Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 11th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, by this late hour we have heard many articulate, passionate and, dare I say, tetchy speeches. Accusations abound. We are told that the Bill is constitutional vandalism, no less—a law that will give succour to Putin. Surprisingly, the anti-Brexit coalition seem to have become fans of invoking Article 16, all as a stick to beat the Bill with.

Although we have listened to a plethora of lectures about tarnishing the UK’s international reputation, many of us who support the Bill’s aims emphasise the importance of UK politicians not further tarnishing their reputation at home among their national electorate. I make no apology for focusing on democracy and lawmaking within UK borders. My priority is national and popular sovereignty. As the noble Lord, Lord Dodds of Duncairn, reminded us, it is jarring when those ideals are cheered when they are bravely fought for in Ukraine but sneered at when they inspire voters or law changes at home.

A quick back to basics, lest we forget: in 2016 the UK as a whole, and that includes Northern Ireland, voted to leave the EU. Millions voted to take control of our laws, our borders and political decision-making. Lest we forget, many Brexiteers knew then that the protocol was a desperate, flawed fudge. Why? To get Brexit over the line. Why did we need to get Brexit over the line more recently? Because for years sections of the establishment tried to thwart and overturn the democratic decision of their own citizens, in flagrant disregard of the rule of law and any sense of democracy. Now that imperfect protocol, which has been inflexibly interpreted by one side, insists that the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the EU will hold sway over some UK citizens and compromises the integrity of the borders of the UK’s internal market.

When there has been a nod to democracy in this debate it has been when we have heard from, for example, the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, that the majority of Northern Irish parties object to the Bill. Similarly, we are reminded that, to quote one critic of the Bill in the other place,

“the majority of … Northern Ireland have not consented to Brexit in any form, and a majority of voters and MLAs reject the Bill in the strongest terms.”—[Official Report, Commons, 27/6/22; col. 76.]

But surely a UK-wide referendum means just that, not a balkanised, divisive approach to geographic political differences. The majority of London voted to remain, and the same in Scotland. Would it be okay if Greater London and Scotland declared UDI, saying that they preferred to stay in the EU single market and take instruction from the ECJ? Indeed, is this not just the approach that Nicola Sturgeon is adopting now in her demands for yet another independence referendum?

I note a certain double standard in respecting the wishes of the voters in devolved areas. My fellow Welsh citizens voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU. That did not stop Labour’s Mark Drakeford and the Senedd continually declaring that the electorate had made a grave error and trying to undermine that majority decision.

Of course, we can all note that the union is under strain at present. Since 2016, lots of British politicians seem to have noticed that the border between the six counties and the 26 counties is rather troublesome, let me say. Well spotted, if belatedly.

Yes, some in Northern Ireland are now arguing that that border is artificial and are calling for a border poll. It is absolutely legitimate to campaign for that border poll and, indeed, to campaign for a united Ireland, but that is a completely separate question from this one. The borders in which the majority voted to reclaim democratic sovereignty from the EU were the borders of the United Kingdom as is, and that is why, whatever our substantial differences on many matters, I give solidarity to the DUP and the unionist community, they may be surprised to hear.

A blame game has taken place in this Chamber that suggests that it is the DUP who are the anti-democrats here, expressed bluntly by the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Clarke, and the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham. That felt to me cheap, misplaced and ironic. Yes, ironic because actually all the DUP speakers were the ones who talked about civil liberties and equal treatment under the law, which are thrown out by the protocol. I am also rather worried when a government Minister, Chris Heaton-Harris, chides the DUP, saying,

“Whatever issues there are with the protocol, there are very important functions and services that the people of Northern Ireland need to work”—


as if the DUP had not noticed. However, when he says,

“whatever issues there are with the protocol”,—[Official Report, Commons, 7/9/22; col. 220.]

if the Government do not understand that these issues are not second-order, if they do not understand that these issues are crucial, it does not give me much faith that this Government will see the Bill through. I hope I am wrong.

Why attack the DUP? I appreciate that politicians who will not be bullied into U-turning and abandoning their mandate may be a rarity in this unelected Chamber, but I think it is admirable, and while I listened carefully to the wise words of the brilliant speech by the noble Lord, Lord Bew, if noble Lords here are really motivated by a desire to restore the power-sharing Executive, then it is simple: vote for the Bill. I certainly will, and I will be doing so on behalf of British voters as well.

Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th October 2022 Lords Chamber

It would be a great help all round if the Prime Minister would simply encourage people to go slow on all this and listen to what has been said in this debate by my noble friend Lady Altmann and others, which would be the right and sensible way forward. It cannot make sense to proceed in this way with a rotten Bill, which may be regarded, at best, as a way of getting other people to the negotiating table. It is no way for a grown-up Government to behave. We now have a Government again with adult supervision, so I hope that we can see the Government behaving sensibly on this in relation to our European friends. I am grateful to both my noble friends Lady Williams and Lady Altmann for giving us the chance to talk about this this afternoon.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, has done such fantastic work on pensions and much more that I admire. However, inevitably, in this instance, I completely disagree with her and with the whole tenor of her remarks and the remarks made by many since then. When the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, was speaking, I thought that that was the kind of detail I would like to go through when scrutinising the Bill, and the kind of discussion I assumed we would be having here. In fact, the points of view have become much broader.

I will comment on a few things and will not drag this out for too long. The noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, said that the issues in this Bill go far deeper, and are more important and fundamental, than Brexit. I think that this is because so many in this House still do not really understand what Brexit was all about or the important and fundamental principles at its heart. They do not understand, even now, as we have heard, why millions of people voted for it. When the emphasis is constantly on trustworthiness and integrity, and restoring the trust of the UK Government internationally, maybe people ought to consider that that is always the external focus of this discussion—but there is an internal focus. Surely at this moment, of all times, when political parties on all sides have a very fragile relationship with the voting public—who, let us be honest, are pretty disillusioned—we need to consider how we can restore trustworthiness and integrity with UK voters here at home.

The key to this protocol Bill is that many people in the UK, when they voted in 2019 for that manifesto, wanted to see through the decision of 2016 to leave the European Union. The issue of Northern Ireland was one of the ways through which people were saying, “You can’t have Brexit, because look at the Northern Irish issue”. So people wanted to find a solution to it. I regret that they were overreassured by the Government when they were told, “Don’t worry, we’ve dealt with the protocol issue”—I always had concerns about the protocol issue. However, the intention was not to allow the issue of Northern Ireland to undermine the decision of 2016, because—lest we forget—that 2016 decision was nearly undermined. Some here say, “Our word is our oath” and so on, but they did not think that then; everybody else voted for something, but some here said that it did not make any difference and then ignored it.

It seems that, even now, so much of the discussion we have had is disingenuous. I ask opponents of the Government and the Government this: when people say that surely we should spend a bit more time and pause, how long do they want? Is it any wonder that nothing gets done in this country, if people think that this is a speedy process? Since 2019 we have had this protocol Bill and it is going wrong. Something needs to be done. The idea that we can pause or stop it and reconsider is not because anybody thinks we should not rush it through. Really, the message is: can the Government pause it, slow down, change their mind and agree with me? That is not the same as saying that we should pause and rethink; it is saying, “Pause and do what I tell you to do”.

The noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, suggested that the Bill creates a bullying approach to negotiations with the EU. I disagree. For me, what the debate so far has illustrated is the bullying approach within this House on this discussion. The noble Baroness, Lady Chapman of Darlington, says that the Bill is not going to get through this House unless it is changed beyond all recognition. Really? Do we not have votes? What does the noble Baroness mean when she says it is not getting through?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

Just to correct what the noble Baroness said about my contribution, I did not say that the Bill will not get through; I said that it will not get an easy ride, and I think the discussion today has rather borne that out.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I wrote it down and I will check. It was said that if there were not substantial alterations to the Bill, this House will block it. I suggest that it might be a bit of an affront to democracy for people in this House to say that we should block the Bill. That is not our decision. When people here talk about how the Bill is an affront to democratic decision-making, I point out that threatening to block a Bill is an affront to democratic decision-making. When people say that they are worried that the Bill bypasses Parliament, and that they want to protect democratic norms and do not want the Government to become an elected dictatorship, they should note that blocking the Bill would imply bypassing Parliament, undermining democratic norms and turning this House into an unelected dictatorship.

Finally, why do I think the Bill is needed? This bit, I can go into. The problems of the operation of the protocol are well documented. Many people have greater experience of it than I do, but when we scrutinise the Bill and go through it, that is what we should talk about, and whether the Bill is fit for purpose to resolve some of those things. I agree with that. But the reason a Bill is needed is surely because the rule of law—and everybody here seems enthusiastic about the rule of law—will be applied differently to the people of Northern Ireland unless we do something about the way the protocol is being enacted. To be able to ensure that all citizens of the United Kingdom are treated equally under the law, we need to do something—it cannot be that all citizens are treated equally under the rule of law in the UK apart from a certain section of the UK who will be subject to decisions made by legislators that they have no control over.

As a civil libertarian, regardless of what you think of Brexit, if you believe in the rule of law, you cannot let things stand as they are. We need to urgently do something. While some have indicated that the real problem is Brexit, that ship has sailed. The British people spoke. Brexit is a reality and we have to live with that. We have to ensure that the people of Northern Ireland are not punished.

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

Has the noble Baroness seen the latest opinion poll, which shows that, when you exclude “Don’t knows”, 60% of British people want to rejoin the EU?

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I am always delighted when people think that opinion polls and what is said on Twitter are democracy in real life. I do not know why we bother with the ballot box—we should just go to an opinion poll. I believe in democracy and the democratic right of the British and UK people to make their decisions without rushing off to Opinium Research, or whoever it may be.

[Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)]

My Lords, I am sure the House would not expect me to, or hope that I would, follow that contribution. I apologise for not being able to speak at Second Reading. I was travelling, as it happens, back from the United States and could not get here before the proper time and date to indicate a wish to speak in the debate. However, that travel to the United States prompts me to say this: we ignore at our peril the importance attached on both sides of the aisle, and in both Houses of Congress, to the Belfast agreement. To put it neutrally, this Bill puts a stress and strain on that settlement. For that reason, and for all the others eloquently put forward today, this Bill should at the very least be delayed.

I remind the House that, some time ago, we were presented with a Bill nominally in relation to internal markets. It contained a Part 5, the purpose of which was to create a law whereby the Government would be excused when it broke the law. The Government have form on this matter, and there is a sense in which the Bill we are discussing is simply part of the same kind of thinking. What has been said today has been said with great eloquence; what was said in this House on the internal markets Bill was said with great eloquence and eventually the Government had to abandon it.