Hereditary peers overwhelmingly rejected the Lisbon Treaty

The Lisbon Treaty went through because the vast majority of British peers are no longer port-sodden, addicted to field sports and aggressively patriotic.

by Gerald Warner

Further to my earlier post predicting that the surviving hereditary peers would patriotically vote in the national interest to postpone ratification of the Lisbon Treaty in yesterday's House of Lords debate, the voting lists which have now been published show that my instinct was correct.

Of the 92 hereditary peers still in the upper house, two are excluded from voting as royal household officers: the Duke of Norfolk, as Earl Marshal, and the Marquess of Cholmondeley, as Lord Great Chamberlain.

From the remaining 90, there were 64 who voted yesterday. They divided 50 against ratification of the 'treaty', 14 in favour.

The 50 seeking to defer ratification consisted of 40 Conservatives, nine Cross Benchers and one UKIP peer. The pro-Europeans were made up of six Cross Benchers, four Liberal Democrats and four Labour peers.

It should perhaps be noted, however, that seven hereditary peers who were excluded from the House in 1999 but brought back as working Life Peers also voted for Lisbon.

These were, from the Labour benches, Viscount Chandos and Lords Acton, Berkeley, Grenfell, and Ponsonby of Shulbrede.

There were also two Liberal Democrats: the Earl of Mar and Kellie and Lord Redesdale, clearly not as xenophobic as his predecessor, so hilariously caricatured by his daughter Nancy Mitford.

A similar anomaly is the fact that Lord Selkirk of Douglas, who voted against Lisbon, disclaimed the earldom of Selkirk, though now sitting as a life peer.

Considering their greatly reduced strength, the 50 anti-Treaty hereditaries constituted a disproportionate percentage of the 184 ermined dissenters from Lisbon.

This was a creditable performance by the hereditary aristocracy. It was swamped, however, by New Labour creations, including the noble Lord Watson of Invergowrie who was responsible for the legislation banning hunting in Scotland and later served a prison term for fire-raising in a hotel.

Happily for the interests of the great European ideal, he did not feel too abashed to attend the upper house and vote for his country's further absorption into the Brussels federation. Noblesse oblige.