European Union (Withdrawal) Bill — House of Lords, 2018-04-30
Topic: International Affairs
Richard Newby (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, that was in the completely different context of the Lisbon treaty. In previous debates in your Lordships’ House, a number of noble Lords have thrown at me what former leaders of my party have said. I would just ask the noble Lord, as we are talking about former leaders, whether he agrees with his former leader, Sir John Major, when he made a speech earlier this year and said, of this debate: "Peers must ignore any noises off, and be guided by their intellect and their conscience" To revert to the point that I was attempting to make, on Brexit Parliament gave the initial decision to the people; it is in no position now to take a stand on parliamentary sovereignty on this issue. On Brexit, the horse has well and truly bolted It is sometimes argued that people are fed up with Brexit and want to leave it to Parliament and get on and implement it, but that is simply not the case. All recent polling shows that a majority of people now want to have a final say. A poll by YouGov earlier this month, for example, showed that by a majority of 44% to 36% there was support for such a vote. So this is not just the remoaners and, with figures like that, sadly, it is not just the Liberal Democrats. It is a view very widely shared, including by government supporters. In a recent poll of Conservative voters, by a majority of 43% to 34%, almost identical to that of the country as a whole, they said that they now wanted a vote on the issue So, what are the objections to the proposed amendment? First, it is argued that it is too soon to put such a provision into legislation. However, just look at the timetable. This Bill will receive Royal Assent sometime in June at the earliest. The Government believe that they will negotiate a withdrawal agreement by the end of October, a claim confirmed by the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU before a Commons Select Committee last week. If we take the Government at their word, this means that the approval resolution, provided for in the amendment which the House has just passed, could be brought before Parliament within 20 weeks of the Bill gaining Royal Assent and before any further legislative opportunity to provide for the referendum option had presented itself Far from being premature, this amendment is extremely urgent. It is argued by some members of your Lordships’ House that, if the Commons were to reject a Brexit deal, the correct next step should be a general election, rather than a referendum. However, this is a poor alternative. As last year’s general election showed, the issues which dominate a campaign at the start are sometimes very different from those which do so at the conclusion. At that election, polling showed that, in the last crucial days of the campaign, Brexit was supplanted by terrorism as the most important issue in many people’s minds. In any new election, health, education, jobs, housing, the qualities of the rival leaders, and issues which unexpectedly flare up in the campaign itself—as terrorism did in last year’s—would determine how many people voted. An election is, therefore, an extremely unsatisfactory mechanism for taking the people’s view on any single issue It is argued that a referendum would be too divisive but, in the circumstances of the Commons voting against a Brexit deal, to deny the people a final say would be even more divisive.