PEERS URGING TO BLOCK BREXIT

A cross-party coalition in the House of Lords is pursuing plans to block Brexit.

She is part of a group of several dozen peers discussing options to block, delay or “revisit” the referendum result.

A former Tory minister in the Lords who is working with Lady Wheatcroft but asked not to be named said that they hoped that peers “will and can” delay Article 50.

“The first step is to establish the public weren’t given the correct information, show they were led to believe things that weren’t true,” the peer said.

“Leave won on only 51.9 per cent of the vote, on facts presented that are patently wrong or misleading . . . It’s absolutely astonishing that everyone is rolling over and saying ‘well that’s all done and dusted’. There are Tory ministers who are really unhappy about it all.”

David Lammy, the Labour MP, was called “anti-democratic” for urging MPs to ignore the Brexit vote. Owen Smith, the Labour leadership candidate, has pledged a second referendum.

Baroness Wheatcroft, the former editor-in-chief of The Wall Street Journal Europe and former business editor of The Times, said that it was “imperative that we don’t press the button on Article 50”.

If a bill came before parliament Lady Wheatcroft advocated peers rejecting it and asking “the House of Commons to think again”. She said: “Constitutionally we can do that. So if it got to that stage I think we would.

“There is an argument that at some stage people ought to be given an opportunity to think again,” she said, setting out her hopes that peers could delay Brexit being triggered and give time for Britain’s membership of the EU to be put to the public again in either a second referendum or an election.

There are differing views over whether legislation is needed to trigger Article 50. Lord Pannick, QC, has been instructed by unnamed clients to argue in the courts for the necessity of an act of parliament.

The government appears confident that it does not need legislation to start the formal treaty mechanism. John Penrose, the Cabinet Office minister, has said that “government lawyers believe that it is a royal prerogative issue”.