European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Morgan Excerpts

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

[Baroness Wheatcroft (Con)]

My Lords, I have no wish to get involved in Liberal Democrat internecine warfare but I put my name to this amendment and I support many of the speeches that have been made in support of it.

My noble friend the Minister has done a very skilful job in getting the Bill to this stage in this House, but in Committee he told us to be in no doubt that this country was leaving the EU—no ifs, no buts, and with no idea of the terms. I admire determination but not when it is blind to changing circumstances. I cannot see why any Government would be so adamant about a course of action with no knowledge of the circumstances in which they might take that course.

We do not know what the world will look like in two years’ time. Economically and politically it is at some of the most uncertain stages that I have ever seen in my lifetime. In two years’ time, the EU, the world and our economy could look very different—and, I suspect, not for the better. At that stage, we will be able to look at the deal that our Government have negotiated or, as others have pointed out, at the no deal that they have been handed. Although I am not an advocate of government by referenda, in this situation, having started the process with a referendum, as the noble Lord, Lord Hain, pointed out, it seems to me that the only sensible way to bring the process to an end is to put the terms to the public. I have listened to the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, and I do not dismiss the patronising advice that he gave the Liberal Democrats or those supporting this amendment, but I believe that the public need to see what is on offer.

During the course of this Bill, we have heard that, whatever people voted for on 23 June last year, it was not to get poorer. I cannot see that in the end the Government will be presenting them with a deal which does not mean that they get poorer. I believe that at that stage they should have a chance to vote on whether, having seen the future, it is the future that they really want.

[Lord Morgan (Lab)]

My Lords, there was a previous referendum on Europe in 1975. On that occasion, it was not taken as holy writ and as something that it was almost obscene to vote against. On the contrary, in 1979 the Labour Party said that it would ignore and vote against the referendum result—there were no difficulties there—and so did a very large number of Conservatives, headed by Mr Enoch Powell. Therefore, I cannot see why the advisory referendum of 1975, where the majority was 33%, should somehow be treated so casually, whereas this referendum, with a majority of, I think, 3.8%, is somehow treated reverentially, with the view that we should all genuflect before the will of the people.

I link this amendment with Amendment 3, which I shall also support. Amendment 3 confirms the view so wisely put by the Supreme Court that sovereignty in this country resides in the two Houses of Parliament. That was the view taken and it is the view that will be proclaimed in Amendment 3. Referendums are always advisory—they are to help Parliament in reaching a view. It is best to have an informed referendum. The last one was not in the least informed; it was a process of serial lying and deception, which added nothing to public understanding. As the facts emerge, I think that public understanding will change substantially.

We need to ask the view of the people again to assist Parliament when the facts are known—when the car workers at Vauxhall, the steel workers at Port Talbot and the car workers at Sunderland will be forming a view on employment, trade and Britain’s economic relationships with a wider world. It would also be when we have had an opportunity to have the views of young people, deprived of voting this time and whose futures are imperilled by this ill-informed, almost non-informed, decision.

Another referendum will not be taken in a one-world universe; it will be taken when the views on Brexit of those other 27 countries, views which are quite important, are also known. As I believe was the Labour Party in 1979 and 1983 in respect of the previous referendum, as well as a growing number of Conservatives, I am in favour of regarding the referendum that we had in June last year as ill-informed, or almost uninformed, guidance. I would prefer informed guidance and that is why I shall vote for this amendment.

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[Lord Morgan]

It was an advisory referendum. There is no doubt about that.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I agree. I share that view. However, some people tried to sow confusion and indicated that it had to be accepted. I say to my noble friend Lord Grocott that this is why we need to look carefully at what happens at the end of this long and complicated process.

As I say, I was not sure how to vote, but I am now convinced. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, answered my question. The form of the referendum, its timing, the question, the franchise and all of the other matters will be dealt with in a Bill which will come before this Parliament.

I also support Amendment 3 about parliamentary approval of any deal that is agreed. I envisage—I do not know whether my colleagues agree—that Parliament would then put the proposal to the referendum. That would be the question. So at that time, in that referendum, we would know what we were voting for, unlike the previous referendum. That has convinced me that the way forward is to combine the parliamentary consideration of the deal that is reached and come to some conclusion, and then put it to the people because they will have considered it already. That is the first thing that has convinced me to support this amendment.

The second thing is that I have become increasingly concerned at the tribalism of the Tories on this issue. They are sitting there supporting some kind of concerted campaign to push through the kind of hard Brexit that they want at any cost—and I mean at any cost. The more they do that, and the more they sit there jeering at our partners in Europe, dismissing them as if they were irrelevant in relation to this, the more I will be convinced that we need to make sure that their kind of hard Brexit—

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[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, because he, like me, sat through most of the debate that resulted in this House, without opposition, deciding that we should have a referendum to determine whether to remain in or leave the European Union. I say that perhaps particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, who expressed his strong opposition to referendums. I respectfully say to him that, if that is the case, he should have opposed in this House the Bill that established the referendum mechanism to decide whether we should leave or remain.

I want to make an observation and will then specifically address the amendment. The observation is simply that there has been an awful lot of rerunning of the referendum argument in the discussion so far. I always want to urge this House, above all institutions that I have been able to be involved in, not to ascribe motives to people in elections and to assume that we understand precisely why they voted in the way they did, and then to challenge them somehow on the basis of whether they made what we consider to be the right or wrong decision. Perhaps I have a considerable qualification in this regard in that I have lost an awful lot of elections over the course of my career. Although the motive is always to say that your opponents lied or misled people, or that the people were not bright enough to make the decision, my advice, when they eventually elect you, is to acknowledge that they are a pretty shrewd electorate. That is how we all react to success and failure in elections.

Specifically on the amendment, we still have not had a reply on whether such a referendum would be advisory. I respectfully need to point out to the noble Lords who have spoken that one or two mistakes have been made in arguing this case. I think that it was my noble friend Lord Morgan who said that all referendums are advisory. That simply is not right. The referendum that we held on whether we should have AV or first past the post was based on legislation that this House had passed in the form of the Bill for the AV referendum. That laid out precisely the system that the electorate would put into place, should the referendum be passed.

[Lord Morgan]

I apologise for interrupting my noble friend. With regard to that referendum and all referendums, this is a constitution based on parliamentary sovereignty. Unlike France, it is not based on popular sovereignty.

[Lord Grocott]

My noble friend is absolutely right but in this case the Act of Parliament that this House passed to establish the referendum included precisely the mechanism for the alternative vote election that would come into place should that referendum be carried.