Queen’s Speech

Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve (CB)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, set out clearly for us today, it is not obvious where the legislation on constitutional and devolution issues is in the gracious Speech, yet that is the topic of today’s debate. The so-called British Bill of Rights would of course be such a measure but, as we heard, it is still postponed. The gracious Speech refers to the referendum but the enabling legislation for that was passed last year. Yet, that referendum is the overwhelming constitutional issue, colouring every other legislative proposal. I make no apology for focusing on it.

As we all know, public debate is full of predictions and of adverse comment on other people’s predictions. Many of the predictions about the referendum are indeed implausible. We should spend rather less time making and rubbishing predictions, but should try to identify risks. Risks must be taken seriously, even where we do not have the metrics or models to make precise predictions.

Today, I focus on a particular range of risks of Brexit: those to the UK’s current constitutional settlement and in particular to the common travel area that links the non-Schengen UK and the non-Schengen Republic of Ireland. If the UK were to leave the EU, the island of Ireland would be divided by a land frontier with the European Union approximately 300 miles long and which runs—as many of your Lordships will know—through rough terrain. By contrast, if Scotland left the UK, there would be a land border of less than one third that length. We are talking about a much larger proposition.

The common travel area has been in place since the 1920s and allows for very light-touch controls. In fact, it is not just a travel area. British and Irish people enjoy full access to one another’s state and society, not just to travel but to work, live and vote. Those are important links. Of course, it was necessary to impose further border controls during both World War Two, when naval realities limited migration from elsewhere, and the Troubles, when political realities did the same. Both periods revealed that this border is very hard to police well. Thankfully, with the peace process—imperfect and incomplete though it is—there is no great need to police it with precision. The UK and the Republic of Ireland have co-ordinated their visa and immigration policies and jointly maintain controls for the common travel area. I grant that that is not perfect but it is very good.

If the land border across the island of Ireland had to be hardened to maintain UK border controls with an EU of which it was no longer part, the damage to the peace process, to the economies of Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and the entire UK, and to relations between the states would affect virtually all the proposed legislation. The effects could be very great. The most overt support for hardening the border that I have found comes from David McNarry, head of UKIP in Northern Ireland, who said:

“I support patrols, active patrols”,

and pointed out that otherwise the border would be,

“wide open for migration, for the clever traffickers, for the criminals”.

I suppose he is right in his inference. However, it may be that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the right honourable Teresa Villiers, who supports Brexit, is also in favour of ending the common travel area. I have not been able to establish that, although it seems to follow as a logical consequence of the policy.

A great success of the peace process has been that support for Irish unity among nationalists in Northern Ireland—among both SDLP and Sinn Fein voters—has greatly declined, to a remarkable extent in the most recent polls. If a hardened border made altering the constitutional settlement once more seem a more urgent goal, there would be a huge and understandable temptation for Sinn Fein to seize the opportunity. Sinn Fein, which at present opposes Brexit, would have been handed an all too potent reason to revive abandoned territorial claims. I hope that even ardent Brexiteers will understand what they are risking.

I do not think it is profitable to try to quantify the costs of Brexit, but nor should we fantasise about the supposed benefits. But major risks matter. As the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has written recently, we could in the event of a vote to leave the EU lose not just one Union but two—not only the European Union but the United Kingdom. As someone with an Irish, a Scots, a Welsh and an English grandparent—three of the four were in uniform in World War I—I am a one-nation person, but my nation is the UK and I do not wish to see it dismembered. This, as I see it, is a risk that deserves all our attention and casts a shadow on every legislative proposal in the gracious Speech.