My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, I arrived this morning for the debate on Amendment 1 not sure which way I would vote, but very clear that I was going to be a strong supporter of this amendment. Also like the noble Lord, I thought there was a link between the two. However, my resolution is somewhat different, in that I did not vote for this morning’s amendment but I still strongly support this one.
One of the difficulties with these debates as to how we should think about the finality of the vote on 23 June last year is that I find myself disagreeing with arguments on either side. On the side of those who, like me, voted remain, it is often suggested that there was something about the vote that was less legitimate than other votes—perhaps because 16 to 18 year-olds did not have the vote or because the leave side lied. But I do not consider those to be reasonable arguments. You may or may not be in favour of 16 to 18 year-olds having the vote, but in our present system voting starts at 18 and that does not change the legitimacy of a general election or referendum result. As for the argument that the leave side exaggerated or, perhaps with the NHS claim, lied, I think there were some exaggerations on the other side as well. In every general election that I can remember, there have been exaggerations on either side, some of which have verged on the mendacious. But they have not invalidated the result of the general election. Democracy is scrappy and imperfect but it is the best system we have. So I accept the result of what happened last year as no more and no less legitimate than any general election. However, that means that as well as being no less legitimate, it is also no more.
It is the case that, on the day after a general election —the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, has said this already—Members of the opposition party, be they Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat, devote themselves to arguing against what was just agreed by the majority of the population. They put down amendments in the Commons or the Lords, try to delay things in the Lords and work, day after day, to win the next general election. In some cases, they work very hard to bring it forward if they possibly can—there is a very fine play here in London now which records that happening in the Commons in the days of several people currently in this House.
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I very much agree with the sentiment of my noble friend Lord Kerr that any idea that the vote last June reflects the will of the people in some unanimous fashion—all the people together, una voce, absolute and for ever, unchanging—is, as my noble friend put it, not democratic but the Brezhnev doctrine. Like
him, I have been a bit surprised and depressed by the fact that this Brezhnev doctrine, having been first propagated by some of our major newspapers, is now finding an echo chamber among some parts, although definitely not all parts, of the Conservative Party. On the basis of what the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, said earlier, I wish that they would pay more attention to the intellectual lineage of Edmund Burke than that of Leonid Brezhnev.
The idea that to have another referendum three, four or five years after the last is undemocratic is nonsense. Indeed, the idea that we should reject the possibility of another referendum in principle is in itself undemocratic. If it so happened that there was another referendum in three, four, five or 20 years’ time in which there was a majority for staying in the European Union, that would be equally democratic—no more and no less—than the vote on 23 June. Still, I did not support Amendment 1, because I am not sure that there should be a referendum in two, three or four years’ time. I do not think that by referendum we can solve the uncertainties and issues we will face in two years’ time, but we can and should resolve them by having extensive parliamentary debates at that time.
We simply do not know what will be the result of the negotiations. Nor do we know what the situation will be in two years’ time. It may be that adverse consequences have emerged from the expectation of leaving the European Union—it may be that they will not. I do not know. I do not think, therefore, that it would be appropriate now to commit to a future referendum, nor do I think we can be sure how we would interpret the result of such a referendum.