European Union (Amendment) Bill

My Lords, the debate has been lengthy and several noble Lords are waiting their turn, so I shall be brief and concentrate on referendums. I have always opposed referendums, believing that they sit uneasily in our well established parliamentary democracy. However, I am clear that arguments, especially in Parliament, on the principle and desirability of referendums have been inadequate. The noble Lord, Lord Pearson, is right in that respect: the political classes, as the late Hugo Young argued in his book This Blessed Plot: Britain and Europe from Churchill to Blair, have not emerged without blemish from the conduct of our deliberations over the past 60 years. Many of your Lordships will recognise that promises of national referendums by political leaders are seldom issued for reasons of conviction, as noble designs to consult the public—or, least of all, because abstract principles demand them. Rather, referendum pledges tend to be used as devices or hard-nosed calculations forged by some leaders for tactical purposes when they are cornered or feel under pressure. I share the view expressed by my noble and learned friend Lord Howe that Tony Blair’s 2005 promise fell into this category. It was unwise—he need not and should not have made it, but he did. Surely it should be an article of faith that if a solemn undertaking on that scale, as the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, contended, is set out in a manifesto, it must remain sacrosanct; if it does not, the electorate are entitled to regard such commitments as charades and they are entitled to complain about the brazenness of political leaders. Arthur Balfour was, notwithstanding the reference to him by my noble friend Lord Howell, the first political leader to seek comfort in referendums when, 100 years ago, he flirted with one on home rule and bound his troops to another on tariff reform in a manifesto, solely in an attempt to unite his fractured party. The party remained divided and Balfour lost the election. Harold Wilson, as the noble Lord, Lord McNally, reminded us, was deeply hostile to referendums on constitutional grounds until, as Lord Callaghan admitted, the Labour Party required a lifeboat to rescue it from divisions in 1974. Then again, as your Lordships will recall, in 1997 Tony Blair promised a referendum on electoral reform in the Labour manifesto—a pledge tendered in the same document in which he declared that, "““broken promises taint all politics””." Of course, as we know, the commitment was included to court his potential coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats—and, of course, like the adept romancer that he is, he failed to honour his word once it became clear that the Liberal Democrats were not needed as partners. So there was nothing noble about the 1997 pledge, any more than there was in 2005 when, under apparent pressure from segments of the media and overanxious about an auction of promises, he reluctantly agreed to a referendum on the European constitution. The 1997 and 2005 covenants, designed for political purposes and devoid of conviction, were shelved when surely it was the duty of the Government to stand fast to their promises. Now Parliament is entitled to invite the Government to meet the obligations that they set out in good faith. I have always held the view that national referendums are at variance with the constitutional and legal principles of Parliament as we know them. I reached that judgment because political leaders have seldom put the case for referendums with personal conviction and because, more important, Parliament has never engaged in full or effective debates over the principle of referendums replacing its sovereignty, even in 1975. There may be a logic for referendums as substitutes for parliamentary sovereignty. The balance between the two Houses and the nature of our democracy may be changing. If so, it is incumbent on us to answer the questions first posed in outline by the distinguished constitutionalist AV Dicey 100 years ago. What subjects should they cover? What are their parameters? Precisely how, by whom and in what circumstances can they be proposed and triggered? There is also the post-Dicey question of to what extent they should be retrospective. I am disappointed, though not surprised, that the Government’s Governance of Britain Green and White Papers failed to address the relationship between parliamentary sovereignty and referendums. That was a missed opportunity. So, too, was the Prime Minister’s major speech on liberty last October. He swept through British history with references to or quotes from Milton, Bolingbroke and Locke, among a galaxy of others. Yet he, too, failed to address the relationship between parliamentary sovereignty and referendums and the constitutional consequences of such referendums. If political leaders persist with populist pledges over referendums without first confronting the deeper arguments of principle or squaring the circle, they will continue to promise referendums for the wrong reasons based more on convenience than conviction. Who knows, in a few years’ time, we may be debating this question again with the roles and attitudes reversed between Government and Opposition. Many of your Lordships have witnessed history repeating itself before. I hope that it does not do so again.