Ministers urged to hold debate on abolishing House of Lords if it tries to frustrate Brexit bill
Threat to upper chamber by a former minister comes as the legislation to trigger Article 50 cleared the Commons last night
FURIOUS Tories have declared war on the House of Lords as pro-EU peers hatched a last ditch plot to thwart Brexit.
Ex-Cabinet Minister Oliver Letwin called for a Commons debate on scrapping the Upper Chamber if Europhile Lords try to block the Article 50 bill when it goes before them in two weeks’ time.
Dick Newby, the Lib Dem leader in the Lords, claimed he had “support on all sides” for a rerun of the historic EU referendum.
Brexit Secretary David Davis has warned Peers they have a “patriotic duty” to back the Bill, but Lib Dem Baroness Featherstone said the unelected Peers actually had a “duty” to block Brexit.
Labour’s Peter Hain urged the Government to “bring it on” while another Labour Peer revealed they would “find a way to get the Lords behind us to push the Bill back to the Commons for another go at changing it.”
Angela Smith, Labour’s leader in the Lords, announced eight amendments to the Bill, despite claiming she was not seeking “to block or sabotage the start of this process.”
Baroness Smith added that she would “not be cowed by threats of abolition” and would take the Lord’s job of reviewing legislation seriously.
But former Cabinet Minister Iain Duncan Smith warned the Lords not to “get all puffed up” and give “a simple answer to a simple question.”
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The Brexit backer added: “They are a reviewing chamber, but there is nothing to review here, it’s a simple four line bill passed overwhelmingly by the elected Commons.”
The European Union (Notification Of Withdrawal) Bill was passed by the Commons on Wednesday.
Immediately a Government source hit out: “If the Lords don’t want to face an overwhelming public call to be abolished they must get on and protect democracy and pass this bill.”
Yesterday Downing Street called for peace saying it was right that the Lords reviewed the BIll and distanced the PM from any threats of abolition.
Yet No 10 insisted that the Premier wants to see the Bill pass in time for her to trigger Article 50 by the end of March.
But last night a Government source held firm, telling The Sun: “No 10 obviously don’t want to pick as fight but lot of people across the whole of Government share the view that if they try and frustrate it will be very very difficult for them to maintain their current form and size.”
Brexit Secretary David Davis said “the simple thing is the Lords is a very important institution.”
He added that he expected “it to do its job and to do its patriotic duty and actually give us the right to go on and negotiate that new relationship” with the EU.
The row spilled over to a heated exchange on the floor of the Commons, when ex-Cabinet Office Secretary Oliver Letwin threw down the gauntlet.
Mr Letwin — who backed Remain — asked the Government to find “time for a debate should the Lords seek to delay beyond the end of March the passage of our accession to Article 50 for this House to discuss the possibility of either the abolition or full scale reform of the Lords.”
Commons Leader David Lidington hit back that he was “optimistic” that such drastic action would not be required.
He said that the Government believe there was an “awareness in the House of Lords that it is an unelected chamber”, adding that the Bill had received backing from the elected Commons “by a huge majority” that reflected “the much bigger vote by the people of the UK”.
Last night the SNP urged Peers to “reach for the barricades” and said the threats of abolition were unlikely to leave peers “quaking in their ermine”.
Former Tory Minister Baroness Altmann was last night reportedly mulling a vote against the government.
Lib Dem Peers Lords Paddy Ashdown and Menzies Campbell are also said to be involved in the anti-Brexit plot, along with Labour’s Lord Davies and arch-Europhile Lord Liddle.