European Union Bill

There has been much support in our debates so far against referendums for all but the most important issues such as the euro, and the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, echoed that in his speech. The speech of the noble Lord, Lord Deben, comes to mind, and many others. As this is a theme running through so much of our debate, I felt that I should make just one comment. To put it mildly, we, the political class, are not particularly popular. I fear I detect a feeling out there among the people, in many discussions and in many fora, that our system of representative parliamentary democracy has, to some extent, broken down, or at least that it is not the great instrument it was before, the one which was exported all over the world. I think that there is now greater support for more of a plebiscitary democracy. Our system of representative parliamentary democracy worked very well in the 17th, 18th, 19th and even early 20th centuries, when many, if not most, people could not read and often led lives of endless drudgery and when better educated people were elected to Parliament to take their decisions for them. But now the people can read and, on the whole, are just as good and capable as their politicians. I believe that something like the Swiss democratic system, with its referendums—not, perhaps, going quite as far as the Californian system, with its difficulties over tax and the rest of it—really is now the only way in which to restore their democracy to the people. To those of the political class who laugh at this and decry such a prospect, I merely say, ““They would, wouldn’t they?””.