United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Paul Girvan Excerpts

Monday 21st September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Girvan (South Antrim) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Stephen Farry]

Yes.

[The Temporary Chair (Sir Graham Brady)]

Order. It is not possible to speak from those Benches. The hon. Gentleman must find another place in the Chamber.

[Paul Girvan]

Thank you, Sir Graham. The hon. Member mentioned the protectionism in the Belfast agreement. That is its name: the Belfast agreement. Unfortunately, from a Unionist perspective, the protections that we were sold as ensuring and enshrining our right to be part of the United Kingdom until such time as the people of Northern Ireland decided otherwise are being eroded from below our feet by the withdrawal agreement and the clause associated with Northern Ireland. That has to be recognised. Do you recognise, as a Unionist, that this does not give you much comfort?

[Stephen Farry]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for his intervention. I think his question was aimed at me, rather than you, Sir Graham. First, just to give Members some encouragement, Members from Northern Ireland can sort out some choreography at times in terms of speaking, so all is not lost entirely, but it is important that the hon. Member appreciates a number of points.

As I said, the principle of consent is hard-wired into the withdrawal agreement. At the same time, however, I think it is naive not to accept that what had been a relatively stable situation in Northern Ireland around the constitutional question has become much more fluid in recent years, to a large extent because of the fallout from Brexit. Whichever way things emerge over the coming months there will be some degree of political instability in that respect, and it is incumbent on us all to try to come to terms with that, to manage that and to keep people on board, making Northern Ireland work over the months and years to come.

I also stress to the hon. Member that another way of looking at the agreement is that it was, in essence, a grand bargain. We are approaching the centenary of Northern Ireland next year. For most of its history, Northern Ireland was a contested state and some people did not accept its legitimacy. We had a situation, for example, where the Irish constitution had a claim on the territory of Northern Ireland through articles 2 and 3.

With the Good Friday agreement, arguably for the first time we had a sense that the vast majority of people on the island of Ireland accepted the legitimacy of Northern Ireland as an entity, albeit with the ability to change recognised as part of that agreement. That was a major win, particularly for Unionism. At the same time, there was a recognition of the interlocking relationships—in particular, the north-south aspect—on the island of Ireland. The problem is that Brexit has come in and destabilised that. In particular I have to say to my Unionist colleagues that their charge headlong into Brexit, given that grand bargain, was most irresponsible and short-sighted.

It would not have been possible for the Good Friday agreement to be concluded if the UK and Ireland were not simultaneously part of the European Union—in particular, the customs union and the single market. The protocol is a product of the UK’s decisions, choices and red lines on Brexit, so if there are concerns, grumbles or complaints about it, it is a product of decisions taken primarily by people in this Chamber over the past number of years.

In essence, there is a trilemma at the heart of this: the UK set out three mutually incompatible objectives, only two of which can be realised at any one time. The first was that there would be an open border on the island of Ireland, the second was that the whole of the UK would leave the customs union and single market, and the third was that special measures for Northern Ireland were ruled out. The first has been a given for the best part of four years, and was rightly recognised at the start of the Brexit negotiations. The second was the determination of this House, which ruled out a softer version of Brexit, with the entire UK remaining part of the customs union and single market—an outcome that would still have been consistent with the referendum result. The third is something that the UK has essentially had to concede through the protocol.

Whatever way we look at this, when a decision was taken to leave the customs union and single market, some sort of interface was going to have to be managed with the European Union’s single market and customs union. The backstop was the first attempt—I believe it was much maligned and a missed opportunity. The protocol was the next alternative, and the Prime Minister bought into it last October. It is an attempt to square an impossible circle, but we have to do our best in that regard; there will not be a neat and easy solution. The protocol is imperfect, but it represents the bare minimum of what is required to address the particular challenges and circumstances that Northern Ireland faces.

Like the hon. Member for Belfast South (Claire Hanna), I do not want to see any borders anywhere inside these islands, but we have to face the reality that some line will have to be drawn on a map, and wherever it is, some political, emotional and psychological implications will arise from it. It is easier to manage that down the Irish sea than on a land border, as a purely pragmatic analysis of the situation. As has been said, there are seven crossings down the Irish sea, and potentially more than 200 on the land border. People talk about the value of east-west trade, and I certainly recognise that, but the counterpoint to that is to recognise the sheer number of movements on the island of Ireland. The opportunity to have some degree of regulation is more readily applied on the Irish sea interface because there is more dead time, in terms of air and sea travel, than there is on the land border, with land-based transport and much more just-in-time delivery. Those are the sad choices that we are being asked to face up to in Northern Ireland.

We need to make the protocol as light touch as we can to move from what is essentially a solid line on a map to a dotted line. We need to work through the Joint Committee to address the outstanding issues and agree the future relationship. That would make the application of the protocol much easier. To make progress in both respects, the UK has to build up the trust and confidence of the European Union. Essentially, the UK is asking the EU to take it on trust that certain procedures that would otherwise be rigorously required under the terms of the protocol can be disapplied, with flexibilities and modifications shown. The situation with the UK threatening to breach the very withdrawal agreement that gives rise to the protocol will not give the European Union confidence that the UK will honour any flexibilities that it chooses to grant through the protocol.

New clause 6 sets out perhaps one example of the type of situation I am referring to. In essence, the protocol reflects the fact that Northern Ireland remains part of the UK’s customs territory, but the EU customs code is applied down the Irish sea. That was the compromise—I stress that—worked out last year by the Prime Minister, among others.