European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Countess of Mar Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 1st March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bragg (Lab)]

My Lords, 3 million foreign nationals in a population of about 65 million represents a minority. This country has benefited greatly from minorities for centuries. Sometimes they are minorities of a people fleeing tyranny; most markedly in the middle of the last century, the Jews came to this country and enriched it immeasurably. Sometimes they are minorities who fight for the rights of their religion, such as the Roman Catholics and Unitarians over the past couple of centuries; or for their own rights, such as votes for women; or for the rights of others, such as the magnificent vote in the other place a couple of centuries ago that abolished the slave trade. Again and again, minorities have helped us become the best of what we are, as do the minorities here today in the 3 million we are treating so shamefully. From my own experience and that of others in your Lordships’ House, I can point to the dazzling contribution of minorities across the arts, the sciences and the widest spectrum of our cultural and intellectual life.

I speak strongly for minorities because I am a member of one—a bullied and beleaguered minority whose views have been dismissed and effectively gagged. I, like the Prime Minister, voted to remain. We have become a minority. I am rather surprised that with her pride in her sovereign intransigence, she did not stay on to lead the 48%—

[The Countess of Mar (CB)]

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord but he seems to be launching into a Second Reading speech. Perhaps he might confine his observations to the amendment in hand.

[Lord Bragg]

I thank the noble Countess. I have a short speech—about as third as long as the previous speech—and I have nearly finished it. I was wondering why the Prime Minister did not lead the remain campaign after we had become a minority. Why did she not fight on, as so many other minorities have successfully done, to achieve what they honourably and passionately think is best, as we all do, for this country? It is outside the democratic development of our history that a single-issue vote should be allowed to change the course of that history for ever so dramatically and, in my view, so potentially disastrously.

Finally, one major aspect of the disaster is to turn our backs on those who have come here and given their talents and skills to the United Kingdom, settling here and transforming us in so many ways for the better. They are now reduced to pawns in a government strategy which, to many observers here and abroad, seems largely clueless and without any response, save bluster, to any critical questions. The answer to the question of foreign nationals, for our own national pride in who we are, is to tell those who are here now that we want them to stay here and be welcome.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Countess of Mar Excerpts

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 7th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby]

My Lords, the noble Lord will recall the attitude that we took when we discussed the previous referendum. We strongly believe that 16 and 17 year-olds should get the vote, not just in referendums but more generally.

[The Countess of Mar (CB)]

My Lords, would the noble Lord kindly address the House rather than the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, because we on this side cannot hear what he is saying?

[Lord Newby]

I apologise. I was saying that, when we discussed this matter previously in respect of the referendum that we have just had, we argued strongly that 16 and 17 year-olds should get the vote, but the details of any future referendum would have to be discussed in the context of a new referendum Bill, which Parliament would have to pass. Perhaps I may make a little progress.

Since Committee, I have had the chance to read the speeches of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and the noble Lord, Lord Bridges. The noble Baroness’s view was that referenda are best avoided and that the deal at the end of the Brexit process would be far too detailed and complicated to leave to the people to decide. However, she went on that,

“if, as time and negotiations progress, there is genuine evidence of a widespread public demand for a second referendum, that should be listened to”.

I suppose that I should be grateful for that willingness to keep an open mind, but I simply do not think that it goes far enough.

The Minister said that a confirmatory referendum should not be contemplated because trust in politicians was so low, and that,

“There is a sense that Parliament is divorced from day-to-day life”.


Well, we know what the Government’s response to that has been: to try to cut Parliament out of the decision-making process altogether and just to take the decisions themselves. Furthermore, the Government have assiduously argued that asking the people to take the final decision on the most important issue facing the country in generations and on which they have already had a say is anti-democratic. That argument simply defies logic.

The Minister then said, quoting the White Paper, that,

“people are coming together to make a success”,—[Official Report, 27/2/17; cols. 638-39.]

of Brexit. It is certainly the case that business is taking decisions based on the assumption of Brexit. That helps to explain why banks are moving thousands of staff outside the UK, why Ford is downsizing its plant at Newport and why Herriot-Watt is cutting staff. But this is not exactly “coming together”.

Nor are divisions within the country reducing. As I said at Second Reading, the anger of those who wish to leave the EU, which was evident before the referendum, is now being increasingly matched by the anger of those who wish to remain—particularly young people, who see their life chances being jeopardised. I am afraid that there is simply no happy consensus emerging about the alleged sunny uplands of being outside the EU—quite the opposite.