Justine Greening campaigned to remain but voted to 'respect the democratic result'

Local MPs were on different sides of the division in the House of Commons this week during the historic vote to trigger Article 50 and leave the European Union. Wandsworth borough was one of the most pro-Remain parts of the UK with 75% voting to stay in the referendum last June.

Justine Greening MP for Putney and Secretary of State for Education had already confirmed to this website that she would vote in favour of Article 50. Justine Greening said: “This bill is about getting on with delivering on the outcome of the referendum we held last year, and I will be voting in favour of it. I may have campaigned to stay in but I feel we have to respect the overall democratic result, and it is not for MPs to try and unpick that.”

Jane Ellison, the Conservative MP for Battersea, told WandsworthSW18.com that she would vote to trigger, "I was elected in 2015 on a manifesto commitment to hold an in/out referendum on EU membership, and to respect the national result; had it been different I would have expected the same of the Leave side."

This week the leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, announced that there was a three-line whip for his MPs. However, Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, MP for Tooting, told WandsworthSW18 that she would vote against, "The UK’s political system is based on the essential idea that an MP represents the interests and will of the constituency that elected them to Parliament. On this Bill, I believe the Referendum means that we, as MPs, must vote not on our judgment of what is in the interests of our constituents, but instead on what we understand their will to be.

Across Wandsworth, over 100,000 people (75%) voted to Remain in the EU. So, while I fully expect Parliament as a whole to vote to trigger Article 50, I will vote against triggering Article 50."

Dr Allin-Khan is a shadow minister for sport and it is the convention that any vote against a three-line-whip by an MP holding office should be followed by their resignation. At this stage there is no indication that all the Labour junior ministers who have defied Jeremy Corbyn's instructions will be fired.

She says her decision 'faithfully' represents the interests of the people of Tooting in Parliament adding: "Through her impulse for autocracy and total control, Theresa May is already undermining our politics further. She may like to pretend the Referendum was a landslide or a whitewash, but we know it wasn’t. She may want to claim every person who voted Leave voted for the same concept of a harsh and extreme Brexit, but we know they didn’t."

Keir Starmer, Labour’s Brexit Minister, has said that no punishment has been determined for rebel Labour MPs and promised that any disputes would be resolved “collegiately”. It is understood that several members of the shadow frontbench argued for a free vote on the issue.

After Article 50 is triggered, the UK will remain a member for a period of two years before breaking away entirely from the EU. After this there will be a period of transition in which EU regulations will continue to apply but will be gradually replaced in some cases by domestic legislation.


February 3, 2017