Southampton MP Alan Whitehead: 'The Brexit vote was too close to say I defied my constituents'

But one Southampton MP came under fire for not toeing the party line and voting against the bill - amidst claims that in doing so he was defying his constituents.

But speaking to the Daily Echo this week, Southampton Test MP Alan Whitehead was adamant that the margin between remainers and leavers is too narrow to substantiate that claim.

With figures collected from a box sample taken on the night of the vote - the result of which Mr Whitehead said is "pretty close to the actual result" – he cited figures showing that 50.6 per cent of his constituents voted to remain and 49.4 per cent to leave.

He said: “The idea that I can represent my constituency as a homogenous group is extremely difficult to imagine. Dozens of MPs are in the same position – look at Romsey just a few miles away which mainly voted remain.

“I’ve got a big post bag of letters saying I will never vote for you again if you don’t push it through and another saying the exact opposite."

And he also warned that in ushering in article 50 now - without the amendments to be negotiated in our exit from the EU - we are leaving ourselves short of any bartering power.

He said: “I’ve been busy saying yes all week to those amendments which should be kept in this very short bill.

“I thought in the couple of months after the result was announced there would be a great deal of careful thought and pre-planning and only after that process had been completed would we trigger article 50.

“That’s the point of no return - but now we have thrown away any decent negotiating terms.

“All we have done is said we are going to trigger article 50 and that the prime minister will negotiate in a suitable way

“That was the only reason I didn’t want to vote it through.

“I feel particularly bad about the fact that we are flying blind in our negotiations in how we begin our exit.

“We are entirely tied to how the PM happens to think.

“One of the amendments that Brexit should be negotiated on was return of the £350 million to the NHS - and people like Boris Johnson voted against that one.”

But Tory MP for Southampton Itchen Royston Smith rubbished Mr Whitehead’s ‘delaying’ tactics, calling them “ridiculous.”

He said: “Alan can say it’s to delay triggering it but we have got to trigger it.

“He has been consistent in his desire to stay in the European Union from the start, but we all said we would honour the outcome of the referendum nationwide and I think that is what we should do. I am surprised therefore, that Alan Whitehead chose to vote against the intentions of the majority of the city and the country."

"He voted for the referendum - that means he voted to abide by the very results of that referendum."

The bill will go to the House of Lords in about a month.

Amendments that were put forward to be included in negotiations, but which were blocked:

• Stop big business tax cuts
• Protect workers' rights
• Promise EU citizens already living here can stay in the UK
• Keep rights for people in Northern Ireland
• Stay in the EU if MPs don't agree
• Giving MPs a veto on the final deal
• Promise the NHS £350 million a week
• Give Britain a second EU referendum
• Get all 27 nations to approve before Article 50 is triggered
• Get Theresa May to keep MPs in the loop every 2 months
• Give more say to Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland
• Keep Leave's funding promise for Wales
• Reveal the Treasury's assessment of Brexit
• Reveal our EU 'divorce' bill
• Consult Gibraltar before Article 50
• Stay in the EU's atomic energy organisation Euratom

Alan Whitehead:

It’s been a tumultuous week in Parliament with late night sittings, trooping through the lobbies voting on numerous amendments and of course debating what is right now the most important issue facing the country – how we leave the EU, and what is the best course to plot to ensure that Britain’s best interests are protected.

It started this week with the introduction of a very short bill – literally less than 200 words – just saying that we are to vote to invoke Article 50 – the means by which we press the final button on our departure. This bill only came to Parliament because the Supreme Court ruled that Parliament had to have the final say on this: but neither the referendum result nor the Supreme Court gave any guidance on how we are to make our exit. So the debate turned around what route we would take - would we start negotiations with some clear lines about access to European markets, or the customs union, or with agreed environmental safeguards built in, or would we simply make an inglorious exit, falling back onto whatever we could subsequently organise for ourselves after we had left.

I thought the bill that was presented to Parliament was, frankly a bit of an insult to the House. It didn’t go into any of those conditions: it simply asked us to vote to trigger article 50 – and right now, before any clear positions had been set out. That’s why in the first vote to introduce the bill, I felt I couldn’t support it as it was,

What I wanted to do instead was to see if we could get some of those conditions into the Bill as it went through Parliament – what about the UK economy and how best it would work after Brexit? What about the future status and rights of the millions of EU citizens living and working in the UK, and for that matter the millions of UK citizens living in Europe? What about Britain’s membership of vital multinational bodies giving us good environmental protection, joint working on terrorism, nuclear energy and many other important issues. The opposition parties in Parliament worked hard during the week to try and put some clarification into the Bill, and I lost count of the number of divisions I took part in during the week to try to vote clarity into the Bill: but although a number of Conservative MPs joined us in the lobbies during the week no amendment was successful. We were left at the end it all to finally vote for or against a bill with nothing in it – we would have to trust the Prime Minister and the Government to do what they thought was best in the negotiations – exactly where we were before the court action that led to a bill having to be put before Parliament. All the indications are that the Government intends to go for a ‘hard BREXIT’ – surrendering any kind of deal in negotiations that helps Britain’s economy, workforce, the environment and people living and working in the UK and helping our economy thrive.

I couldn’t sign up to that, and I voted against triggering article 50 now. Of course I know that we will have to do that in the next year – the debate was never about whether we should leave the EU or not, or even about whether MPs should vote according to how their constituencies voted in the referendum. As it happened Southampton Test (but not the whole of Southampton) voted narrowly ‘remain’; but then so did a number of other constituencies in Hampshire where their MPs voted to trigger Article 50 now.

I think we’ve ended the week with potentially a very bad deal for the UK - the judgement to trigger Article 50 so early without any clarity as to what we are doing could be disastrous: I hope the Government, even now pauses to think about how those negotiations should be conducted and thinks again about what are the best interests of our country as we exit the EU.

Royston Smith:

Britain’s exit from the European Union has dominated Parliament and the news bulletins in recent days and weeks.

We voted through the remaining stages of the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill. The Prime Minister has now been mandated by Parliament to trigger the Article 50 Notice which will start the two year process of withdrawal.

I have been contacted by dozens of constituents, with many and varied requests or indeed demands. Some want us out now, others do not want us to leave at all. In answer to those that say we should just leave immediately: we have an agreement with the EU – not unlike a hire purchase agreement or a mortgage. We may want to sell our car or move house but we can only do that within the terms of the agreement we signed up to. We will not renege on our agreements or obligations however frustrated we are.

For those that want us to stay in: unfortunately that is not an option. The country voted to leave and that is what we will do. In my Southampton Itchen constituency, 60% of voters joined me in voting to leave. I concede that many will have voted for different reasons to me. I voted to leave the Court, the Commission and the Parliament. Unlike some others, I have never recognised the EU as a country. I know many voted for other reasons, perhaps because they felt the UK had lost control of its borders, and in many ways that is true. The referendum is now behind us. The decision has now been taken by the British public, the Courts and by the United Kingdom Parliament. Article 50 will be triggered and we will leave.

The debates you have been witnessing in Parliament over the past days and weeks have been about the terms of departure. Unfortunately many people do not understand that process of leaving any better than they understood the implications of a national referendum. Leaving is not negotiable, it is our future relationship, with the remaining members of the EU that needs negotiating.

The Government has published a white paper and has agreed to put the results of the negotiation before Parliament. We will be negotiating a trade deal and access to EU markets. We will also look to cooperate with our partners on things such as security.

The arrangement we negotiate with the remaining members of the EU must be in the UK’s national interest. If not the PM had made it clear there will be no deal.

While understanding the importance of negotiating a favourable trade deal with the EU, the number one priority must be an arrangement that allows EU migrants that are in this country to stay, and protects the rights and privileges of UK citizens who have chosen to live in EU countries.

It is clear leaving the EU will take time and effort, but when we have left we will continue to trade with our closest friends and neighbours in Europe, while looking to the rest of the world to make Great Britain a truly global trading nation once again.