European Council

Lord Tugendhat Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The Council formally endorsed the legal instrument relating to the withdrawal agreement. Three new legally binding commitments were agreed, but the Council reiterated—it is in its conclusions—that there could be no reopening of the withdrawal agreement.

[Lord Tugendhat (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend accept that while many of us who voted to remain have accepted that we must accept the result of the referendum and work towards an orderly exit from the European Union, the Government have now had three years in which to do that, but have not shown themselves capable of resolving this issue? Does that not mean—as raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, and others—that we should now also think about whether the mandate that the referendum and the election represented is wearing rather thin, and that the time is coming to consider whether the million people who marched and the four million who signed the petition have a point?

[Noble Lords]

Five million.