This is a bit lengthy but bare with me. Its relevant and potentially important.
Yesterday in the HoC debate there were a few questions raised about revocation. Something that was said peaked my interest, so here is what was said from Hansard about revocation:
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
The Minister has made it clear that his understanding is that the House has voted that we will not leave with no deal. We are in this situation because of the mess the Government have made of the negotiations. So does it not follow that, if we do not get an extension from the EU this week, the Government have to bring a vote before this House to revoke article 50?
Kwasi Kwarteng
The best way to exit the EU is, dare I say it, to get a deal and to vote for that deal. In the event that does not happen, the SI is the means to enact what the House has voted for. The House has been clear that it does not want a no deal, and the way to avoid a no deal is to table an SI. That is as simple as it can be
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
The excellent new Clerk of the House has been very clear that the way in which we extend article 50 is by the unanimous agreement of the EU27—we assume that will take place at the Council meeting this weekend—and that the EU27 have to agree with us the purposes of the extension before they will agree to it. I assume I am correct, but will the Minister please correct me if I am wrong? The House would then have to vote on a statutory instrument next week.
I gently say to the Minister that I believe he may be wrong in saying that we can debate the purposes of the extension. Those purposes will already have been agreed by the Prime Minister and the European Council before the Government can move the statutory instrument—the Government cannot move the statutory instrument unilaterally.
Kwasi Kwarteng
The hon. Lady gently reminds me of a couple of facts, and I will gently remind her of a couple of facts. We still face a choice. I do not share the assumption that the meaningful vote will not come back and that the deal is dead. I think we can command a majority for the deal in this House. Until the meaningful vote has passed, or until the deal is completely impossible, I do not want to prejudge the reasons why we should have a longer extension. That is my view, and the hon. Lady has her view, which I fully understand.
Peter Grant
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
I was only going to take the first one. Points of order should actually come after the final urgent question, but I know it is in relation to this urgent question and the Minister is waiting.
Peter Grant
In reply to an earlier question, the Minister stated that, on many occasions, the House has considered and rejected amendments that sought to revoke article 50. As a matter of fact, those amendments have never been selected for debate, and therefore they have never been considered and voted on by the House.
Mr Deputy Speaker, can you advise me, first, on how we can give the Minister a chance to correct his error? It is always better to correct one’s own error. Secondly, and more importantly, can you confirm that, given such amendments have never been selected, there is no impediment in the Standing Orders or in “Erskine May” convention to one being brought forward and considered at a later date?
Three things here:
1) If we get to this situation, if I'm reading this correctly it looks like its being regarded that revocation needs to be the subject of an SI and voted on by the HoC, from what is said. I could be wrong, but that seems to be the suggestion, if we are left with a situation where all else fails.
2) Kwarteng certainly did not rule out the possibility of revocation. He very much dodged answering as much as he could.
3) A vote on revocation is one of the few things currently not subject to Erskine May.
Is it possible that come next Thursday / Friday, we have the real prospect if everything else has failed of a stark Revoke or No Deal straight vote?
No reason why it wouldn't be possible from what I see here. And a prospect that it more likely than it might seem with just ten days to go.
It seemed to be something that was touched upon last week.
I refer to this exchange on 14th March Debate:
Stewart Malcolm McDonald
Can I take the deputy Prime Minister back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) when he said that it was a matter of law that the UK can revoke article 50 in its entirety? Should there be a member state that does not agree to an extension—for example, Hungary or Italy—would it not therefore be a matter of political reality that the revocation of article 50 should be exactly what the Government do? If that happens, will they revoke article 50?
Mr Lidington
It would be a decision for the House to take were that to happen. It was open to the hon. Gentleman to table an amendment to that effect today had he wished to do so. These are matters for the House as a whole.
And this from 13th March Debate, in which Clarke and Grieve note the government avoiding the subject of revocation completely and have never properly addressed the possibility of accidental no deal as a whole in government policy and HoC votes:
Mr Kenneth Clarke
My right hon. Friend keeps saying that when we reach 29 March, we will not leave unless we have a deal, and he has been considering the alternatives, because currently doing nothing means that, by law, we will leave with no deal. He keeps suggesting revoking article 50. Is that because we could seek an extension, if by then the House has some idea of what it is seeking an extension for, but the EU might then refuse it? Is he prepared to contemplate and is it the Government’s position that if the EU refuses an extension, we will revoke article 50, no doubt with the intention of invoking it later, once Parliament and the Government have decided what it is we are seeking for our future?
Michael Gove
The Father of the House makes an important point, but we cannot revoke article 50 and then invoke it again later. The European Court of Justice has made that absolutely clear, which is why—
Gove was then interupted and never said anything further on the matter. Which was all quite convenient - but absoluetely spotted by the eagle eyed Grieve and Clarke who commented it later...
Ken Clarke
Finally, I just want to be totally clear what the Government’s intentions and motives now are. I hope I have been reassured that, if we pass this motion tonight, the Government will in all circumstances take whatever steps it is eventually necessary to take in 16 days’ time to avoid our leaving with no deal. I do not want them to come back in a fortnight’s time saying to the House, “It’s your fault, because you will not vote for the Prime Minister’s withdrawal agreement, so sadly we are going to have to leave with no deal.” We are ruling this out. That really means having indicative votes to give us some idea of what the British are going to negotiate over the next two or three years. Failing that, it means revoking article 50. Speaking as someone who is a diehard European—
Mr Grieve
rose—
Mr Clarke
My right hon. and learned Friend and I do not agree on referendums, but we agree on practically everything else. As he is a close political ally and a good friend of mine, I shall give way to him.
Mr Grieve
In the spirit of trying to encourage the Government to be clear with the House, does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the difficulty with the Government’s motion is that the revocation route is not acknowledged? The Government may not want it, and of course there are different ways of reaching it—one is through a referendum; another is through a revocation by this House alone—but the difficulty with the Government’s motion as tabled is that it pretends that that route does not exist. It seems to emphasise a binary choice. Does he therefore agree that getting clarity on that, and possibly a correction, would be immeasurably helpful? Otherwise, it gives the impression that the Government are trying to pull the wool over our eyes.
Mr Clarke
I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend entirely. I have no idea why the Government thought it necessary to put the second half of the motion on the Order Paper. I have been reassured, however, so let me try to reassure him on this. When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State opened the debate, he referred several times to revocation as the alternative—he is now nodding in the affirmative—and I think that if forced to do so, he would revoke. I take comfort from remembering the Prime Minister occasionally saying—normally to the right-wing nationalist members of my party—that if they were not careful, the alternative to her deal would be no Brexit, which amounts to the same thing. I would prefer the wording on the Order Paper to make it perfectly clear that we are ruling out no deal, but I take it that we have been given a guarantee that if no one can think of any better and more sensible way of resolving things, we are going to revoke article 50 and start all over again, because as I said when I began, we have got absolutely nowhere after three years of effort since the vote was announced.
Grieve ALSO then said in this same debate the following:
We have to make the decisions. Are we going to find a motion to accept the Prime Minister’s deal being offered up again? I do not want that, because I think that it is a poor deal, despite her best efforts. Are we going to find some other deal? Or are we going to revoke? Revocation is not something that I would wish to do without going back to the public, because in the light of the referendum, that would be a rather draconian and dangerous step. However, we will have to address that question because, otherwise, we will go round in circles and the Minister is right to say that we will eventually run out of time. We will simply have pushed back the cliff edge. We will have to resolve this, but at the moment, the Government are not helping by tabling motions of this tendentious character. I really urge my colleagues on the Front Bench to face up to their responsibility and to ensure, first, that we get some clarity from them tonight, and secondly, that we can take this debate forward.
Which, of course, they haven't done and were still dodging the question of yesterday...