20 and 21 February were very important days in the calendar of the House of Lords and indeed of British Parliament. The House of Commons had caved in to the Government’s demands for a free negotiating hand and a clean break with the European union. The only hope was the House of Lords. During the two days 187 Peers spoke in the debate. They were even more or less evenly divided and delivered speeches some of which were truly remarkable.
Six Indian Peers, including Lord Patel, Lord Kakkar, Lord Alli, Lord Desai, also spoke in the debate and raised different issues from their different perspective. One of the most outstanding among them was by Lord Parekh. It was well received and drew compliments. It was also well structured and sounded almost professorial in its approach.We reproduce it in the hope that it will interest our readers.
Lord Parekh said, “The referendum poses three extremely important questions. First, what is its constitutional status? Secondly, what does it commit us to? Thirdly, once we have achieved what it wants us to achieve, what next? In the five-odd minutes that I have, I will address those questions in that order.
“The constitutional status of the referendum is that it is largely advisory. Although the Prime Minister and others have said differently, this is not part of the Bill—and only the Bill carries its own meaning, said Parekh. “More importantly, to suggest that it is mandatory is to question the principle of parliamentary sovereignty, which is the constitutional linchpin of our political system. That means that, as an advisory proposal rather than a mandatory one, it requires every MP not simply to give in to what the referendum says but rather to give it serious thought and to give his best judgment to the question in hand. It is quite important that the MP is never entirely helpless. With an advisory referendum, the MP retains the freedom and responsibility to make sure that he exercises his mind as wisely as he can and delivers a judgment.
“The same applies to your Lordships’ House. Although we are not elected, we are nevertheless representatives...In certain contexts, the Queen represents us without having been elected. So the fact that we are sometimes threatened with extinction if we exercise our judgment need not worry us,” he added.
Concentrating on the second question about what the referendum commits to us, Lord Parekh said, “Some people seem to think that it commits us conclusively and exclusively to getting out of the European Union. I am afraid that it does not. If 52% of the people want to get out and 48% of the people want to stay in, the message of the referendum, as I understand it, is to leave the European Union in such a way that we remain a member—to leave the European Union but not give up the best that it has given us and the gains we have made. That means that we should not do anything to, or settle on terms that, lower the standards that we have come to expect during the past 40-odd years that we have been a member of the European Union.
“We should protect workers’ rights, we should not weaken the UK, we should respect human rights and we should respect the rights of EU nationals resident in the UK.”
He explained when we are said that we are leaving EU but not Europe it means: we are saying that we are committed to those (European)values and that they must at all costs remain our guiding star.
While the moot point remains immigration in the Brexit debate, Lord Parekh elaborated that it is quite important that we should not be too obsessed with the question of immigration. “Immigration is bound to remain high, partly because of our labour market situation and partly because trade deals that we enter into with individual countries will involve clauses about the movement of people,” added Parekh.
He then went on to ask the third question, “once the terms of settlement have been reached, what do we do? Obviously they must be approved by the people. Ideally I would have liked this situation to be settled by Parliament on the principle that our system is based on parliamentary sovereignty. But, having conceded a referendum in the first instance, to go back on it or to suggest that there will be no referendum in the future would imply an act of political cowardice as well as being an act of inconsistency.”
He concluded saying, “We are planning to go alone. We can go alone—no one in the world can stop us from doing that—but we should remember that, in wanting to do that, we run risks. We saw that for example when the Prime Minister had to meet the President of the United States. We need Uncle Sam to hold our hand and to make sure that we can get a better deal; we think that he will use his influence in such a way that other countries might give us one. On the one had we chafe against EU constraints; on the other hand we seem only to keen to embrace those offered by Uncle Sam. I do not think that is the way we should behave.”
