UK Exit from the European Union

Debate between Margaret Ferrier and Mark Durkan

Monday 17th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Wilson. I congratulate the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) on introducing this debate in which we have this six-pack of petitions of very different strengths and flavours, which, as other hon. Members have said, reflect the range of views, concerns, doubts, hopes and frustrations out there since the referendum vote. Other hon. Members have touched on questions raised in relation to Scotland and were kind enough to touch upon the fact that Northern Ireland also voted to remain. I want to address some of the questions raised in respect of the Northern Ireland position and the implications for the Good Friday agreement. Too often too many people here assume that the issues of Northern Ireland are taken care of with assurances of consultation with the joint First Ministers and pledges that people will do everything to avoid a hard border. There are more serious implications for the Good Friday agreement than just the possible profile of the border in future.

[Margaret Ferrier]

In an article penned by the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade in yesterday’s Observer, he gave an undertaking that the Irish Government will work for special arrangements that take account of Northern Ireland’s unique circumstances. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, given the delicacy of the peace process, the UK Government should take the same approach in giving a guarantee that the interests of Ireland, north and south, will be treated with the utmost importance? Does he agree that the exclusion of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from the Cabinet Office Brexit Committee is a disappointing signal that that will not be the case in reality?

[Mark Durkan]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising those issues. She is right to reflect on the fact that Charlie Flanagan, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the Taoiseach have reflected that they want to make sure that Northern Ireland’s very distinctive position is recognised and reflected in the future. Not only those in government, but all the parties in the Oireachtas have reflected that in the work of the Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement—a Committee that Northern Ireland MPs have the right to attend and speak at. It has set out a programme of work in relation to Brexit to look at the trade implications that might arise, and at the dangers of the incipient borderism that may emerge once we have one jurisdiction in the EU and one jurisdiction out. Once we have differential legislation coming in, we will have the tensions and difficulties of borderism. Whether customs posts are introduced or not, borderism will be an increasing problem. The problem will not only be in border areas and constituencies such as mine and that of my hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie), but across the north. Indeed, it will affect the south as well.

Before I touch on those particular questions, I want to address questions that are reflected in the petitions, not least the question of the role of Parliament. It seems strange that people who led a campaign in the name of taking back control to the UK Parliament now want to bypass that Parliament as far as considering next steps are concerned. It is clear that the people who are meant to be steering us forward have no plan, map, app or satnav for where they are going. The rest of us are being told that as far as the devolved institutions are concerned, we just have to tailgate wherever London’s impulses take them next—whatever whims, prejudices and fancies emerge, so long as there is some sort of consultation, we can safely tailgate London—but if people do not know where they are going, it is not sensible to follow them blindly. People in Scotland and Northern Ireland who voted to remain have the right to say that our position should be reflected. Members of Parliament from Scotland and Northern Ireland at least should have the opportunity to record their position here and in Scotland. The Conservative party imposed the new construct of English votes for English laws in this Parliament, but perhaps the compromise should have been English votes for English exits. We should let them decide to take themselves out of the EU and let those of us who want to remain retain membership of the single market and have access to EU measures and programmes.

People seem to forget that we had a referendum to endorse the Good Friday agreement. It was almost unique internationally, because it was a double referendum: it had to be held not just in Northern Ireland but in the south, and a majority was needed in both. It was John Hume’s great idea. It was a way of recruiting and respecting both senses and sources of legitimacy in Northern Ireland—the Unionist sense and source of legitimacy, which was bound up in the wishes of the majority of people in Northern Ireland, and the nationalist sense of source of legitimacy, which was bound up in the wishes of the majority of people in Ireland.

In that referendum, huge numbers of people overwhelmingly endorsed the Good Friday agreement. It was the high water mark of Irish national democratic expression—a form of articulated self-determination. It is part of the very delicate constitutional understandings that are at the heart of the Good Friday agreement, whereby we brought people to accept the principle of consent. Some Unionists used to resent the principle of consent because they thought it put Northern Ireland on the window ledge of the Union. Many republicans, of course, rejected the principle of consent because they said it created a Unionist veto and was partitionist. The Social Democratic and Labour party—a constitutional nationalist party that was the first nationalist party to put the principle of consent at the heart of our constitution—worked hard to consolidate the idea, and we got a span of acceptance around the principle of consent.

The principle of consent states that Northern Ireland’s future will be determined by the wishes of the majority of people in Northern Ireland, so it is confounded by the way in which Northern Ireland is being taken out of the European Union against the wishes of the majority of people there. The dual referendum is being confounded, too, because when people in the north and the south voted for the Good Friday agreement, they took Irish and UK common membership of the EU as a given.

The preamble of the agreement between the two Governments in the Good Friday agreement clearly makes significant reference to common membership of the European Union. Strand 1 of the Good Friday agreement, which deals with the institutions in Northern Ireland, refers to the European Union. Strand 2, which is about institutions for north and south—for the island as a whole—refers to the European Union. Strand 3, which is about relations throughout the islands of Britain and Northern Ireland, and takes in all the devolved Administrations plus the Ireland Administration, also refers to the European Union. So people cannot say that the European Union was not a conscious factor in people’s understanding when they voted for the Good Friday agreement.

The improvement in British-Irish relations, in the context of our common membership of the EU, was a major part of the backdrop to the Good Friday agreement. Without the experience of common membership of the EU and the improved relations in that regard, we would never have got the Anglo-Irish agreement in 1985, which was signed by Margaret Thatcher and Garret FitzGerald, and set the context for the subsequent peace process.

People need to be very careful about what they are undoing here. They need to understand the difference between a mere stud wall and a supporting wall. When people talk about blindly taking Northern Ireland out of the EU against our wishes and about removing the Human Rights Act, which was a key pillar in the support for and understanding of the Good Friday agreement, they are dangerously knocking through a supporting wall. I am not saying that there will be a collapse straight away, but if other issues create pressure later we will regret this move. That is why people need to look more fundamentally at some of these issues.

People do not seem to realise, particularly in respect of the workings of strand 2 of the Good Friday agreement, which is about north-south arrangements, that a large part of the traffic and the programme of work of the six implementation bodies that were set up under the agreement relate to EU moneys or programmes. The Special EU Programmes Body, which, as its name implies, manages the EU programmes north and south, would disappear. The work of InterTradeIreland is in large part to do with encouraging businesses north and south to engage with European challenge funds, to understand opportunities in European markets and to understand European directives. It also uses EU money to help businesses and academia to take part in research consortia and alliances. That work would be affected. The food safety body largely deals with EU health and food directives and ensures they are transposed in a consistent and compatible way, north and south. Similarly, Waterways Ireland has channelled EU funding in a lot of its work.

We could end up with Brexit meaning that the workings of strand 2 are, in effect, hollowed out, which is a matter of gross insensitivity—to nationalists in particular, but to all who bought into and supported the agreement as a balanced package, in terms of the institutions in the north, the north-south arrangements and the British-Irish east-west arrangements. It will not be good enough if strand 2 is hollowed out in a way that suits the Democratic Unionist party, the largest party in Northern Ireland currently. It never supported the agreement, it opposed it in the referendum, it voted no and it campaigned against it. It just so happens that it would suit the DUP for Brexit to hollow out that key aspect of the Good Friday agreement by default.

People may say, “Well, that can happen. It’s just a matter of luck and happenstance,” but that is not what the people of Ireland understood when they endorsed the Good Friday agreement in overwhelming numbers, and the people of southern Ireland changed the terms of the Irish constitution specifically to reflect that. We cannot turn around and say, “You’re unilaterally being taken out of the EU. We are unilaterally going to weaken strand 2 by pulling out the underpinnings and all the key bolts, because people in England voted in a UK vote.”

The Good Friday agreement made it very clear that some decisions are for the people of Ireland north and south alone, without external impediment. The way in which the Government are conducting Brexit—they are saying it is a one-size-fits-all, for all parts of the United Kingdom—is potentially going to constitute an external impediment to the due workings and development of the Good Friday agreement in the longer term. People need to recognise that just giving assurances about trying to avoid a hard border will not be enough.