What did Lib Dem MPs say about Brexit in the House of Commons this week?
On Monday, Liberal Democrat European spokesperson Nick Clegg addressed the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, David Davis, on "Next Steps in Leaving the European Union":
"Can he [the Secretary of State] tell us on the basis of what constitutional principle he believes the Prime Minister can now arrogate to herself the exclusive right to interpret what Brexit means and impose it upon the country, rather than protect the rightful role of scrutiny and approval of this House?"*
On Wednesday, Liberal Democrat party leader Tim Farron asked this question at Prime Minister's Questions:
"The Prime Minister appears to have made a choice, and that choice is to side with the protectionists and nationalists who have taken over her party, as surely as Momentum has taken over the Labour party. She has chosen a hard Brexit that was never on anybody's ballot paper and she has chosen to turn her back on British business in the process. As a result, petrol and food retailers have warned of huge price rises at the pumps and on the supermarket shelves in the coming days. When will she put the interests of hard-working British people ahead of an extremist protectionism that absolutely nobody voted for?"**
Also on Wednesday, Nick Clegg said this (amongst other comments) in the "Parliamentary Scrutiny of Leaving the EU":
"I find it quite extraordinary that the Prime Minister of our country, with no mandate of her own, had the gall to get up in front of her own party conference and basically imply that if you believe, as I believe, that we have a natural affinity not just with one another here, not just with our constituents and not just with the communities that we inhabit in this country, but with people living in other countries, other time zones and other hemispheres-if, that is, you feel that there is something called British internationalism, which I believe to be a proud, liberal, British tradition-you are a citizen of nowhere. I do not think that any Government who insult more than 16 million of their fellow citizens are capable of uniting a country that was so starkly divided on 23 June."***
Sources:
* https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2016-10-10/debates/6CE5F6BB-3AA4-4332-BF7A-577DB35BDB77/NextStepsInLeavingTheEuropeanUnion [accessed 15 October 2016]
** https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2016-10-12/debates/9D603E78-5493-424C-99D9-17613E0C4EB8/OralAnswersToQuestions [accessed 15 October 2016]
*** https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2016-10-12/debates/F327EC64-3777-4D40-A98D-BEC2E11763A2/ParliamentaryScrutinyOfLeavingTheEU [accessed 15 October 2016]