and this place that some argue contributed to the referendum result...
I conclude by saying that turnout was high, our instructions from the British people are clear and we are moving ahead. The machinery of government is now working hard to get the best deal from Brexit. While respecting the views of the millions who signed the petition, we must also respect the millions more who voted on 23 June and the clear mandate that was given, not merely after a few weeks of campaigning but after a debate that exercised this House and our nation for decades. I look forward to many more debates in this Chamber and in the House about the nature of our exit and the future relations between the United Kingdom and Europe, but I must be clear on behalf of the Government that we will respect the outcome of the referendum, treat it as an instruction from the British people and carry out the mandate they have given us.
Full Transcript is here: EU Referendum Rules
So there you go. It was a huge petition, but the outcome remains the same.
Time to accept it, move on and hopefully our politicians can cobble together a plan they all agree on, is in the best interests of the UK, and we can get the ball rolling to stop all the uncertainty.
