What the papers say: Why the Commons should listen to the Lords

Peers haven’t made themselves popular by voting for an amendment to the Government’s Article 50 bill. They’ve been called ‘contemptible’, accused of an ‘insidious plot to thwart democracy‘ and threatened with abolition. But is there a chance they were right to try and make MPs think again? That’s the argument made in the Times this morning, which says in its editorial that if you felt uncomfortable watching unelected peers meddling with the business of elected MPs there’s a simple reason: the peers had a point. The role of the Lords is to ‘request that the Commons should further reflect’, says the Times. And in calling for MPs to think again on the Article 50 legislation, the Lords was doing just that. The Lords’ discussion of the issue of the rights of EU citizen to stay put in Britain after Brexit was particularly important for the Times, which says that while the PM has vowed to wait until the start of negotiations to put this issue to rest, she is wrong to do so.