On Brexit, the House of Lords Do What MPs Wouldn’t Do, and Pass An Amendment Guaranteeing Them A Final, Meaningful Vote on Any Deal to Leave the EU

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Congratulations to the House of Lords, where peers, by 366 votes to 268, have voted to give Parliament a veto over the final outcome of Theresa May’s Brexit negotiations, while voting against another amendment to allow a second referendum.

This is the second amendment to the government’s derisorily short Brexit bill, authorising Theresa May to trigger Article 50 and start the two years of negotiating time that is provided for the UK to leave the EU.

Last week, the Lords backed an amendment telling the government to respect the rights of the 3.3m EU citizens living and working in the UK to stay here, and not to treat them as “bargaining chips” in negotiations with the EU, a principled move that I wrote about in my article, House of Lords Defends Right of EU Nationals to Stay in the UK Post-Brexit, as the Tyrant Theresa May Vows to Overturn Amendment.

When the House of Commons debated the Brexit bill, a number of amendments, including guaranteeing the rights of EU citizens, and guaranteeing Parliament a final say on any deal, failed to pass — betrayals for which I will never forgive the many MPs who capitulated to arguments about respecting “the will of the people,” as I explained in my article, On Brexit, MPs Give Away Sovereignty, Vote to Allow Theresa May to Do Whatever She Wants. It is crucial to remember that the referendum last June was not legally binding, and no constitutional change this significant has ever been voted for in a referendum that only required a simple majority.

In addition, 75% of MPs support staying in the EU (in contrast to the 51.9% of voters who voted to leave the EU in the referendum), but when it came to defending the rights of EU nationals, MPs refused to take the moral high ground, guaranteeing them the right to stay, and thereby requiring the EU to do the same for the 1.2m British nationals living and working in EU countries. In addition, on Parliament’s role, the betrayal was just as sickening, although for other reasons.

Since becoming Prime Minister after the referendum, Theresa May has treated Parliament with contempt, refusing to allow MPs to have any involvement in negotiating Brexit, and requiring those who saw this as a sign of tyranny to have to go to the courts to get judges to tell her that her behaviour was unacceptable, and to remind her that, in the UK, sovereignty — the sovereignty the Leave campaigners were supposed to want to take back from the EU — resides not with the Prime Minister, but with Parliament. And yet, just weeks after the Supreme Court confirmed that MPs had this right, the majority of them gave it away without a fight, and it is not adequate for them to explain that the issues will be tackled after Article 50 has been triggered, as all Theresa May has seen so far is compliance.

Hence my support for the amendments voted for by the House of Lords, and I’m pleased to note that, of the 98 Lords who voted for this second amendment, 13 were Tories, and the most prominent Tory rebel was Michael Heseltine, a former deputy prime minister, who, with his colleagues, joined Labour, Liberal Democrat and crossbench peers.

Heseltine’s words reveal how immature those who currently claim to lead the party are. “Everyone in this House knows that we now face the most momentous peacetime decision of our time,” he said, adding, “And this amendment secures in law the government’s commitment … to ensure that Parliament is the ultimate custodian of our national sovereignty. It ensures that Parliament has the critical role in determining the future that we will bequeath to generations of young people.”

Other Tory peers were, to be frank, hysterical in their efforts to derail the amendment, as is sadly typical. While we Remainers are understandably angry about the colossal economic damage that Brexit will do if it goes ahead, these who voted to Leave, far too often, are intolerant of even the vaguest suggestion that any kind of debate is anything less than treason.

And so, as the Guardian reported, Lord Forsyth, a former Scotland secretary, hysterically stated, “These amendments are trying to tie down the prime minister. Tie her down by her hair, by her arms, by her legs, in every conceivable way in order to prevent her getting an agreement, and in order to prevent us leaving the European Union.”

And Nigel Lawson, a former Chancellor, called the amendment an “unconscionable rejection of the referendum result, which would drive a far greater wedge between the political class and the British people than the dangerous gulf that already exists.”

It was up to Douglas Hogg, another former minister, to point out that supporters of the amendment were not trying to stand in the way of the bill.

“The sole purpose is to ensure the outcome – agreed terms or no agreed terms – is subject to the unfettered discretion of Parliament,” Hogg said, adding, “It is Parliament, not the executive, which should be the final arbiter of our country’s future.”

That phrase is absolutely key to understanding Parliament’s role — and Theresa May’s intended overreach — and Hogg also pointed out that the amendment would not only enable Parliament to reject a “bad deal,” but would also allow MPs and the Lords, if necessary, to “prevent Brexit altogether by refusing to allow the UK to leave the EU without agreement” — a reference to the nightmare scenario that some are indicating might happen, whereby no new trade deals are finalised in the next two years, and the UK decides instead to fall back on World Trade Organisation rules, which, it seems abundantly clear, would wreak havoc on the British economy.

So again, in conclusion, my thanks to the House of Lords for, yet again, demonstrating wisdom and principles that are sorely lacking in the government and the Tory party, and, it must be noted, in the leadership of the Labour Party and in those Labour MPs who support remaining in the EU but who bowed to Jeremy Corbyn’s unacceptable three-line whip last month, compelling MPs to support the government.

For anyone who can clearly see Brexit for what it is — the most insane act of economic suicide in our living memory, and a doorway to unfettered racism, xenophobia and isolation — this is, to be frank, no time for supporting the government at all.

Unfortunately, it has always seemed likely that, despite the amendments, the Lords will not insist on obstructing the government if MPs overturn the amendments when the bill returns to the Commons. That said, the Guardian reported that, last night, Labour “indicated that the Lords will not back down immediately if the Commons next week reverses the two amendments to the bill passed in the upper house.”

The report continued, “A vote in the Commons to take out the amendments will lead to the bill going back to the Lords, and then shuttling back and forth until one side backs down, a process known as ‘ping pong’. Originally opposition peers indicated that they would fold quite quickly. But this evening Angela Smith, the Labour leader in the Lords, said she did not expect to see ‘extended ping pong’, implying that the Lords could send the bill back to the Commons at least once with the amendments still in. A Labour source said the Lords would want to be sure the government and the Commons had given ‘serious consideration’ to its proposals before accepting the will of the Commons.”

Note: For his perceived treachery, Michael Heseltine was sacked by the government from five advisory roles after the vote. In an interview with Radio 4’s Today programme, explaining that he was going to keep opposing Brexit, he said, “I believe the referendum result is the most disastrous peacetime result we have seen in this country.” He added that he had been “‘meticulous’ in not speaking to the press since the referendum result,” but also stated, “The point comes in life that you have to do what I believe to be right. I know these Brexiteers backwards. I have lived with them in government and opposition. They never give up. Why shouldn’t people like me argue in the other camp?” Well said, Michael Heseltine and how strange for me to be commending you, 32 years after you led the largest peacetime mobilisation of troops in British history against the peace camp at RAF Molesworth, which directly led to the violent suppression of the British traveller movement four months later at the Battle of the Beanfield.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose debut album ‘Love and War’ and EP ‘Fighting Injustice’ are available here to download or on CD via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (and the Countdown to Close Guantánamo initiative, launched in January 2016), the co-director of We Stand With Shaker, which called for the release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison (finally freed on October 30, 2015), and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by the University of Chicago Press in the US, and available from Amazon, including a Kindle edition — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US).

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