Conservatives should defend the Lords – even if it’s a pain over Brexit

In the disorientating landscape of UK politics during Brexit, a supposedly ‘High Tory’ Conservative, Jacob Rees-Mogg, is threatening an ancient pillar of British democracy, while Lib Dem leader, Vince Cable, defends the rights of parliament’s unelected upper chamber. This week, a timeless bulwark of the constitution, the House of Lords, came under attack from that most fatuous and faddish feature of modern politics; the e-petition.

The struggle between the two houses of parliament at Westminster is centuries old and governments are frustrated frequently by the upper chamber, when it chooses to veto or delay legislation. The 1911 Parliament Act, that asserted the House of Commons’ supremacy over the House of Lords, was passed after peers repeatedly blocked Liberal MPs’ attempts to introduce home rule in Ireland.

These days, a majority of lords are sceptical about the UK leaving the EU and, as anticipated, they are demanding changes to the bill that will eventually bring about Brexit. Last week, peers passed an amendment calling on the government to negotiate a customs union with Brussels. Now, they’ve inflicted further defeats, including voting for Britain to retain important aspects of EU law and seeking to restrict ministers’ powers to enact important secondary legislation.

Some of these actions are clearly intended to be obstructive and confrontational, so it’s not surprising that tempers are fraying among supporters of Brexit and eurosceptic MPs.

In this fiery atmosphere, a petition on the government’s website, demanding a referendum on abolishing the Lords, passed the 100,000 signatures it needs to be considered for debate in the House of Commons. These ‘e-petitions’ were a New Labour gimmick, strengthened by David Cameron, that purport to deliver ‘direct democracy’ but instead encourage the development of noisy, poorly thought through campaigns.

Meanwhile, the high-profile backbencher, Jacob Rees-Mogg, who chairs the European Research Group of hardcore Tory ‘leavers’, advised peers that they were “playing with fire” and could end up “burning down” the House of Lords. It’s understandable that some Conservatives are getting frustrated, but they should make an effort to calm down and remember that Britain will need the building blocks of its constitution after Brexit.

The House of Lords is important precisely because it is willing to become a nuisance and act as a brake on the government. It is valuable only if it is able to scrutinise carefully bills from the House of Commons that may be rushed or ill-conceived, due to the popular pressures of electoral politics.

The legislation it’s considering now is a Conservative bill concerned with leaving the EU. However, previously, it defeated Gordon Brown’s scheme to introduce pre-trial 42-day detention; a proposal that so incensed the future Brexit Secretary, David Davis, he resigned his Westminster seat and fought a by-election in protest. In the future, god forbid, the Lords could be sending back to the Commons a Jeremy Corbyn government’s plans to dismantle the market economy.

Because it’s not elected, the Lords cannot and should not prevent determined MPs from passing legislation, but it must be allowed to ask the lower chamber to think again. It couldn’t possibly perform this role adequately if it were replaced by a ‘senate’ or similar institution that mirrored closely the electoral arithmetic of the House of Commons.

There is certainly a persuasive argument that the Lords should be reduced in size. Under the governments of Tony Blair and David Cameron in particular, the chamber was flooded with new life peers and its membership ballooned to over 800, as Labour and Conservatives jostled for supremacy. The institution might also benefit from some way of ensuring that more life peerages are awarded on the basis of knowledge and achievement, rather than a lifetime of political time-serving.

Yet the basic principles of the House of Lords – that it should stand above the vagaries of elections, that it should retain a hereditary element, that it should draw on the judgement and experience of people from a myriad of professional backgrounds – are all vital components of the UK’s democratic system.

The more excitable ‘leavers’ cannot seem to see beyond Brexit. Some of them believe that the referendum was a grassroots uprising against the establishment and they’re prepared to tear down anything that stands in their way. It would be a dreadful irony if, in the process of leaving the EU and asserting British sovereignty, we were to damage irreparably age-old institutions and conventions that make our political culture unique.

Conservatives, who are supposed to value the traditions and safeguards of the UK’s constitution, ought to understand instinctively why an unelected upper chamber is still so valuable.