Brexit: People’s Vote

Debate between Lord Lamont of Lerwick and Lord Newby

Thursday 25th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, who spoke with authority, eloquence and transparent sincerity. None the less, I profoundly disagree with him. There are good reasons to argue against a second referendum—reasons that even remainers ought to think about extremely carefully. I was pleased that the noble Lord did not—except in his answer to the noble Lord, Lord Dykes—use the phrase “people’s referendum”, which seems to me an Orwellian use of language, designed to conceal meaning. He knows as well as I do the arguments against the use of that phrase, and so I shall not weary the House by going on about them. However, it is, frankly, a dishonest use of language to say that this would be a people’s referendum in some sense more democratic than the first.

In addition to other arguments, some practical questions have to be put about a second referendum. First, how long would it take to hold a second referendum? We have no standing law to permit the holding of referendums, so it would require legislation. People who have looked at it think that at best, if we were lucky, it might be a year before we could implement a referendum.

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

I am sorry, but I have only four minutes. The noble Lord will be able to speak later.

A second issue is: what would the question be? Some say it ought to be on the deal that has been negotiated; some say it ought to be on no deal. Would the choice on the ballot paper be between the existing deal and no deal, or for renegotiation on terms yet to be revealed? If the result was that we had to renegotiate the renegotiation, would we then have a third referendum to validate the second referendum? On what terms would we rejoin the EU—or could there be a fourth referendum to validate the third referendum?

The noble Lord did not really refer to the many assurances that were given in the referendum campaign, by all parties, that we would honour the result. The fundamental impression is that many people simply cannot accept the democratic result of the referendum. This, of course, is in the long tradition of the EU, which has in the past bulldozed through policies for integration, even when public opinion has been cautious or opposed to them. Since the EU was founded, there have been no fewer than 48 referendums held on integration measures and accession. Not once has a referendum been rerun when the vote was in favour of integration, even when it was by a narrower majority than that in the referendum we had. On two separate occasions and on two separate issues, Ireland had to run a referendum again; the Danes had to run another referendum; and the French and the Dutch were not allowed to have the result of their referendums on the constitution accepted.

Some EU spokesmen have been quite open about this. In 2005, Mr Barroso said:

“They must go on voting until they get it right”.


Mr Juncker, again in 2005, before the French referendum, said:

“If it is a Yes, we will say ‘on we go’, and if it’s a No, we will say ‘we continue’”.


Raymond Barre, the former Prime Minister of France, said he could not see why the public should be consulted at all about European integration. It was precisely because of this that many people voted to leave the EU. Tony Blair, who one would have thought could have used his experience and contacts to help the Government, has said that the result of a second referendum would have to be definitive and respected. Big deal—that is what he said last time about the referendum we had.

Some people say that a second referendum would be a healing process. That seems the most improbable argument of all. It would create a permanent division in our politics. People already feel great disillusionment and disdain for our system is widespread. I believe that a second referendum would be a disaster of the first order for democracy. It would undermine the very basis of democracy because it would suggest that a decision by a majority is insufficient to make that decision legitimate.

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell, referred to and dismissed people who say it would be undemocratic to have a second referendum. But it was the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, himself—who has, I am sorry to see, left the Chamber; perhaps rather conveniently—who just before the referendum result said:

“When the British people have spoken, you do what they command. Either you believe in democracy or you don’t”.


Well, I believe in democracy.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Lamont of Lerwick and Lord Newby

Report: 4th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 30th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, I said that during the debate that was said. The truth is that, if you ask the people to have a vote, Parliament, having given them a mandate to have a vote, politically cannot come back and say, “Thanks very much, you’ve had your vote but, actually, we are going to ignore it”. Everybody knows that that is not realistic politics.

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

Does the noble Lord remember that in 2008, when other people were not advocating a referendum and there was no renegotiation, Nick Clegg put forward the idea that there should be what he called a real referendum—an in/out referendum? If that had come to pass, what would the Liberals have done if the people had voted no and wanted to leave, and there was no renegotiation? Would that have been binding or not?

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, that was in the completely different context of the Lisbon treaty. In previous debates in your Lordships’ House, a number of noble Lords have thrown at me what former leaders of my party have said. I would just ask the noble Lord, as we are talking about former leaders, whether he agrees with his former leader, Sir John Major, when he made a speech earlier this year and said, of this debate:

“Peers must ignore any noises off, and be guided by their intellect and their conscience”.


To revert to the point that I was attempting to make, on Brexit Parliament gave the initial decision to the people; it is in no position now to take a stand on parliamentary sovereignty on this issue. On Brexit, the horse has well and truly bolted.

It is sometimes argued that people are fed up with Brexit and want to leave it to Parliament and get on and implement it, but that is simply not the case. All recent polling shows that a majority of people now want to have a final say. A poll by YouGov earlier this month, for example, showed that by a majority of 44% to 36% there was support for such a vote. So this is not just the remoaners and, with figures like that, sadly, it is not just the Liberal Democrats. It is a view very widely shared, including by government supporters. In a recent poll of Conservative voters, by a majority of 43% to 34%, almost identical to that of the country as a whole, they said that they now wanted a vote on the issue.

So, what are the objections to the proposed amendment? First, it is argued that it is too soon to put such a provision into legislation. However, just look at the timetable. This Bill will receive Royal Assent sometime in June at the earliest. The Government believe that they will negotiate a withdrawal agreement by the end of October, a claim confirmed by the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU before a Commons Select Committee last week. If we take the Government at their word, this means that the approval resolution, provided for in the amendment which the House has just passed, could be brought before Parliament within 20 weeks of the Bill gaining Royal Assent and before any further legislative opportunity to provide for the referendum option had presented itself.

Far from being premature, this amendment is extremely urgent. It is argued by some members of your Lordships’ House that, if the Commons were to reject a Brexit deal, the correct next step should be a general election, rather than a referendum. However, this is a poor alternative. As last year’s general election showed, the issues which dominate a campaign at the start are sometimes very different from those which do so at the conclusion. At that election, polling showed that, in the last crucial days of the campaign, Brexit was supplanted by terrorism as the most important issue in many people’s minds. In any new election, health, education, jobs, housing, the qualities of the rival leaders, and issues which unexpectedly flare up in the campaign itself—as terrorism did in last year’s—would determine how many people voted. An election is, therefore, an extremely unsatisfactory mechanism for taking the people’s view on any single issue.

It is argued that a referendum would be too divisive but, in the circumstances of the Commons voting against a Brexit deal, to deny the people a final say would be even more divisive.