A chance for the Lords to justify their existence
5 April 2008
The EU’s Lisbon Treaty was handled scandalously in the Commons, says Daniel Hannan. Now the Upper House has the chance to play its ancestral role as the conscience of the nation
The early signs, though, are not encouraging. Although the Tory leader, Lord Strathclyde, is behaving impeccably, Labour peers are being told to damn their principles and stick to their party. Liberal Democrats — who one might have expected to stop digging after the fiasco of their split in the Commons — are taking out their shovels again and proposing to burrow further, this time switching to an outright vote against the referendum. And even among the Conservative and cross-bench peers, some of those on Brussels pensions are wavering.
Such manoeuvring represents everything that people dislike about politics: the elevation of partisan calculation over principle, the gap between government and the governed, the contempt for public opinion, the ease with which pledges are abandoned. The Lords are supposed to be an antidote to all these things. That is why people put up with them. If they instead become part of the problem, their legitimacy will evaporate.
‘Lemmings led by lapdogs’, remarked Lord Pearson of Rannoch, then a Conservative peer but who now takes the UKIP whip, when the Tory hereditaries were bussed in to vote down a referendum on Maastricht in 1993. He could see what they couldn’t: that, by their votes, they had alienated their natural constituency and hastened their abolition. History may be about to repeat itself.
Last month, Jack Straw suggested replacing the Lords with a 400-strong senate. In all parties, and among voters at large, there is a preference for an elected Upper House. But few people feel especially strongly about the issue. As long as the Lords are seen to be carrying out their duties properly, they will be left unmolested. But if they ostentatiously flick two liver-spotted fingers at the electorate, the mood will turn.
‘If it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change,’ said the third Viscount Falkland. Quite so. But if the House of Lords won’t stand up for the country against a low alliance of party politicians, the case for change will become overwhelming.
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Robert Wydell
April 7th, 2008 9:03am Report this commentWhy are our soldiers fighting for democracy in Iraq while the three major parties in Brish politics are conspiring to deny the democratic right of a referendum to us?
Serf
April 7th, 2008 12:28pm Report this commentTony Blair's only aim was to castrate the Lords anyway. Shame that we have no indepedent court to protect our constitution.
James
April 11th, 2008 10:19pm Report this commentIt is necessary for the House of Lords to change. It's appauling that aristocrats and bishops get automatic places in our upper chamber. Throw the lot out and let's elect them ourselves.
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