Brexit: Further Referendum

Debate between Lord Tyler and Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury

Thursday 17th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury]

Thank you. When we had the referendum in 2016, everybody knew the result would be accepted. I have here just one example of what the late Lord Ashdown said on the eve of referendum day:

“I will forgive no one who does not respect the sovereign voice of the British people once it has spoken. Whether it is a majority of 1% or 20%”.


For all of us—in or out—when the British people have spoken, we do what they suggest. As Lord Ashdown said, “they command”.

If we have a second referendum, we will be invalidating the result of the first—we will be saying that it did not really count. In fact, by definition, we will also be invalidating the second and beginning to remove a cornerstone of confidence in our democratic system.

My second point is that, in a general election, the electorate delegate to politicians the responsibility for taking complicated decisions. In this referendum we have learned the problems that occur when politicians delegate to the public responsibility for taking a complicated decision. We ought to have realised that this is a very difficult thing to do. The people decided that they wanted to leave the European Union. If the public are now told by the politicians that they are so hopeless, so incompetent, so utterly useless that they have to ask the people to do the job that they should be doing, they will further undermine public confidence in them. We know what happens when that chasm widens. We see it today in many countries in Europe, and we saw it in pre-war Europe in the 1930s. I fear that if the politicians are yet again seen to be useless, saying to the public, “We were no good—we’ll have to hand it over to you again”, the chasm between politicians and the public will become ever wider.

[Lord Tyler]

I point out to the noble Lord that his two arguments are mutually contradictory. On the one hand he says that we should not respect the results of referenda, for reasons he has just given, and on the other he says that we have to respect that of the 2016 referendum.

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury]

No; I said that we should accept the result of the referendum but that public confidence in the acceptance would be eroded. If we have a second referendum and the public believe that the politicians have said, “We don’t think you made the right decision; therefore, it’s invalid”, they will think, “Why is the second referendum more valid than the first?”