Lord Cormack
Main Page: Lord Cormack (Conservative - Life peer)
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Butler, should be congratulated on his wonderful charity and willingness to see precision where some of us find it difficult to detect that quality.
We all should be a little humble in this debate. Those of us who were on the remaining side have to recognise that the vote went the other way, albeit by a very small majority. But those who voted leave, for a variety of reasons, equally have to display a degree of humility and recognise that their victory was a narrow one. Until both sides accept that there has to be constructive compromise, we are not going to get very far. In his excellent speech, my noble friend Lord Bowness said that we have to face reality. My noble friend Lady McIntosh, who introduced this debate extremely well, made clear how many difficulties we have to surmount in less than 18 months.
I have pleaded before in this House, and now plead again. The two Houses of Parliament are very often poles apart and do not understand each other. We are in completely uncharted waters in an unprecedented situation. No country in the European Union has ever before tried to come out. This is the time to have a joint Grand Committee of both Houses, accessible to Members of both Houses as Grand Committees are, where we can try to come together and discuss the intricacies of the extraordinary situation that we are in, and we should try to do so with the sort of charity that the noble Lord, Lord Butler, just displayed in your Lordships’ House. Unless we can do that, the future is dire.
I was, frankly, dismayed to see this morning in the papers a letter reportedly sent to our Prime Minister—almost in the form of an ultimatum. A number of people in the Conservative Party, and one or two in the Labour Party as well, do not seem to grasp the immensity of what we are faced with. They are behaving with a degree of certitude and arrogance that is not helpful if we wish to see this country, which saved Europe twice in the 20th century, continue to play a constructive part with our present friends, allies and fellow members of the Union, who must remain our friends and allies after March 2019.
We have a part to play. I hope the Government will listen to my suggestion. I have discussed it with Members of both Houses, who seem fairly receptive, but we have to move forward.