Brexit: Support for Remaining in the EU

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

The Labour Party does not exactly give the impression that it is open to discussions. I recommend that the noble Baroness look at the interview on Channel 4 with her Front-Bench spokesman, Richard Burgon, who was talking with a very reasonable—for a change—Liberal Democrat, Jo Swinson. He said the Conservatives were the “real enemy”. I hope the Labour Party is up for some constructive discussions, but it really needs to decide what it is in favour of, rather than just what it is against.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, we know that the Conservatives believe that there can be a rethink after a first referendum as they did so regarding the Welsh devolution referendum, when Conservatives, including Theresa May, voted against implementation and then, in a later manifesto, said they were going to overturn it. Is it not entirely hypocritical of the Government to refuse a democratic vote of the people to assess whether Brexit has turned out as they thought it might? In fact, a recent YouGov poll showed a 63% majority for remain compared with May’s deal. Is it not the reality that the Government are afraid of the people?

[Lord Callanan]

Not at all; we are implementing the will of the people. I say to the Liberal Democrats that not only have they failed to convince the majority in this Parliament of the case for a second people’s vote, but they have not even convinced Mr Guy Verhofstadt, their leader in the European Parliament and someone the noble Baroness knows well, as I do. This morning he tweeted that,

“it is unthinkable that article 50 is prolonged beyond the European Elections”,

which, for those who do not know, are on 23 May. The previous referendum Bill took seven months to go through Parliament—from a Government with a majority and a manifesto commitment to implement it. The Liberal Democrats need to get real about this.