Members of the House of Lords voted late yesterday to end the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in Britain's upper chamber of parliament.
The bill was approved by the body 221-81 shortly before midnight after hours of emotional debate. It marked one of the final stages of Prime Minister Tony Blair's efforts to remove hereditary peers from the chamber.
"A long chapter of history is being closed tonight," said Lord Strathclyde, an opposition Conservative Party leader in Lords who urged members not to vote at all.
Britain's opposition Conservative Party, which most of the bluebloods in the chamber support, debated until the last minute about their lordships having to vote themselves out of existence.
But if they had rejected the bill, Blair could have presented it again in the Labor-dominated House of Commons in the new parliamentary session starting Nov. 17. The Lords cannot twice reject a bill passed by the Commons.
Lords leader Baroness Jay said it was "time to say thank you and goodbye" to the hereditary peers.
The Blair government has not decided on the composition of a new House of Lords, which is expected to be partly appointed and partly elected. Critics charge that the new chamber will be a gathering of governing party timeservers and cronies of the prime minister.
The hereditary peers who win a temporary reprieve are being selected by ballots among their fellow aristocrats. Final results will be announced Nov. 5.
The bill ends the 800-year right of hereditary peers to be lawmakers. They retain their titles and estates.
At one point during the debate yesterday, a duke's son jumped on the speaker's historic seat in the House of Lords declaring "treason."
"Behind this bill for Lords' reform lies a hidden agenda which is treason," the Earl of Burford said before leaping on the Woolsack, a square seat of stuffed wool that has been reserved for speakers since the 14th century.
Deputy Speaker Lord Boston, who was perched on the Woolsack, ducked out of the way as ushers grabbed and ousted the earl.
