Further Discussions with the European Union under Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union

Lord Lipsey Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lipsey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I have not addressed this House on Brexit since 31 January 2018, and I doubt whether many other noble Lords who have spoken tonight can say the same. This has partly been a matter of ill health but also, when I look back, I have found that I have nothing to say that I did not say the last time I spoke. I am not as passionately against leaving the EU on the right terms as most noble Lords who have spoken this evening, as the arguments are reasonably finely balanced, but I am totally against leaving without a further referendum. I do not see how a referendum in which the choice was between what exists and a blank piece of paper can bind a future Parliament. If there is a new referendum, it will be between what exists and a deal, whatever that may be. That seems to be a real choice, and it is cracking on immoral to deny that second choice.

My Trappist silence over this last year has not, I am afraid, set an example to the House. I see my great friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, is laughing—her speech today was her 178th contribution in the course of these debates. I single her out because of the magnificence of the speeches she has given. A veritable Niagara of words has spilled out of this House, all of them eloquent, and most of which I agree with. However, I hate to be Eeyore-ish, but what effect have these words had on policy? None; sweet FA; less than Jacob Rees-Mogg has when he passes wind. There is a good reason for this. We as a House have taken the view, I believe rightly, that the will of the elected House must prevail. We have watched in horror, spoken in shock and awe of events down the Corridor, but we have mostly done so feeling that we are powerless to change the course of what is going on. That explains why I am breaking my Trappist silence this evening.

Over the last few months—certainly the last few weeks—the old argument that the non-elected House must give way to the elected House is no longer centre stage. We are now seeing something quite different, which is a battle between the Executive and Parliament. We have had the unedifying situation where the Prime Minister, no less, has decided to ignore the votes cast down there—huge votes against her deal. She goes round, gives it a little dust off, and thinks, “Next time, I’ll try again”. This is no way to run a country, and no way to treat Parliament.

I welcome Mrs May’s forced retreat yesterday. Nothing concentrates the mind like the imminent prospect of defeat, but even after she made these commitments yesterday, there were people in the Commons saying, “We can’t trust her on this. She has wriggled for so long, she’s ignored the Commons for so long; we can’t trust her to observe these”, and they were looking for statutory protections to prevent her doing it. I do not want to go down that road, or for us to be in a situation where we have to intervene. The true power of your Lordships’ House is not what we do; it is what we stop Governments doing because they are fearful of what we could do. We are here, to coin a phrase, as a backstop, and it is fear of the backstop that stops things happening.

I hope a way through can be found from here that avoids constitutional controversy. In noting the right reverend Prelate’s words, and without stirring things up, I would be willing, as a compromise, to allow Mrs May’s deal to go through, provided that she agreed that it would then be put to the people in a referendum, but there are other ways of solving it.

In a nutshell, my point is this. If there is a clash between an unelected House and an elected House, the elected House wins every time. We, as noble Lords, support that. But if the clash is between Parliament and the Executive—Henry VIII re-run, as it were—there is only one right course for us to take: we have to be unequivocally on the side of Parliament, wherever that may lead us.