Peers against calamity

Lady Wheatcroft writes in today's Garundia that the House of Lords should oppose or delay Brexit legislation. She admits the Lords are hardly democratic but says they have a duty nevertheless to oppose the 'calamity' of Brexit. Brexit voters are changing their minds, she says, so the small majority in favour might disappear anyway.

She also says the main reason for the Brexit vote was really resentment against the supposed metropolitan elite (in sneer quotes). She knows this from the contents of her inbox. (She has also been attacked in the Mail and the Sun). The UK Government could easily address inequality and this would further undermine the Brexit majority.

Overall, this would justify the unelected Lords delaying or preventing triggering Article 50,in the name of the historic role of the Lords to advise the Government. She thinks enough of the peers would 'stall' the initial legislation.

David Edgar's piece on the same day starts off with some useful analysis:

What have we learned about what happened on 23 June? Some immediate myths have been dismantled. The young didn’t stay in bed – 64% of registered 18 to 24-year-olds voted, overwhelmingly to remain. Not all those who voted to leave the European Union in the referendum were northern left-behinds – many were middle-class people in the south. And Labour delivered 63% of its 2015 vote to remain, not that much lower than the Liberal Democrats’ 70%, and way above the Conservatives’ measly 42%. In fact, Labour’s remain vote was only 1% lower than the SNP’s.

The piece goes on to say that Labour suffered most with its split between liberal globalised metropolitans and its traditional working class base. Some right wingers in Labour think the Party should go for 'traditional' values to win back defectors to UKIP --nationalism among them,and probably 1950s values (code for cultural conservatism). However,he finds hope in the SNP which managed to combine traditional concerns for economic inequality with liberal ones about things like gender equality. So far.