Okay, I shall skip over why the single market is a bad thing, I shall skip over the strength of our hand—because they have so many more jobs selling things to us than we do to them—and I shall skip over the fact that noble remainers who support this amendment still think that somehow EU money exists, when it does not. After every penny that the European Union gives us, we are still left with £10 billion a year net, which is—I will give noble Lords a new statistic—the salary of 1,000 nurses every day, at £27,500 a year. Whatever happens, we will go on trading with our friends in Europe, because they need it more than we do.
I end with a word of advice for the Liberal Democrats. I fancy that they are considering supporting this amendment. Their very own policy from the election
before last—I do not know what it is now because it is difficult to follow Liberal Democrat policy—was that membership of this House should grow to represent and reflect the votes in the previous general election. In the last election, the Liberal Democrats got 5% of the vote. That should give them 43 seats in this House. Instead, they have 102. I will pass over in silence the fact that we got 8% of the vote, which should give us 69 seats, and we have precisely three. More seriously, however, if the Liberal Democrats use this dishonest advantage—by their own standards and manifesto—to vote down the will of the British people and the House of Commons, they will reveal their contempt for democracy and do your Lordships’ House no good at all.