Customs and Borders

Debate between Baroness Hoey and Hywel Williams

Thursday 26th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kate Hoey]

Of course Sinn Féin would love a border poll, but as the hon. Lady knows, there are regulations about when a border poll can be held, and there has to be a certain ratio of contentment before that can happen. It is almost as if we are being blackmailed by Sinn Féin and those who have been responsible for violence in the past. It is as if we have to shape our whole economic policy and future according to whether some dissidents will start to do dreadful things again. That is not how we should tackle it. We should take those people on and put them in jail, and we should make sure that decent, ordinary people can go about their lives without being attacked and threatened by the idea that if we do not do Brexit in a particular way, terrorism will start again.

[Hywel Williams]

At the recent meeting of the Brexit Committee in Northern Ireland, the Deputy Chief Constable said that he was absolutely against a physical border post. Was he blackmailing us?