Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland (Democratic Consent Process) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his explanation of the regulations. It is important to remember the political reasons for the Northern Ireland protocol and to recall and emphasise that the purpose of the Good Friday agreement was to ensure that those who come from a unionist background, from a nationalist background and from neither can work together and build relationships. It is not one-sided by any manner of means. The whole purpose of the protocol was to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland and to protect our peace and political process—the delicate political architecture that was carved out of the Good Friday agreement and the Northern Ireland Act 1998.

I remind your Lordships that Northern Ireland voted on a majority vote to remain in the European Union and did not ask for Brexit, so it is important that those delicately balanced relationships are nurtured and built on. The Good Friday agreement was not an end in itself: we need to be able to build the healing process on our island, which has been painfully slow, characterised by long interruptions to the political institutions over the past 22 years. No political impediments should be put in the way of such processes taking place in a natural way.

I remind my unionist colleagues here today that I, as a democratic Irish nationalist, do not want a border in the Irish Sea, nor on the island of Ireland. I think that characterises the view of democratic Irish nationalism. We have to get around this in some way or another. The protocol is important, but I have a problem with the way the Government have invoked the consent principle contained in the Good Friday agreement. The point was raised in the House of Commons Delegated Legislation Committee by Karin Smyth of Labour’s Front-Bench team. The UK Government are stretching the idea of consent way beyond the real, explicit consent principle which is in the Good Friday agreement—the provisions around a border poll and a change in the constitutional status of Northern Ireland.

It may be helpful if I quote from that agreement. I bear in mind that certain people in this debate, such as the noble Lords, Lord Empey and Lord Murphy, were part of the negotiating process of the agreement, but the principle of consent is set out clearly in the Good Friday agreement in the constitutional issues provision, which recognises that it is

“for the people of … Ireland alone, by agreement between the two parts respectively and without external impediment, to exercise their right of self-determination on the basis of consent, freely and concurrently given, North and South, to bring about a united Ireland, if that is their wish, accepting that this right must be achieved and exercised with and subject to the agreement and consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland”.

It also specifically only requires a majority of the people of Northern Ireland, not a majority of any one community. It is important to be clear that the principle of consent is in no way undermined by the protocol to the withdrawal agreement, which specifically reaffirms it and the territorial integrity of the UK.

Even if it could be legitimately argued that the principle of consent applies more broadly, or should apply to any implementation of the protocol, it is difficult to see why, then, it should not also apply to Brexit itself, which a clear majority of the people in Northern Ireland expressly voted against. In practice, the Government seem selective about what consent really means and whose consent they are really talking about.

In this respect, I ask the Minister: what discussions have taken place with the Northern Ireland Executive, Northern Ireland political parties and the Irish Government, with whom the Government are supposed to be in a bipartisan approach in the implementation and working out of the agreement? Did the Government talk to those various people in the Irish Government, the Northern Ireland Executive and the Northern Ireland Assembly about the content of this statutory instrument? If so, what was the outcome of those discussions; and, if not, why did they not talk to them, because surely they are the people who will be most directly affected, as well as the people of Northern Ireland.

I will leave it there with the Minister and hope that the Government will reconsider this use of the consent principle and will not bring forward these regulations in this form.