Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Baroness Hoey Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 11th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is a fact that the protocol has downgraded Northern Ireland’s position within the union and left it out on a limb, subject to still being part of the EU single market. It is a fact that it leaves our fellow British citizens there subject to foreign laws and foreign courts and under the constant enforcement of new EU regulations, with businesses in Northern Ireland forced more and more to buy from the Irish Republic rather than Great Britain. Increased bureaucracy, staff resources, cost and delivery times have, as we all know, made many businesses refuse to trade in Northern Ireland.

For me, this is a very simple debate. Our Government decided that protecting the EU single market was more important than protecting the sovereignty of their own country and the internal market of the UK. The Irish Government made threats about the return of violence if there were ever customs posts or anything at the border. They got the EU to weaponise the border, and our Government then decided to put a border between parts of their own territory. Now they are recognising, quite rightly, that they got it wrong and it is not working. As the Prime Minister said at Second Reading:

“The reason why I am putting the Bill forward is that I am a patriot, and I am a democrat. Our No. 1 priority is protecting peace and political stability in Northern Ireland and protecting the Belfast … agreement.”—[Official Report, Commons, 27/6/22; col. 45.]


We have heard much today about the Belfast agreement, but a great deal of it is a bit hypocritical. We constantly hear about protecting it in all its aspects and all its parts, but somehow the part whereby the principle of consent is supposed to protect the constitutional status of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom is not mentioned by many. Where is the concern about those parts of the agreement when the protocol subjugates the Act of Union—not my words but those of the High Court judge in Belfast—which is the very constitutional basis of the United Kingdom, or when the protocol consent vote expressly disapplies cross-community consent in order to deprive the unionist community of that protection?

When many in your Lordships’ House and elsewhere talk about protecting the Belfast agreement, it seems to mean that they are concentrating on protecting the north-south aspect of it and the nationalist interests within it, yet the citizens in Northern Ireland, who put up with over 30 years of terrorists and everything that was put upon them because of their loyalty to the UK, seem to be ignored. How do we repay them for that loyalty? We do so by abandoning Northern Ireland and leaving it in the European Union single market.

Now, when the Government at long last bring forward a Bill to correct that historic and shameful injustice, we have Peers here in this House who want to torpedo it. They use the language of “pause”, which sounds much better than “torpedo”, but I ask those Peers: whose side are you on? We are Peers in the British Houses of Parliament who are here to represent our national interest, yet some seem to want to represent only the interests of the European Union.

This Bill finally gave hope to people in Northern Ireland, but unionists generally are not naive. We have been sold out before; we do not forget how our Government defended the subjugation of the Act of Union in court while at the same time saying publicly that they would fix the injustice. When we get to the Supreme Court in November, it will be very interesting to see if His Majesty’s Government take a very different view.

What other country would abandon sovereignty over a piece of its territory in this way? Have the Bill’s opponents no sense of patriotism or any care for national interest? Would Zelensky agree such a deal for the Donbass—ironically, described as the “Ulster of Ukraine”? I speak with anger today because I believe that you all need to understand what a grave injustice has been perpetrated on your fellow British citizens in Northern Ireland, and whether you like it or not, efforts to stop this Bill constitute taking a side; it is lining up with the European Union and the Irish Government, an Irish Government who stand up proudly for their nationalist community in Northern Ireland but demand that the British Government be neutral. It is betraying the British people that live there who have the fundamental right to equal citizenship.

I was ashamed when Parliament passed the grave injustice of the protocol. The only thing that will top that is sitting here, watching Peers wanting actively to try to keep Northern Ireland in captivity by preventing the progress of this Bill, which does nothing other than seek to restore Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom. On the breaking of international law—I think the noble Lord, Lord Bew, dealt with that brilliantly—while I accept the Attorney-General’s view, I care more about the fundamental constitutional law of the United Kingdom. After 300 hours of negotiations already, does anyone think that the EU will change its views if this House delays this Bill? It will not even widen Šefčovič’s mandate. I believe that it will be helping to put an end to power sharing in Northern Ireland possibly for ever. No self-respecting unionist will return to Stormont until the protocol is removed. As for those who are attacking the DUP, I look to see whether they attacked Sinn Féin when it took Parliament down in Stormont for three years.

Already we have no north-south ministerial councils, no Executive and no Assembly. How can anyone argue that the protocol is not a threat to the Belfast agreement? Please remember that when you vote tonight.

I finish by paraphrasing one of the greatest men to sit in our Parliament, Sir Edward Carson: “There are none so loathsome as those who will sell their friends for the purposes of conciliating their enemies.” Sadly, that is true just as much today as it was over 100 years ago.