I am not sure that these are in any sense the same. I was merely criticising the Foreign Secretary for not being Foreign Secretary. He does a lot of other things, but certainly does not fulfil the role of Foreign Secretary.
I am now talking about some fundamental constitutional issues, which are the relationship between Parliament and Executive Government. They are at stake in this and very much matter when it comes to how much of a role we play in looking at the detail.
We have seen some rather violent language in the media in the past few weeks. I spoke to a Cross-Bench Peer this morning who said, “It is intimidating and, frankly, I feel intimidated”. I know that many MPs, particularly women MPs, feel actively intimidated by the violence which they get on social media. I think the Government ought now to be saying to the right-wing media that violent language encourages violence. We are in a dangerous situation in which parliamentary democracy—that is to say, reasoned debate within a clear structure of rules—is something which we have to defend.
I note that the Sun on Sunday editorial accused MPs of having contempt for democracy and said:
“Such is the contempt these MPs have for democracy when it delivers a vote they don’t like … they seem neither to know or to care what they will unleash”.
I am worried about what the current atmosphere might unleash. It therefore seems to me that the way in which both sides conduct this debate is very important.