Brexit: Case for a Second Referendum

Lord Balfe Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Balfe (Con)]

My Lords, perhaps I may take up a point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown. The reason it was put into the German constitution was that Prime Minister Attlee pointed out that referenda were the tools of Hitler and Mussolini. That constitution was drawn up during the Labour Government of 1945.

Before the referendum, the question was quite simple. It was: what might happen? The people decided that they would find out. That is what they voted for—to find out what might happen if we left the European Union: if we triggered Article 50 and negotiated. For well over 30 years, I have had an Irish passport. One tradition of Ireland is that if people give you the wrong result, you go back and ask them again. On this occasion, I do not think that we can quite do that, but when the negotiations are over, probably in 2019—we have not even started them yet—the question will change. Then, it will be: what will happen if we accept these terms and withdraw? There will be a number of different scenarios.

First, immigration and our membership of the EU are not quite as closely linked as we think. More than half the people who come into Britain do so on visas issued by British embassies around the world. We will find it increasingly difficult in a shrinking world to control migration—that is a prediction—and it will not be seen as an EU matter. As discussions continue, we will find a whole range of problems. I do not think that we will be united in this House or in the political fora on how we face them or on what is acceptable. It is also possible that at the end of the negotiations the Government will say, “Well, we’re sorry, we can’t recommend this package to you. We have not been able to get a package that is acceptable for us to say that it is sensible to leave”. So we should not deny that all sorts of scenarios are possible.

I say to my friends sitting opposite—and a number of them are friends—that if they could manage to find themselves a decent leader, I could well see the Labour Party campaigning at the next election to scrap the renegotiation on the grounds that it is just driving into the sand. The Liberal party, which has a long and historic record of support for Europe, might well go to the public at the next election and say, “Actually, we think you got it wrong”. So we may have another referendum, but it may be called a general election and the parties may be on different sides.