European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Swire and Mark Durkan

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 6th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan]

The real guarantors of the peace process were the people of Ireland when they voted by referendum in May 1998 to choose and underpin the agreement. Neither of the two main parties in this House had a vote in that referendum, and nor did the two parties in Washington, so let us be clear on who the real guarantors are. In the context of a debate in which we are told we have to go by the imperative of the referendum that took place on 23 June last year, let people recognise that there is still an imperative that goes back to the joint referendum—that articulated act of self-determination by the Irish people, who chose to underpin and agree to the Good Friday agreement.

The right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) says he does not want uncertainty, but as far as the Good Friday agreement is concerned, the uncertainty is being created by Brexit. Neither he nor anyone else in this House should be surprised when they start to hear that the negotiations that take place after the Assembly elections will not just deal with the questions of scandal, the lack of accountability and transparency, and the smugness and arrogance displayed by the parties in government, but will go to the core of the implications for the agreement as a result of Brexit.

The fact is that although the Good Friday agreement has been wrongly dismissed by others, the EU is mentioned in it. It is there in strands 1 and 2—one of the most expansive references is in relation to the competence of the North South Ministerial Council; it is there in strand 3; and, of course, it is there in the key preamble of the agreement between the Government of the UK and the Government of Ireland, which refers to their common membership of the EU. As John Hume always predicted, that provided both the model and the context for our peace process.

It is no accident that when John Hume, who drove so much of the principles and method into the Good Friday agreement, was awarded the Nobel peace prize—well, just look at that speech and how many references there were to the signal role of Europe and the special contribution it had made and would make, and to the role that the experience of common membership of the EU would play. That is why he said:

“I want to see Ireland—North and South—the wounds of violence healed, play its rightful role in a Europe that will, for all Irish people, be a shared bond of patriotism and new endeavour.”

When he enunciated those words in 1998, he was not talking about a new concept. We can look across the Chamber and see the plaque commemorating Tom Kettle, a former Member of this House who gave his life in the first world war. Before that war, he said that his programme for Ireland consisted in equal parts of home rule and the 10 commandments. He said:

“My only counsel to Ireland is, that to become deeply Irish, she must become European.”

Before he gave his life in the war, he said:

“Used with the wisdom that is sewn in tears and blood, this tragedy of Europe may be and must be the prologue to the two reconciliations of which all statesmen have dreamed, the reconciliation of Protestant Ulster with Ireland, and the reconciliation of Ireland with Great Britain.”

That reconciliation was best achieved and best expressed when we had the Good Friday agreement, which was so overwhelmingly endorsed in this House and in the referendum of the Irish people, north and south of the border. We know that some people did not endorse it, and that some have held back their endorsement and refused to recognise that referendum result. Some of them are the same people who are telling us now that we have to abide by the referendum result in respect of Brexit and that we have to ignore the wishes of the people of Northern Ireland in respect of remaining in the EU. It is the same as when they said that we had to ignore the wishes of the people in Northern Ireland in respect of the Good Friday agreement.

No one should be under any misapprehension that there are implications for the Good Friday agreement. When we hear this lip service that we get from the Government, the rest of us are meant to lip synch along with it and talk about frictionless borders and the common travel area. All those things about the border experience and the common travel area predate the agreement itself, so if we address those issues and those concerns, we must understand that the terms in which they are addressed are not reliable and that they are not relevant to protecting some of the aspects of the agreement itself, which is why the amendments in this group that we have tabled are so important.

The right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) has already referred to new clause 150, which appears on page 74 of the amendment paper. We have also tabled a key amendment, amendment 86, to which the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) referred when he addressed new clause 109. There are also amendments 88 and 92, which deal with questions around the competence of the devolved Assembly, and the need for consent in respect of any changes to the competence of that Assembly or of devolved Ministers. Those amendments are not about the question of the Assembly giving consent to the triggering of article 50, so it is not about the same question that went to the Supreme Court—but it is about issues and principles that were addressed and are expressed in the judgment of the Supreme Court that too many people have sought to ignore.

As a supposed co-guarantor of the Good Friday agreement, the UK Government are meant to have a duty to protect and develop that agreement. Indeed, various Ministers have told us that they have no intention of allowing Brexit to undermine the agreement. If that is so, there should be no difficulty in having that commitment in the Bill. Politically, we all have to conclude from the Supreme Court judgment that no matter what principles have been agreed or established, none of us can have recourse to their legal adherence without their explicit inclusion in legislation and/or a treaty. We therefore have a duty to be vigilant against any legislative terms that could be used to relegate the crucial importance of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 and/or the Belfast agreement more widely.

Those sponsoring and supporting this Bill do so arguing the need to respect the outcome of the referendum on 23 June. We make no apologies for highlighting the primacy that has to be accorded to the overwhelming endorsement in our referendum, when, on 22 May 1998, nearly 72% of people in Northern Ireland and 96% in the south of Ireland voted in favour of the Good Friday agreement.

[Sir Hugo Swire]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about some extraordinarily challenging and difficult issues, which could have very serious implications in Northern Ireland. It seems to me that it is our duty—all of us who want to see Northern Ireland prosper and go forward—to recognise the fact that the UK is exiting the EU and that we have to make the most of it. Will he commit to the House that he will not make divisions over Brexit part of the SDLP campaign during the Northern Ireland elections?

[Mark Durkan]

The right hon. Gentleman has some neck to ask the Social Democratic and Labour party not to make divisions over Brexit an issue in the election. The wishes of the people of Northern Ireland, which were clearly expressed in the referendum last year, are being ignored. Are we now also to tell the people, “Ignore your own wishes”? The right hon. Gentleman obviously expects a party like the SDLP, which honourably fought a campaign to remain, to say, “Ignore your wishes. Set them aside. You have to be slaves to the impulses of a vote in England in response to some crazy argument.”

Clause 1(2) denies any regard whatever to protecting the constitutional, institutional or rights provisions of the Good Friday agreement or their due reflection in the Northern Ireland Act 1998, which is why we tabled amendment 86. Clause 1(2) seeks to ensure that the Bill is not restricted by any other legislation whatever. Amendment 86 would create an exception for the Northern Ireland Act 1998. Crucially, it would uphold the collateral principles in the other part of the Good Friday agreement, which is between the Governments of the UK and Ireland, and is not fully reflected in the 1998 Act. The amendment would also exempt section 2 of the Ireland Act 1949 from the override power in the Bill or its outworkings. I admit that the amendment would act as a boundary to the powers provided to the Prime Minister by clause 1(1) and would galvanise the protection for the agreement but, given that the Prime Minister is trying to tell us that she would observe those boundaries, why should she fear that being on the face of the Bill?

New clause 150 draws on key language from the Good Friday agreement, as I made clear to the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean. It is intended to ensure that any future UK-EU treaty—we are told that the Government want to negotiate a new UK-EU treaty—will make explicit reference to upholding the fundamental constitutional precept of the Good Friday agreement, which is the principle of consent that affords a democratic route to a united Ireland if that ever becomes the wish of a majority of people in Northern Ireland. In the case of any such future referendum, no uncertainty whatever must hang over Northern Ireland’s direct admission to the EU as a consequence of a vote for a united Ireland. Nor, indeed, must there be any uncertainty over Ireland’s terms of membership of the European Union.

Such uncertainty was deployed during the Scottish independence referendum, when people said, “Don’t make assumptions about Scotland having an automatic place in the EU or that the process will be easy. Article 49 will make it very difficult.” The difference for Northern Ireland is that it does not have the choice of becoming a new state. Under the Good Friday agreement, its only choice is membership of the United Kingdom or membership of a united Ireland. That agreement was made at a time when both countries had common membership of the EU. Any future referendum will not take place in that situation. Lots of people can place question marks over whether Northern Ireland would have straightforward entry to the EU in that context. Under the terms of the Good Friday agreement, that could constitute an external impediment to the exercise of that choice or even to the choice of having a referendum.

The Taoiseach identified this issue at the MacGill Summer School last year. It will be an issue for the Irish Government, as one of the 27 member states, when they negotiate their side of the treaty. It would be an odd position for the Irish Government as a co-guarantor of the Good Friday agreement to want this to be reflected in a new UK-EU treaty. This is not just an issue for the British Government as a co-guarantor of the Good Friday agreement; it should be something that they are equally and comfortably committed to.

Let us remember that the key precept of the principle of consent and the democratic choice for a united Ireland, as reflected in a referendum in 1998, was the key point that turned it for those people who had locked themselves on to the nonsense idea that they supported violence sourced from a mandate from the 1918 election. That was the key for quite a number of people to say, “Physical force has no more place in the course of Irish politics.” Physical force is now parked because the Irish people as a whole have, in this generation, by articulated self-determination, upheld this agreement, and that gives them the right, by further articulated self-determination, to achieve unity in the future. Anything that diminishes or qualifies or damages that key precept will damage the agreement. People need to know the difference between a stud wall and a supporting wall: just knocking something through because it is convenient and gives a bit more space might be grand and might do, but if at some future point, when other pressures arise, things start coming down around us, people should not complain. We have to be diligent and vigilant on these matters.

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[Sir Hugo Swire]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that before there are any new bodies or any more reviews, the priority for the people of Northern Ireland should be to get a working Assembly and re-elect a working Executive to get on with running Northern Ireland, so that all these things can then be dealt with? Without that, there will be no more devolution of anything it seems.

[Mark Durkan]

Yes, and my party and I are fully pledged to doing that. Nobody worked harder to create the principles and the precepts of the agreement and to get those institutions established and up and running—and we did so, I have to tell the right hon. Member for North Shropshire, with very good assistance from the EU. As someone who was a Minister in Northern Ireland—both a Finance Minister and a Deputy First Minister—I had many negotiations with many people in the EU, including Michel Barnier, who was very constructive and helpful in relation to a number of funding issues. Yes, he had his particularisms about which one had to be careful and understand where he was coming from, and certainly his officials had to understand where he was coming from, but it was a useful and constructive contribution—one of many—from the EU.