My Lords, 3 million foreign nationals in a population of about 65 million represents a minority. This country has benefited greatly from minorities for centuries. Sometimes they are minorities of a people fleeing tyranny; most markedly in the middle of the last century, the Jews came to this country and enriched it immeasurably. Sometimes they are minorities who fight for the rights of their religion, such as the Roman Catholics and Unitarians over the past couple of centuries; or for their own rights, such as votes for women; or for the rights of others, such as the magnificent vote in the other place a couple of centuries ago that abolished the slave trade. Again and again, minorities have helped us become the best of what we are, as do the minorities here today in the 3 million we are treating so shamefully. From my own experience and that of others in your Lordships’ House, I can point to the dazzling contribution of minorities across the arts, the sciences and the widest spectrum of our cultural and intellectual life.
I speak strongly for minorities because I am a member of one—a bullied and beleaguered minority whose views have been dismissed and effectively gagged. I, like the Prime Minister, voted to remain. We have become a minority. I am rather surprised that with her pride in her sovereign intransigence, she did not stay on to lead the 48%—