European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer and Lord Wigley

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

My Lords, I have a probing amendment in this group. Should the House decide at a later stage to enfranchise the group we have just been talking about, or the UK citizens we will be discussing in Amendment 14, the purpose of my amendment is to find out what work would need to be done by the Government and what preparations they would need to make in order to make that happen.

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak in this debate but there is one dimension that perhaps I can bring to the debate that few others could.

In Wales, perhaps in Scotland as well, apart from constitutional nationalism there is always a fringe of more extreme nationalism and there are fringes that impinge on racism. It is something that throughout my political career I have tried to stand against. I have made the point time after time, ad nauseam, that all people living in Wales, whatever their language, colour or creed, are full and equal citizens of Wales. It is a concept of civic involvement in the community in which they live. These amendments touch upon this. If we are going to go down the road of starting to differentiate on the basis of some concept of nationality as opposed to citizenship, we could be in very serious trouble indeed.