UK House of Lords could face backlash over Brexit bill
Parliament’s upper chamber is unlikely to block Britain’s exit but bill amendments are expected
Alastair Campbell calls it potentially “the best double whammy of all time”: the unelected House of Lords could block Brexit and, in doing so, trigger its own abolition.
The suggestion from Tony Blair’s former spokesman would delight some progressives. In reality, neither outcome is likely.
The Lords, the upper chamber of the British parliament, lacks the political legitimacy to thwart the result of the EU referendum and the will of the House of Commons, which backed Theresa May’s Brexit bill by a majority of 372.
Even if it did so, the Tory party would be reluctant to pursue dramatic constitutional reform, given its conservative outlook and other priorities.
But there remains a question over whether the Lords will try to amend the bill to constrain Mrs May. Debates start on February 20, and are expected to last till early March, in keeping with the prime minister’s pledge to trigger Article 50, the formal EU exit clause, by the end of that month.
“Our role is to review and amend legislation, not to kill it,” says Paul Strasburger, a Liberal Democrat peer. “There is definitely an appetite for improving this bill.”
One possible amendment would be to give EU nationals the right to remain in the UK, regardless of how other EU states treat UK migrants. A similar clause was rejected in the Commons, but by relatively narrow margin of 42 votes.
Another sticking point could be to define more tightly what happens if parliament eventually votes against the final Brexit deal, and whether Mrs May would then have to resume negotiations with the EU or whether the UK would simply crash out of the bloc with no deal.
The government’s position is that if parliament votes no, the UK will simply leave the EU and trade on WTO terms with the bloc.
“We’re being offered Hobson’s choice — this deal or no deal. And no deal is going over a cliff,” said Lord Strasburger. “There is appetite to change the choice that parliament has.”
Unlike in the Commons, the government does not have a majority in the Lords, and can be defeated by a combination of Labour, Liberal Democrat and crossbench peers.
The Lords has recently defied the government on issues such as tax credits and universities reform. On Thursday peers criticised the Home Office’s decision to scrap a scheme to accept unaccompanied child refugees.
The Brexit bill is higher profile and therefore potentially harder for peers to intervene over. “I hope they’ll scrutinise it, but I also hope they’ll send it back unamended,” said Brexit secretary David Davis. “I expect [the House of Lords] to do patriotic duty”.
Any amendments that are made would then have to be discussed by the Commons, where their fate would depend on the government’s willingness to compromise or on moderate Conservative MPs rebelling. If the Commons voted against the amendments, the Lords would be likely to cede.
On Wednesday night a government source warned about the consequences if the upper chamber stopped the bill. “The Lords will face an overwhelming public call to be abolished if they now try and frustrate this bill — they must get and deliver the will of the British people,” he said.
But a spokesman for Theresa May struck a more neutral note on Thursday. “We fully respect the important role that the House of Lords plays, it has an important constitutional role to play in debating and scrutinising legislation and it will now proceed,” he said.