Prime minister says call from pro-EU MPs for parliament to vote on Brexit plans is ‘way to thwart will of the British people’

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Theresa May has dismissed cross-party demands from pro-EU MPs for parliament to be given a vote on any moves to exit the single market.

The prime minister authorised a statement on Sunday saying that such a move would be an attempt to “thwart the will of the British people”, after it emerged that former Labour leader Ed Miliband has held talks with some Tory MPs about a possible alliance over Brexit plans.

It comes as the government’s attempt to force companies to reveal the number of foreign workers collapsed days after it was announced by the home secretary, Amber Rudd.

Following calls on Sunday by Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, and the former education secretary Nicky Morgan for the House of Commons to be given a vote on Brexit plans, Downing Street retorted: “Parliament voted by a margin of six to one in favour of the referendum.

“Of course parliament will have a role in the exit process, but this suggestion is simply an attempt to find another way to thwart the will of the British people.”

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May, who said she will open the two-year “divorce” negotiations with Brussels by the end of March, has repeatedly made clear she does not want a Commons vote on the matter beforehand.

Starmer, who was reappointed to the Labour frontbench last week, said on Sunday morning it would be a disaster if the Commons did not have a say on the priorities for the UK’s post-Brexit relationship.



He insisted the government did not have a “blank cheque” after the referendum, and that MPs should be given a say on the “opening terms of the negotiations”.

“If you don’t even have the confidence of the House on the starting terms, then you are heading for a disaster,” he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.



Starmer’s comments echo those of pro-EU MPs who say parliament should be granted the chance to scrutinise the government’s negotiations.



Morgan said MPs across the Commons would work together to press for the “right Brexit”.



She told Sky News: “There’s no doubt that there’s a lot of us in parliament who do feel that it would be extraordinary – given that the Brexit vote was about the sovereignty of parliament and of this country in terms of making our laws… – for parliament not to have a big say in the Brexit negotiations as they unfold, on the guiding principles, to be asking questions.”

Starmer, meanwhile, said that the vote to leave the EU was not a vote allowing the government to wreck the economy, which he said should take priority over matters such as the freedom of movement.



“Nobody, whether they voted to leave or remain, voted for the government to take an axe to the economy, and the prime minister’s stance on the single market is making it nigh on impossible to have access to the single market, and that is a huge risk,” he said.

It also emerged on Sunday that the government has abandoned plans to force businesses to reveal how many foreign staff they employ.

The U-turn follows widespread condemnation and accusations that the policy was akin to tattooing workers “with numbers on their forearms”.

Justine Greening, the education secretary, said companies will not be made to publish the data, which will instead remain confidential and be used by the government to identify skills shortages.

Last week, Rudd had unveiled plans to force companies to reveal how many foreign staff they employ and “name and shame” those that rely on foreign employees. She said foreign workers should not be able to “take the jobs that British people should do” and announced proposals to make companies publish the proportion of “international staff on their books”.

However, Greening told ITV’s Peston on Sunday: “This is not data that will be published. There will be absolutely no naming and shaming.

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“This is about informing policy so that we understand in which areas and parts of the country there are skills shortages, evidenced by the fact that employers are not taking local workers as much as they might do. It then enables us really to tailor policy in those areas so we can respond to that.”

A loose cross-party alliance of pro-Europe MPs from all sides of the Commons has expressed concern at the sudden pace towards a “hard Brexit”.



Miliband is expected to table an urgent Commons question this week demanding the prime minister set out to parliament exactly what its role will be in the major decisions surrounding Brexit.

The move comes after the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) expressed alarm at the apparent direction of government policy towards a hard Brexit option, which they say could see tariffs imposed on 90% of British exports.



May has been urged to rule out the “worst options” of a hard Brexit by business leaders, such as not having “passporting” arrangements that allow easy access to European markets for the financial services industry.



In a separate development, Starmer appeared to prefer a different approach to migration controls to that of Jeremy Corbyn.

The MP for Holborn and St Pancras, tipped as a future Labour leader, said the number of migrants should be reduced by tackling a skills shortage. “There has been a huge amount of immigration over the last 10 years and people are understandably concerned about it,” he told Andrew Marr on Sunday.

Sources close to Corbyn said he believes in trying to reduce the number of migrant workers in the UK but wants to achieve this by ending the undercutting of pay through the exploitation of migrant labour.