Referendums: Parliamentary Democracy

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, for initiating this debate. He talked about things being riddled with lies. The finances of the Leave campaign have just come to light, and there are people calling out for the whole thing to be rerun because of that. I congratulate my noble friend, whom I have known for many years, the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, on his excellent maiden speech; it was fantastic to hear his story. I also welcome the expertise of the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, my noble friend on the Cross Benches. I am sure that both noble Lords will make a phenomenal contribution.

The whole idea of referenda is that they are simple yes/no questions. The interpretation by the Prime Minister and the Government is that the people voted to take back control of our laws, our borders and our money and that therefore we will leave the single market and the customs union and there will be no more ECJ—simple, cut-and-dried red lines. We have had only three UK-wide referenda in our history, including the one in 2016. The 1975 referendum on the European Community was not a vote to join; we had already joined in 1973. The referendum was on whether or not we should stay in. Similarly, the AV referendum in 2011 was for no change, based on the idea that, “You know what you have with our current system; this is what you’ll get if you go for AV”. Then of course there have been eight referenda on devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

We have to remember the results of those other two UK-wide referenda: in 1975 it was 67.2%, a two-thirds majority, while in the 2011 AV referendum the result was 67.9%, another two-thirds majority. What were we doing—were we asleep when we passed the referendum Act and did not insist on a two-thirds majority threshold? I am not advocating a written constitution but in every country that has one, if you want to change that constitution there is invariably a two-thirds hurdle, and Brexit means changing the constitution in a huge way. Referenda should be used only in very rare circumstances. The Constitution Committee has given some examples, which I shall come to.

In 1945, the Labour leader Clement Attlee responded to Winston Churchill’s wanting to hold a referendum to extend the wartime coalition by saying:

“I could not consent to the introduction into our national life of a device so alien to all our traditions as the referendum which has only too often been the instrument of Nazism and fascism”.


As we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, Margaret Thatcher said they are,

“a splendid weapon for demagogues and dictators”.

Then Margaret Thatcher spoke about this whole concept of representative government, where elected representatives—not delegates of their constituents but representatives—make decisions in the interests of their constituents and the country as a whole. We keep hearing about the 17.4 million but what about the 16.1 million people who voted to remain? That is a huge minority. That is the other point about the representative system of democracy: it protects minorities and ensures that their interests are taken into account. Here you have the tyranny of the majority on a one-off vote with a permanent effect.

Look at the effect that that has on MPs. If you look at the list of what the Daily Mail calls “mutineers”—the rebel MPs, the brave Nicky Morgans and Jonathan Djanoglys—you can see that many of them have constituencies that voted to leave, but they believe that it is in the best interests of the country to remain. So this has really challenged the whole concept of parliamentary democracy. To top it all, people were given four months to decide on an issue of such complexity—from February to June 2016. Then there is the asymmetric reversibility of referendums. There is a big difference between the consequences of voting for the status quo and a vote for independence or withdrawal. A leave vote is irreversible, whereas with a remain vote you can always come back again and have a vote to leave.

Here is the crux of it all: I am told that it is undemocratic to challenge the will of the people. No, no—it is very democratic. In a normal electoral cycle, every four or five years you make a decision and, if someone wins by 50.1%, they have won. Five years later, as Keynes said—and even David Davis says that a democracy cannot be a democracy unless you can change your mind—you can change your mind and you can vote them out and have something else, after the facts have changed. That is real democracy, not holding people to something permanent. On top of that, you have the youngsters who were not allowed to vote. The demographics have changed in these two years; there are two years’ worth of 16 and 17 year-olds who are now eligible to vote—and there will be more by the time we come to next year.

Things have changed, the facts have changed and our economy has changed. It was the fastest-growing economy in the western world two years ago; now Europe is growing faster than we are. The timing of the referendum was absolutely wrong; the migration crisis was at its peak and it frightened people. And then there is the reason for the referendum. Why did David Cameron do it? It was for the right wing of his party and for UKIP. Things have changed. Where is UKIP today?

My conclusion to this is that, in having a referendum, we should have had a threshold. Now we have the consequence where there are three options. The first is that we may have a hard Brexit, which will be unacceptable to this Parliament and the people of this country. Secondly, we could have a soft Brexit, with the EEA option, which is where we might end up—the least-worst option. That might be acceptable. The third option is that we might end up remaining. In my view, there is no option, and we are headed for something—call it a second referendum, call it referendum part 2 or the people’s vote. That is most likely to happen and is probably the most democratic solution to the conundrum that we have brought upon ourselves.

Elections: Personal Data

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Wednesday 18th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I was indeed aware of the report referred to by the noble Lord. It raises a really interesting question. Information technology is challenging the business model for election campaigns as we have traditionally known them: knocking on doors, leaflets and public meetings. That model is being challenged by the social media and to some extent being displaced by it. To the extent that social media can reach people who are alienated or bypassed by the traditional method of campaigning, that is a good thing. We have to ensure, however, that the legal framework within which we now operate is fit for purpose and that personal data is not misused. We should try to turn to our best advantage the fact that we are engaging people in the democratic process who previously were not so engaged.

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

My Lords, the questions being asked are about digital interference with elections and the Electoral Commission. Does the Minister think that the Electoral Commission is basically toothless, in that it cannot even police a message on the side of a bus about £350 million going to the NHS? Should it not have more powers to stop blatantly lying statements during elections and referenda?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The Electoral Commission has been absolutely clear that it does not want to get involved in deciding whether a particular advertisement is truthful or not. It regards that as something fit for the political dialogue between the parties. If somebody believes that a claim is untrue, they are at liberty to denounce it, but I do not think that the Electoral Commission wants to get drawn into the truth or otherwise of political campaigns.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

My Lords, Professor Sir David Eastwood, the vice-chancellor of the University of Birmingham, where I am proud to be chancellor, wrote an article yesterday, entitled “Trump and Brexit have triggered two deep constitutional crises”. “Two years ago”, he says,

“a Trump presidency and a vote for Brexit were considered all but unthinkable. Now, two of the world’s oldest democracies are struggling to live with them, and their struggles are even more profound than they seem”.


He goes on to say that basically, since the Reformation, Parliament has always been sovereign and until the Brexit vote the broad parameters of the constitution, according to Walter Bagehot in the 1860s, have prevailed. When we have had referenda in the past, on the whole they have reflected the will of Parliament. However, David Cameron decided on this referendum and, for the first time, we had a Prime Minister and a country in turmoil, with Parliament—the vast majority of MPs and Members of this place—wanting to remain before the referendum and then a narrow result. Now, politics is on hold until Brexit is determined. Both parties are beholden to their more extreme wings, according to Professor David Eastwood, and the machinery of government is overheating and struggling to shape the Brexit deal.

Is this going to continue? The Government have put down the red lines of leaving the single market and the customs union. The EU has made the situation very clear. Yesterday, it said, “If you want a transition period, you can have it but you have to adhere to the free movement of people, you have to keep paying money in, and you have to keep having EU regulations and EU law”. So what deal will the Government be able to negotiate on that basis? Today, BuzzFeed News is reporting on the leaked government analysis of Brexit that says that Britain will be worse off in every scenario. That analysis looked at three scenarios: deal, no deal and a soft Brexit. In each case, Britain will be far worse off in every area. It says that the biggest negative is the UK’s decision to leave both the customs union and the single market.

We have had 3 million people from the European Union working here. In phase 1 of the negotiations it was said that they would be protected, but what about the future? They make up less than 5% of this country’s population. They are not a burden on this country. Without them, we would have an acute labour shortage, so we should be grateful to them.

I openly admit that I am a Eurosceptic in many ways. I dislike the European Parliament, I do not know who my MEPs are—I do not think that many of your Lordships do—and there is no accountability or responsibility. I think that the euro was a huge mistake—thank God we did not join it. I made a mistake with Schengen: I thought that we should have been a member, but now thankfully, from a security point of view, we are not. So we will never have a “United States of Europe”.

I have never been one for further European integration. We signed out of that. The EU is nowhere near perfect. It has huge faults but, looking at it on the whole, on balance we have done well out of it. We have had the highest cumulative GDP growth rate of any nation, including Germany—62%—since being a member of the EU. However, the sad thing is that even the OBR in the Budget has just said that, looking ahead, we will have a growth rate of less than 2% a year for five years—the lowest ever level.

We are the highest recipient of inward investment in Europe but, now, the Government and the Brexiteers are talking about going global. What is this “going global” nonsense? Fifty per cent of our trade is with the European Union. Another 20% on top of that is through the free trade agreements we have through the European Union, including, now, with Japan. That leaves 30%. As a businessman, am I going to give up 70% for 30%—and a 30% that I may never get? India and the Commonwealth account for less than 10% of our trade. Canada has a free trade deal with the EU but the EU accounts for only 10% of Canada’s trade. Its biggest trading partner is the United States—next door to it. India has nine free trade deals with countries around the world but not one is a western country. And what about the £8 billion that we have paid into the EU? I would pay that for the peace that we have had over the last few decades, including through NATO. As for sovereignty and taking back control, what a lot of nonsense. The laws that affect us in our day-to-day life are not the 20,000 regulations that the noble Lord, Lord Pearson, spoke about but the ones that we make here in this House every day.

I turn to this European Union (Withdrawal) Bill—or great repeal Bill, or whatever it is called. In the debate that we had last week on devolution, I challenged the Minister to explain how we are going to deal with the Northern Ireland situation. He did not have an answer. Phase 1 has just kicked the can down the road. Scotland will say, “We want to be treated on the same terms”. Can the Minister tell me how we are going to deal with Clause 11, to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, referred?

By the way, at the time of the referendum UKIP got 12.5% of the vote. Today, the figure is 1.8%, and let us not talk about its leader. What really upsets me is that Brexit has damaged our standing in the world and I see this all the time. I was with the Prime Minister of India earlier this month and I have seen India’s reaction to Brexit. We were flying before the referendum; now, look at Davos, where we were overshadowed by Macron and Trump. The whole world, except for Trump, thinks that we should remain in the EU.

In conclusion, virtually every speech today has made references to “when we leave the European Union” and “after Brexit”. Steve Jobs founded the most successful company the world has ever known—Apple. He said that changing your mind is a sign of intelligence. Keynes said:

“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”


Even David Davis said:

“If a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy”.


We have Juncker and Barnier—everyone—saying, “Stay on. We would welcome you staying on”. Even Farage has now spoken about a second referendum. Boris Johnson has said that there is now a danger that Brexit will not take place.

My message is this: we have to go through the motions of this Bill. We have to go through whatever we have to go through, but in a normal democracy you get a chance every five years to change your mind. We are not getting that chance, and in the two years that have already passed since the referendum was called, a lot has changed. We face many challenges: the NHS, our security, our police forces, our Armed Forces, our Army, which would not fill Wembley Stadium, our Navy and our entrepreneurship—fewer companies started last year than the year before. That is what we have to deal with, not this wretched referendum. We need to give the British people the chance to have their say, with all the facts—we can call it a second referendum; we can call it referendum part two—and Parliament must have the final say before any deal is passed on to the European Union. Will the Minister confirm that Parliament will have the final say?

Finally, at the Harvard Business School— of which I am proud to be an alumnus—I talked to Dr Deepak Malhotra, a world expert in negotiations. He has written an excellent paper on Brexit. He told me to read a book about the build-up of the First World War. He said, “Reading that book is like watching a train crash in slow motion. Karan, that is what Brexit is: a train crash in slow motion”. It is not too late to stop that train crash.

Electoral Spending Limits: Wales

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am not quite sure where my noble friend is taking me with that question. The cost of the Electoral Commission is roughly £30 million a year. Like all public bodies at a time of downward pressure on public expenditure, it should seek economies in the way it runs its operations, but it has an important role to play in monitoring the health of our democracy and, where necessary, in enforcing the law on elections.

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

My Lords, in India, with 800 million voters in elections, the electoral commission is all-powerful during elections. It runs elections over a period of three weeks, using electronic voting in a very rigorous manner. Why can we not catch up with that over here? Secondly, as a businessman, if I advertise my brand and I make a statement that is not true, the Advertising Standards Authority asks me to pull it down straightaway. The Electoral Commission is toothless and does not seem to have any power over misstatements in elections, such as £350 million on the side of a bus. Will the Minister tell us why?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

On the first point, I think my party is committed to continuing to allow people to vote by pencil on a ballot paper. If one were to introduce electronic voting at the same time, there would of course be the extra costs of running two systems in parallel. At the moment, we are not committed to doing that. We are interested in pilot schemes, however, for example on voter identification. On the second point, I am not sure that the Advertising Standards Authority or, indeed, the Electoral Commission would like to get drawn into the heat of party-political battles during a general election.