Oral Answers to Questions

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn]

I do not accept the hon. and learned Gentleman’s argument in relation to the Good Friday agreement. When it comes to the Windsor framework, those who advocated to leave the European Union did not think about the consequences for having two entities and one open border and how we could ensure that goods crossing the border would meet the rules of the respective entity—that is what the Windsor framework seeks to do. The Government are negotiating a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement with the EU, which has been widely welcomed by all parties across Northern Ireland.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that, in any marking of the end of violence, a key date is 1994, when the main violence perpetrators, the IRA, finally woke up to the reality that its ranks were riddled with informants and it was running out of options, so it declared a ceasefire, and that was followed by loyalist paramilitaries doing likewise? But civilised society should never applaud or celebrate murderers ceasing to do what they should never have started doing in the first place.

[Hilary Benn]

I say to the hon. Gentleman that there was always an alternative to violence—always. That recognition was finally achieved when the Good Friday agreement was negotiated and signed, and Northern Ireland has seen the benefits since. It shows, as I indicated earlier, that instead of saying no, which happened repeatedly on all sides, when people are finally prepared to compromise in the interests of peace, enormous benefits flow—in this case, to Northern Ireland and elsewhere in the world.