European Union Bill

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben]

My Lords, I find this a fascinating amendment because those of us who are opposed to referenda in any case are now presented with somebody who is in favour of a referendum but does not want to have it when it is inconvenient. This is a most peculiar amendment. I think that referenda are always wrong in a parliamentary democracy and I have always stood by that. I have never changed my view from that and I am not changing it now, but if we are to have a referendum, the concept that we must not have one except in three years’ time, irrespective of what the public think, seems a most peculiar argument. To complain about the fact that in a second referendum people made a different choice seems an odd thing. After all, that was the choice the people made. I think that this is proof of why referenda are not an acceptable way forward, because the truth is that a referendum analyses what people think at a particular moment.

I became opposed to referenda at my father’s knee. I remember just after the war he was explaining to his infant son about politics. He said that he remembered the peace pledge. Eleven million people signed the peace pledge and two years later one could not find any of them. Once we got near to the war, they all disappeared. That is the problem with a referendum, because it is an irresponsible act—one is not responsible for the vote that one makes because it is secret and private. Surprisingly enough, I found a number of my constituents who voted one way in the referendum we had about remaining in the European Union and who within two or three years decided they had really voted the other way. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and felt that they had mistaken themselves, but if one is going to have a referendum, one has to have it without strings.

The noble Lord is presenting something that gives the lie to the whole referendum argument. People who want referenda want referenda because they want a particular response. That is why they want them. They want it because they think it will produce a particular answer of which they approve. When they find that there is a possibility that it might not produce that, they want rules to make sure that the public cannot have another go. I beg your Lordships’ House to accept that if we are going to have referenda, we had better have them on a fair deal and not on the basis that we restrict them in case the public possibly take a different view the second time.

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, I cannot really follow the points of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, on referenda. I disagree with his initial argument, but I support the principle about the people having their say, whether one agrees with it or not. I find it understandable that the noble Lord, Lord Willoughby de Broke, proposed the amendment, given the frustrations that he and his colleagues clearly feel about both the Irish and Danish referendums on treaties in the past, but it seems to me that there are two reasons to oppose the amendment.

In Committee, the Minister made the valid point that it would be very unlikely that two successive referendums would be called, not least for the important political reason that it would be likely to cost the Government of the day dear—assuming that it were the same Government—with a cynical public punishing them for so doing. Secondly, the Bill is not a crystal ball attempting to predict the future, no matter how much the noble Lord would wish it so. The Bill must allow for flexibility for a future Government and this amendment would tie their hands.

There are checks and balances within the Bill: a second referendum would require a second Act of Parliament with the detailed and appropriate scrutiny that comes with that—and that is before the Government of the day would have to start convincing the public of the need for that second referendum. There might be rare circumstances in which a second referendum were relevant—the checks and balances that I have outlined will force politicians and the public to think carefully about returning down the road of another referendum. To ban it completely for three years, or even five, as we looked at in Committee, removes that option for those circumstances which, though rare, are not impossible. There might be changes to the treaty that significantly benefited our country and other member states, which it might therefore be appropriate to consider. Or there might be a financial crisis in the eurozone—as there has been recently—in which the circumstances have so substantially changed that it might be appropriate to go back for a second referendum.

To conclude, the amendment seeks to remove the flexibility and the voice of Parliament and the people should there be a rare but necessary need to consider a second referendum.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom]

My Lords, I very much sympathise with my noble friend Lady Brinton because it is unlikely that any Government would be brave enough to hold another referendum on the same subject when the country had made it quite clear that it did not want the measure put forward originally. However, to turn to the distaste of referenda generally expressed by my noble friend Lord Deben, presumably that distaste is slightly tempered by the referendum confirming our membership of the European Union. Let us face it, this referendum was put forward by Harold Wilson to solve a problem that he had within his own Labour party and settle the issue for good. Many people—I am one of them—voted in favour of our remaining in the European Union and it seemed to settle the issue for some time after that.