Brexit: UK-Irish Relations

Baroness O'Loan Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Loan (CB)]

My Lords, this is a very difficult debate for the people of Northern Ireland. It is difficult because we voted by 55% against Brexit, and all the indicators are that Northern Ireland is going to be the part of the UK which will be most adversely affected by Brexit.

We know that the issues with which our negotiators must struggle are many and varied, but the real question tonight is the land border between the UK and Ireland. I do not think many people in England and Wales realise that it actually is a real problem, and we are in debt to the European Union Committee for producing the paper which we are debating today.

The reality is that Brexit, and the terms upon which we Brexit, are not in the hands of the UK, or the people of Ireland, or the people of Northern Ireland. They are in the hands of our Government and the 27 EU nations.

One of the biggest challenges, I think, is to find a way to maintain the best possible relationships with Ireland, because the Brexit negotiations are going to lead to difficult situations in which Ireland and the UK will seek to protect their own national security, economy and culture, while trying to honour their obligations under the Good Friday agreement and work out an acceptable solution to Brexit. We will need those institutions—the British-Irish Council, the intergovernmental conference, the parliamentary assembly —and we will need the British-Irish Joint Ministerial Committee on EU Negotiations. It is a special case; it needs a unique solution.

The EU Committee recognised that because of the Brexit problem, Ireland faces many challenges not of its own making and that the responsibility for finding solutions lies with the British Government and with the European Union. However, there must be a recognition here and on the European side of the reality of the problems. These are political negotiations, and the right of politicians rests on the trust and confidence of the people. Where confidence has evaporated, as we have seen in many recent elections, there can be unexpected electoral results.

I draw your Lordships’ attention to something that is simple but which may be important. There are 650 MPs in the other place, and our website says that there are about 800 Members of your Lordships’ House. There is a problem as we embark on the passage of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill and as we engage in negotiations with Europe. Of the 650 MPs, Sinn Fein has seven seats. The SDLP, for so long the voice of constitutional nationalism in the other place, no longer has a single seat. Sinn Fein is abstentionist. Its MPs do not take their seats, participate in debates, or engage with the issues in the Chamber or in committee. They will not do so. The result is that the voice of constitutional nationalists who live in Northern Ireland has been silenced in the other place. It will not be heard as these vitally important debates go on. There is no one to speak on behalf of the constitutional nationalist people, and that is a major problem.

It is a worse problem because there is no one to speak on behalf of anyone in our devolved Assembly. Stormont is no longer—we are facing direct rule. Who will government be able to engage with during the Brexit negotiations, in the absence of a Northern Ireland Executive mandated to speak on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland? No one. That has been a problem for a number of years now, as many noble Lords will know from sitting on committees here and seeking to take evidence from the Northern Ireland Executive. They could not agree a common voice, so there was no response, as the noble Lord, Lord Jay, said. It has been thus for a number of years.

Therefore, if there is nobody from Northern Ireland in the Commons, living with the problems there, facing the difficulties of Brexit as it affects Northern Ireland, who articulates the voice of those who are not represented by Protestantism as opposed to Catholicism, what is the case in your Lordships’ House? Of the Northern Ireland Peers, I am the only one who is Catholic. All the others are Protestant or something else. We do not represent anyone, as Members of the other place do, but it is an unfortunate reality that I am the only Catholic living in Northern Ireland who has the right to speak in this place or the other place. Does it matter that the voice of constitutional nationalism is not heard? Does it matter that we have no Assembly? We are in limbo.

Unionist voters will tell you that they voted DUP because they would take on Sinn Fein. SDLP voters will tell you that they voted for Sinn Fein because they would take on the DUP. But it is not working. Among many people in Northern Ireland there is a sense of a democratic deficit. There are many causes of the deficit, but how is government going to deal with it? What message does it send about the rights of Catholics, non-unionists or nationalists, and what are the risks attaching to that deficit in all its manifestations?

The fight against terrorism and organised crime is critical to the economic stability of Europe. Many think that our problem is solved. I am afraid that it is not. The PSNI statistics for the year ending March 2017 tell us that last year there were five security-related deaths, 61 shooting incidents, 29 bombing incidents, 66 paramilitary-style assaults and 28 paramilitary-style shootings, and 75 kilos of explosives and 2,635 rounds of ammunition were recovered.

We do not have an Assembly and we do not have true peace. A generation is growing up who have no experience of the Troubles as we knew them. They are less likely to be drawn into violence, but economically we are not in a good state, and it was in the marginalised and deprived communities that terrorism, both loyalist and republican, had its roots.

At this time of unpredictable, difficult-to-counter global terrorism, it is essential in the interests of all 28 states that we maintain co-operation on EU databases on crime, the European arrest warrant, exchange of information, Eurojust judicial cooperation, European investigations, and so on, because those processes facilitate fighting crimes such as human trafficking, drugs, black market economies and international terrorism.

Brexit could affect our fragile peace process. We need, even at this time, to remember those who were injured, maimed and bereaved in Northern Ireland but also those who live here—those who still bear the scars of the Troubles after the bombs and attacks in Birmingham, Warrington, Manchester and so on. We should remember and provide for those people but we are not doing so—I met a group of them last night.

The politicians could deal with these legacy issues—we know how to do it—and the Government could hand over the money that they have committed to it, but they have not done so. Just today, the Lord Chief Justice has expressed his frustration yet again that he cannot conduct many of the inquests of those who were murdered in the Troubles.

For many in Northern Ireland, Ireland is and was the “Free State”—that tells you how they regarded Northern Ireland. Those issues of a people divided are part of our history but they are also part of our present. We were fractured in many ways. Our common EU membership and the courage of many people enabled peace—visibly and psychologically our divisions became less. The border disappeared, and the EU was a big part of that. Northern Ireland will have a problem with immigration unless there is a mechanism by which immigration is allowed across the borders from European states and which will facilitate not least the 30,000 cross-border workers and the 7% of employees from the EEA. Sixty per cent of our agricultural income derives from Europe. There are so many things that need to be done to protect us.

We need a soft border. No one has yet identified technology capable of maintaining an accurate record of the cross-border movement of goods without physical checks. The other day I heard a man on the radio say, “Are they going to get all the sheep out of the lorry and count them and then put them back in again? That’s what they used to do”.

If we withdraw from the single market and we do not negotiate some form of agreement with the EU or a bilateral UK-Irish agreement, all the evidence is that we will have to have some form of border or customs checks on parts of the 300-mile border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. They were not effective in the past; there is nothing to suggest that they would be effective in the future; and they would be very damaging.

The situation in Northern Ireland is very difficult at the moment. The problems of our internal divisions and our inability to govern ourselves using devolved powers are crippling our health service, our education and other infrastructures, we have an ongoing terrorism situation and confidence in our constitutional process has been eroded. The Brexit negotiations cannot result in the predicted economic difficulties as a consequence of something for which the people of Northern Ireland did not vote. Nor should they result in further constitutional instability. There is too much at risk here.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

I will bow to the House if it feels I should say no more. I want to make two more points but if the House thinks that I should not make them, I will sit down. Shall I carry on?

[Baroness O'Loan]

Yes.

[Lord McAvoy (Lab)]

Sit down.