When Britain really ruled the waves, as WS Gilbert wrote, “the House of Peers made no pretence to intellectual eminence”. Britain set the world ablaze, he went on, while the same “did nothing in particular — and did it very well”. How timely that a new production of Iolanthe opens at the Coliseum next month.
To the red end of Parliament, then, where 191 peers, a record number, had signed up to debate the EU (Withdrawal) Bill. “This is not about revisiting the arguments of the referendum,” Baroness Evans of Bowes Park, the leader of the House, pleaded. Fat chance.
There they all were: Lord Has-Been, Lord Claimform, Baroness Toady and dozens of Lib Dems, all desperate to have their six minutes’ worth on the withdrawal from the EU. “We are experts at being boring,” Lord Hill of Oareford said, knowing his comrades well.
This is the cut and paste bill, the means by which European law becomes British law come Brexit. It was originally called the great repeal bill, as big a misnomer as Lord Adonis, who wants a second referendum. Quoting George Orwell, he said “political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind”. There was certainly a lot of the latter.
After almost three hours, the peers “adjourned during pleasure”, which sounds like something that property magnates get up to at the Presidents Club but is just Lords slang for “strapped on the nosebag”. Only 24 had spoken by this point.
Advertisement
The Lord Bishop of Leeds, moderniser that he is, read his speech from an iPad. How appropriate for holy men to be guided by the wisdom written on tablets. His Grace was concerned by how the referendum had torn “the veneer of civilised discourse in this country and unleashed an undisguised language of suspicion, denigration, hatred and vilification”. Leavers are stupid and narrow-minded, Remainers are traitors (or so he characterised the arguments); he prayed for moderation.
At least you get restrained debate in the Lords. None of that ugly cat-calling and jeering that we see at the plebeian end of parliament, although there were a few subtle digs. Lord Patten of Barnes, who lamented the way the EU has torn his tribe, said that “loyalty is the secret weapon of the Conservative Party — sometimes so secret it can barely be discerned by the human eye”.
In a typically boisterous speech Lord Pearson of Rannoch, the former Ukip leader, railed against the “silly mirage” that the EU ensures peace in Europe, to which Lord Foulkes of Cumnock sniffed: “That was the comedy interlude.”
Lord Pearson was one of two Ukippers in action; there was also Lord Willoughby de Broke, whose name reflects his party’s finances. I started to look for other apt names on the speakers’ list but the Earl of Sandwich, Lord Crisp and Baroness Young of Old Scone just made me feel peckish. Baroness Northover then noted that three of the lords putting pressure on the government over the bill are called Hope, Judge and Pannick.
On they went, round and round. It was 96 down by the close of play, 95 to come today. Lots of words, little progress. As Lord Bridges sighed with feeling: “The years of Brexit are like dog years — each one feels like seven.”