Peers lobby hard in the referendum debate

 
13 January 2014

Still at the Lords, on Friday a Private Members’ Bill was put forward by James Wharton demanding that a 2017 referendum be written into law. A cabal of Europhile peers wanted to argue it into oblivion while Eurosceptic peers wanted the bill pushed through because the Commons wanted it passed. “They [the Commons] said, by their votes, ‘We don’t want to do anything about this,’” noted the Conservative Lord Cormack. “It now has a duty to allow the people of this country to have the referendum.”

It was a curious argument, though Liberal Democrat Lord Teverson offered another view later in the debate: “A number of proponents of the Bill have said we should not in any way contest the sovereignty of the House of Commons ... I remind a number of those proponents that there was a Second Reading vote in the last Session of Parliament which had a parliamentary majority of 338.

“That was for the House of Lords Reform Bill. Why did that not come into this House? It was because a cabal of back-benchers within the Conservative Party had a discussion with the Prime Minister and that Bill went no further whatever.”

Lord Teverson was polite enough not to mention that the spiritual leader of this cabal was one Lord Cormack.

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