UK Withdrawal from the EU and Potential Withdrawal from the Single Market

Lord Puttnam Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Puttnam (Lab)]

My Lords, time is very short, so in thanking my noble friend for enabling this debate, and having spoken last week on the right to remain, at col. 346, I will follow the example of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and cut straight to the Brexit chase.

I have always believed that referenda are bad politics. I will go further: I believe their use to be an abrogation of political leadership, made more dangerous by the inexplicable decision to opt for fixed-term Parliaments. On a number of occasions in your Lordships’ House, I have stated my belief that we live in a far more fragile democracy than we appear to appreciate, one in which the introduction of an ill-informed and prejudiced referendum, an increasing threat of deselection, and the catastrophic loss of trust in public and private institutions have all served to undermine the principles of strong representative democracy.

Few politicians remain brave. In the end, more often than not, calculation trumps principle. By way of example, Stanley Baldwin told the House of Commons in 1933 that he had been unable to pursue a sensible policy of rearmament because of the strong pacifist sentiment in the country. Two years later, in 1935, 11 million people went so far as to sign the Peace Ballot, pledging support for the reduction of armaments. Imagine if instead of a petition there had been a referendum and 51% of the electorate had voted against rearmament. They would have been avidly supported by the Daily Mail, as well as very many members of my own party. Would noble Lords have behaved undemocratically if we had sought to reverse that expression of public will based on what this House sincerely believed to be growing and ever-more compelling evidence of Hitler’s intentions?

Should Winston Churchill have been deselected by his local party in Epping when early in 1938 he gave possibly his bravest speech to a largely hostile House of Commons, during which he said:

“I do not grudge our loyal, brave people … but they should know the truth … they should know that we have sustained a defeat without a war … they should know that we have passed an awful milestone in our history, when the whole equilibrium of Europe has been deranged … And do not suppose that this is the end … This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup”?—[Official Report, Commons, 5/10/1938; col. 3723.]


I believe we have once again sustained a self-inflicted defeat without a war. I am convinced that we have yet to taste the first sip of what could follow.

Surely I cannot be alone in finding an anomaly in the fact that according to the Daily Telegraph’s post-referendum analysis, the vote split along age, class and educational lines, with the future economic security of the elderly and most vulnerable now largely dependent on those whose clear wish was to remain in and share their future with Europe. I cannot convince myself that this conforms to any kind of sustainable outcome.

I have never been able to explain to my children why my name was in the “Content” column when the vote was taken in this House on the second Iraq War, in the absence of any well-thought-through post-conflict plan. I sincerely believed that the then Government had a fuller understanding of what we were blundering into. I now know myself to have been duped, foolish and wrong. I will not make that same mistake twice.

Finally, it is my sincere belief that we are engaged upon a hopelessly ill-thought-through misadventure. Irrespective of what may emerge as the attitudes or tactics of my own party, I will at every opportunity speak and vote against what I consider to be the most self-destructive policy ever to have been pursued in this country in my lifetime. The torrent of disinformation directed against Europe for 20 years and more by Murdoch, Dacre and others has done its worst, which is why the last word must be reserved for the thoughtful consideration of the whole of this Parliament.

HG Wells memorably described civilisation as,

“a race between education and catastrophe”.

I can hope only that before it is too late we in Parliament might find the courage and the perception of Winston Churchill to finally bring this nation and its leaders to their senses—on this issue and many others.