It's Time To Rid Our Nation Of Brussels Worshipping Lords

‘A place on the red benches is often the reward for favors, or even failure’

- Leo McKinstry

Brexit offers a golden opportunity to revitalize our parliamentary democracy. As a sovereign nation once more, we will no longer be ruled by an unaccountable foreign cabal. Yet real change will only be properly achieved if the Government tackles Britain’s own unelected monolith at the heart of Westminster, namely the House of Lords.

The second chamber likes to regard itself as the guardian of the constitution but it is nothing of the sort. Absurdly bloated and packed with mediocrities, it is profoundly unsuited to play any role in our national governance. Its membership is wholly unrepresentative of the electorate. Its political culture is marinated in metropolitan groupthink and worship of Brussels whose self-serving oligarchy it closely resembles.

The drastic need for reform has been highlighted this week by Boris Johnson’s regrettable decision to create another 16 new peers. This means that since he became Prime Minister last July he has made no fewer than 58 appointments to the Lords, which makes a mockery of Tory pledges to reduce its obesity.

Most other second chambers across the Western world have no more than 200 members but the Lords now have more than 830. Shamefully, it is now the world’s second-largest legislative body after the Communist-run People’s Assembly in China.