Brexit: UK-Irish Relations

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, it has been a long evening, but an interesting one. Much accumulated wisdom has shone through the various individual contributions to this important debate on the excellent report which the Select Committee produced. Like other noble Lords, I send my best wishes to the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, for a speedy and quick recovery.

The noble Lord, Lord Jay, in opening the debate with a very good speech, my noble friends Lord Dubs and Lady Armstrong, and others all said that it was a great mistake that the business of Northern Ireland and of Ireland did not feature in the referendum campaign and debates. Would it have made a difference? I doubt it, certainly not in my area, where, unfortunately from my point of view, the constituents I used to represent voted to leave the EU. Nevertheless, it would have been wholesome had there been a proper debate which would have covered the issues which we are covering tonight.

I also have to agree with a number of noble Lords—including the noble Lords, Lord Carlile and Lexden, and again my noble friend Lady Armstrong—about the response which the committee had from the Government a few hours ago. It has taken nine months to produce this paper. To be perfectly honest, they would have been better off not producing it. If this took nine months, God only knows what is going to happen with the negotiation with the European Union generally, because frankly it is an empty and vacuous paper. I suppose in my ministerial lifetime I probably produced a few of these, but it is not really very good. Its intentions are okay, the observations are okay, but like the position papers, there are no solutions in there—nothing about possible options and solutions to the issues that we have been describing today. I am not suggesting for one second that there are easy solutions to any of the problems that we have discussed for the last five hours, but nevertheless to produce this so late really does the Government no good at all.

However, we are told, and the Minister will tell us later, that there has been some progress with regard to citizens’ rights and the common travel area, and that is to be welcomed. The paper of course recognises the importance of Ireland to everyone concerned—the EU, the Republic and the UK. The noble Lord, Lord Bew, certainly acknowledged that the implications of Brexit for the Republic of Ireland are in themselves unique. No other country is going to be affected by Brexit more than the Republic. Trade between our two countries—over €1 billion a week between the two economies, with about half a million jobs involved—will inevitably be affected dramatically. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, made a very important point about goods from Ireland travelling through the UK, which again is something that I have not seen mentioned in many of these debates and discussions. The noble Lord, Lord Bew, remarked that the effect upon the economy of the Republic could perhaps be the most significant result of Brexit.

Inevitably, the Good Friday agreement has been touched upon on a number of occasions over the last few hours. I believe that the agreement was tied up with our membership of Europe. George Mitchell, who, as your Lordships know, chaired the all-party talks, said only a few months ago that our joint EU membership with the Republic of Ireland was an important factor in the success of the agreement. The noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney was a significant figure in those talks. He is a committed European, and has been all his life. I recall that in May 1997 a contact in the Belfast Telegraph congratulated me on being made the first European Minister for Northern Ireland.

It is so important to understand that it is not necessarily the wording in the Good Friday agreement that is significant. The agreement between the two Governments said that they wished,

“to develop still further the unique relationship between their peoples and the close co-operation between their countries as friendly neighbours and as partners in the European Union”.

The fact that we were part of the same club, the same institution, meant that all the barriers between the two countries that had been there for 50 or 60 years disappeared, because we were meeting all the time as members of the EU. In part of this excellent report, the outgoing ambassador from Ireland indicated that there were maybe 25 meetings a day in Brussels in which British and Irish Ministers and officials interchanged all the time. From a human point of view, that has meant over the last 20 or 30 years that it has made a difference to the relations between ourselves and Ireland. That is why, in all three strands of the Good Friday agreement, there is reference to Europe. It is not that technical reference that matters, though; it is the fact that we were all members of the same institution. In fact, just after the new Assembly was established in 1998, as some noble Lords will remember, the entire Assembly went to Brussels to talk to European parliamentarians and Commissioners about the importance of Europe in Northern Ireland.

The border has been mentioned by, for example, my noble friends Lord Hain and Lord Dubs. From listening to the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, it seems pretty impossible to solve this one. We could make it easier—there are technological solutions that could doubtless be used, although having read them I personally find them very baffling—but that would not solve the problem. The only real way in which the problem can be solved is, obviously, for us to be in the same customs union. That is the only way in which it could work. I do not think any of us in this Chamber, or indeed in Britain and Ireland, want a return to the border that we all witnessed, particularly during the Troubles, but I just do not see any easy way out of this.

The report also emphasised the unique nature of the relationship between Britain, Ireland and Northern Ireland as it concerns Brexit. That uniqueness needs to be addressed. The noble Lord, Lord Trimble, addressed it at the beginning of the debate. The Irish Government are nervous about bilateral agreements between the British and Irish Governments. I can understand that, because of the position they are in within the European Union, but it is unique. There is nowhere else on the whole continent of Europe where the situation of Ireland is replicated. Nowhere has had a peace process such as this. Fifty-six per cent of the population of Northern Ireland voted to remain, more than those who voted to leave in the rest of the United Kingdom. They will be ignored, despite the fact that the principle of consent is written into the Good Friday agreement.

It seems to me that the two Governments, which are, after all, the joint guarantors of the Good Friday agreement, have to work together in a special way. I know that to many unionists, the idea of special status is anathema, and I do not argue for that; I argue for special arrangements to be made. The Good Friday agreement was in any event a special arrangement, different from devolution in Wales and in Scotland. It was a special arrangement, so why can we not have a special arrangement between the British and Irish Governments within the structure of the European Union negotiations, to deal with these difficult issues? Perhaps we cannot, but it is something that we should consider.

Of course, none of this can happen properly unless the Northern Irish parties are engaged—it is a waste of time. Throughout this debate, many Members of the House referred to the fact that we are without an Executive. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, referred to the fact that there is now no nationalist voice in the House of Commons. When I was a Member of that place for 30 years, there always was; there is no more. Some of the solutions to the issues of Brexit lie in the institutions which have developed in the past 20 years. The British-Irish Council has not met recently. There is the joint ministerial committee, which involves all the different Ministers from the different devolved Administrations. There is not a single Northern Ireland voice on any of those bodies. The British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference needs to be revitalised, and there is of course the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, an excellent institution which I once chaired, but ultimately, if these bodies do not have on them proper representatives of the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly, we cannot properly hear the voice of the people of Northern Ireland. That is a distinct tragedy.

It is now up to the Government not simply to negotiate with the European Union about what happens in Ireland and Northern Ireland but to negotiate with the political parties in Northern Ireland to get a solution to the problems there which mean that we have no Executive. I understand that the Secretary of State has begun further talks in Belfast. Unless those talks are successful, it seems to me that the situation with regard to Brexit in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland will worsen. Although those other issues which the political parties are dealing with in Northern Ireland—those of the past and of the Irish language—are very important, it seems to me that the issue of Brexit should dominate discussion politically in Northern Ireland at the moment. It is up to the Government, the Secretary of State, the Minister and the Prime Minister to go across the Irish Sea—as previous Prime Ministers have done—to ensure that these negotiations are successful, because the key to the success of Brexit in Ireland and Northern Ireland and to the future prosperity and stability of Northern Ireland lies in those negotiations in Belfast.