In the debate taking place today over the EU (Withdrawal) Bill, the amendment tabled by Dominic Grieve is the 7th Amendment and is referred to as Parliamentary Approval of the Final Deal. It seems hard to imagine why any MP, or indeed any Democrat would argue that such an amendment is a poor piece of reform. However in searching for the wording of the amendment on the internet I came across the website for Mary Robinson who is MP for Cheadle claiming:

“The Government has promised that there will be frequent reports to Parliament during the negotiations and that the final deal will be put to a vote in the House of Commons and the House of Lords before it is concluded. Parliament will be able to accept or reject the deal and I expect this vote to take place before the European Parliament votes on the agreement. The Government has also made clear that there will be a significant amount of legislation passing through Parliament during the process of exiting the EU. Parliament will be able to debate, scrutinise and vote on these important decisions meaning that MPs will have their say at every stage.
 
I do not believe, however, that giving Parliament the power to send Britain back to the negotiating table would be helpful. It would undermine the country’s negotiating position and deliver a worse deal.”

So Mary and some of her colleagues apparently believe that to officially promise something makes sense, but to put it into law weakens our negotiating position. This is stated without any explanation of why the law of our land and the sovereignty of this country are not important enough to ensure that Parliament and not the Government should be in control of what goes on.

It is clear to me that when Vote Leave argued for doing so to regain our sovereignty, that this was surely an argument for Parliament and indeed our other elected institutions to make decisions on our behalf, not for a small number of MPs and Peers who are selected to serve in the largest party but who are accountable only to their party, and not to the nation as a whole. When Chris Grayling stated “I want us to live in an independent sovereign country. I want us to take back control of our democracy.” on 31st May 2016, he was surely arguing for Parliament, not the Government of the day to have sovereignty? The same should be try for Mary Robinson and indeed the whole of Parliament. It is vital that every Democrat in the House of Commons votes for Amendment 7 and all those who vote against resign tomorrow morning for having failed their constituents.