Out-of-touch Lords remain a barrier to proper democracy
WAS anyone remotely surprised that the House of Lords voted this week to delay the Government’s Rwanda Bill? Packed with unelected politicians at odds with public opinion, peers dragged their heels over Brexit and are now doing the same with efforts to control illegal migration. All despite the fact Germany, Denmark and other European states are looking to the UK to lead the way in processing migrants abroad.
The majority of peers – 785 of them, more than our number of MPs – are appointed by political parties, and reflect the prejudices and interests of Westminster’s elite: anti-Brexit, pro-EU, pro-mass migration and pro-globalisation.
There have only ever been five Ukip peers and the current membership makes it the largest upper house in the world – far larger than the US Senate, with just 100 members.
Tony Blair and David Cameron stuffed it with likeminded supporters, and it was Blair’s former attorney general, Baron Goldsmith – renowned for his opposition to terrorists being held at Guantanamo Bay and winning a High Court injunction to stop the BBC reporting on New Labour’s cash-for-honours scandal – who led the charge.
THE Lords cannot prevent bills passing into law, but they can delay the enactment for up to a year which, in the case of the Rwanda Bill, effectively leaves it dead in the water, with a general election looming in the autumn and Labour having roundly rejected the scheme.
Rishi Sunak can and should ignore the Lords and pass the bill anyway.
His election hopes pivot on getting aircraft in the air to Rwanda and demonstrating that his policies can help halt the relentless small boats across the Channel.
The Lords’ entirely predictable opposition to the Rwanda Bill underlines the problem electors have with Westminster in general. Because of the first-past-the-post electoral system, it’s very difficult to vote a new populist, right of centre party into power.
However many votes Reform racks up this year, for instance, it will almost certainly not return a single MP, as happened in 2015 when Ukip won nearly four million votes but only retained a single defecting Tory MP for its efforts.
With the House of Lords as it is, there is patently a democratic deficit among the “we-know-better-than-you” class.
The solution would be to have an upper house elected on the basis of proportional representation, reflecting the popular vote at any general election and not the share of party votes, thus giving electors a real incentive to get out and vote.
Having a revising chamber that is more in tune with popular sentiment would provide a real corrective to the House of Commons, which has proved itself again and again detached from the rest of the country.
Only in 2019 did we get a government that reflected popular concerns on immigration and Brexit and look where that led – to Boris Johnson’s dubious removal by a parliamentary cabal.
The Rwanda Bill is bigger than just the UK’s cross Channel problem and is being viewed by other countries across the EU as a model for halting their own waves of illegal migrants.
Germany and Austria are looking at Rwanda-style schemes, while Denmark passed legislation in 2021 to relocate asylum seekers to third countries outside the EU while reviewing their cases. It has already been in talks with Rwanda as a possible destination.
By enacting this bill, the UK would send a message across the continent that a practical solution can be found to a problem that is only going to grow over the next decade.
NATIONS with proportional representation know that ignoring popular concerns only encourages the far-Right vote.
Putting your head in the sand is no solution and the House of Lords should widen its perspective and accept this issue is far greater than satisfying their own smug liberal consciences.
If peers cannot grasp the importance, then they deserve to be dissolved and reborn as a truly democratic chamber elected by people that want to see problems dealt with, not kicked down the road.
If ever there was a time for action, it is now – the future of democracy depends on it.
‘They reflect the prejudices and interests of Westminster’s elite’