She scowled ... and her tail was swishing
THERESA May, puzzled tilt to her head, perched below the Throne to listen to some of yesterday’s Brexit debate in the Lords. Prime Minister in your wing mirror, gang. To have a PM in attendance? This was rare. She scowled. She shook her head. She scratched a knee. She was watching them and her tail was swishing.
If Mrs May thought she could eyeball peers into respecting democracy, she may have been mistaken. For several of them, Brussels is the B-all and end-all – more precious, even, than a £300-a-day job for life in the Upper House. There was a fervid tone to Europhile speeches, almost shrieky at times. You would not want to sit next to such people on a budget flight from Mecca.
These unelected legislators proceeded to pooh-pooh the EU referendum which saw the biggest vote in our political history. A bishop (Southwark, from the moist, church emptying end of the Anglican spectrum) called the referendum result ‘quixotic’. It was almost with a sigh that he said the Archbishop of Canterbury and a majority of the Lords Spiritual had decided to vote for Brexit to be triggered.
LABOUR and Lib Dem peers were more defiant. Lord Cashman, who once earned his corn acting in EastEnders, came over all thespy and gasped that he was never going to surrender his fight for minority rights. Nooo! Hand to chest, one foot back, gargle in the throat.
‘We are living in a very dangerous period of our history,’ wailed Lord Cashman. The House of Lords certainly may be. If it blocks Brexit, Mrs May could romp to a general election win on a manifesto promising the Upper House’s abolition.
Lord Hill, who was sent to Brussels as a Commissioner by David Cameron and quit in distress after the Brexit vote, made a conciliatory speech. The Europeans were not champing to have us back, he said. This was a time to be grown-up and positive about our withdrawal from the EU.
Next up? Perfectly, it was Peter Mandelson, who was v. v. cross – and made the mistake of betraying his feelings. This House does not much go in for passion. He called for a new referendum to overturn last summer’s Leave result. There was a rasp to his voice as he snapped that he was pro-EU not because it brought him a fat pension entitlement (which it does) but because he was, growl, ‘a patriot’.
Despite what Lord Hill had said about being grown-up, Mandy took swipes at our ‘terrified’ Prime Minister and said she was merely seeking to assuage the ‘ideologues’. Matron, a cold flannel for Mandelson Mi’s brow.
Lord Newby, once bag carrier to Charlie Kennedy and now leader of the Lib Dems in the Lords, also demanded a second referendum. The Libs have over 100 peers, about an eighth of the whole House. They sat round him, squawking, nodding, tweaking their necks like so many seagulls. Lord Newby, a dull little man when it comes to oratory, said: ‘For those of us – and there are many in your lordships’ House – for whom Europe has been a central theme of our entire political lives, to sit on our hands in these circumstances is both unthinkable and unconscionable.’
The majority verdict of more than 17 million voters counts for nothing compared to a Lib Dem careerist’s long decades of networking.
At least William Hague was there to tell them, basically, that they were deluded and it was really time to get on with Brexit.
Nothing cleans the pipes like a visit to the House of Lords. You arrive in an even mood. Two hours later the blood in your veins could be oil bubbling in a dish of gambas pil-pil. Here was a Chamber rammed with political stiffs, drawling stooges of the System, pro-Brussels Barons and Baronesses Who Know Best. It is the modern equivalent to a Bourbon court: rouged old mistresses of long-dead kings, feathered has-beens, crumpled crooks of a discredited regime.
The 21st century House behaves with more uniform snootiness than the hereditary House of old. The Dukes and Marquesses were an antidemocratic farce. This lot are an anti-democratic outrage.
You know what to do, Prime Minister.