European Union (Withdrawal Arrangements) Bill

Ben Coleman Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 6th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jim Allister]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Those of us who are looking for a solution are supporters of this Bill, because we cannot go on as we are. Those who think that it is okay to subjugate part of their own territory are opposed to this Bill. They are quite content with the colonisation of part of our territory. In constitutional terms, where we have ended up is that Northern Ireland is no longer a full part of the United Kingdom. Why? It is because we are not our own masters in 300 areas of law and that a foreign jurisdiction makes those laws. What does that create? It creates what is called, in constitutional terms, a condominium: Northern Ireland is ruled in part by UK laws and in part by foreign laws. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) finds that hilarious—sorry, it is not hilarious to be subjected to that.

[Ben Coleman (Chelsea and Fulham) (Lab)]

I find myself surprised to agree to an extent with the former leader of the Conservative party, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith): we need to move away from some of the ridiculous, extreme language. There is no reason why the European Union would want to colonise Northern Ireland. Are we not talking about a sensible agreement that does not seek to impose sovereignty but instead seeks simply to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland, to safeguard the Good Friday agreement in all its dimensions and, at the same time, protect Northern Ireland’s place in the UK and in the UK internal market? Should we not recognise that and stop using extreme language that does nothing to take the debate sensibly forward?

[Jim Allister]

The whole purpose of this Bill is to restore equilibrium and to get us to a point at which we have a sensible relationship based upon mutual respect, not on the grabbing of the sovereignty, one from the other. That is where we have got to. The hon. Member may not like to face up to it, but a whole raft of jurisprudence and lawmaking has been removed from within the reach of this United Kingdom and placed within the control of a foreign body, and that is not the basis for a sustainable solution.

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[Jim Allister]

I have been very generous in giving way. In a way I am not assisting my cause, because I know Government Members want to talk the Bill out. I would rather see them take a stand on whether they are for or against the subjugation of sovereignty within the United Kingdom. I am going to move on and deal with these issues.

The hon. Member for Walthamstow referred to my taking a case to the Supreme Court. Why would I not? It is the Supreme Court of my United Kingdom. Why would I not take a case to the Supreme Court and test the laws that relate? I remind the House again that what the Supreme Court had to hold is that, because of the protocol so enthusiastically supported by Labour Members, Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom has been subjugated. The Supreme Court held that the fundamental building block of article 6 of the Acts of Union is in suspension because of the import of the protocol.

Some tell us, “Well, we don’t want to face these issues.” There is no option, we are told, because of the Belfast agreement. I have even read and heard people say, “The Belfast agreement prohibits a border on the island of Ireland.” I hold the agreement in my hand. I have read it many times. Perhaps someone could direct me: where in this document does it say that there cannot be a customs border on the island of Ireland? Where is it? It is not there! We already have a currency border, a VAT border, a tax border. Nowhere in the Belfast agreement does it say that you cannot have a customs border at the international boundary of the United Kingdom—nor should it. And then I am told, “This would breach international law if you did not have the protocol.” That is not correct either. A fundamental premise of international law is respect for territorial integrity. What have I been talking about for the last hour, if it has not been about respecting territorial integrity? That is the fundamental premise of international law.

It all goes back to the General Assembly of the United Nations declaration on principles of international law. What does it say? It says that territorial integrity is key, and that the declaration constitutes the basic principles of international law. It says:

“Every state shall refrain from any action aimed at…disruption of the national unity or territorial integrity of any other state.”

If only that had been adhered to. The declaration says:

“Where obligations under international agreements are in conflict with the obligations of this charter, the obligations of this charter shall prevail.”

So the fundamental principle is respect for territorial integrity. That is the governing principle of international law, so when an agreement comes into play that defies the fundamental requirement to respect territorial integrity, that agreement falls, not international law.

[Ben Coleman]

Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Jim Allister]

No, I am going to make some progress.

I strongly refute the fallacy that to depart from the Windsor framework is to breach international law. On the contrary, to perpetuate the infringement of our territorial integrity is to breach international law itself and, indeed, the Belfast agreement, which was built on consent, of which there has been none in respect of the current arrangements. The correct application of international law is to the effect that agreements that contradict the regulating principles, including respect for territorial integrity, are themselves the villains of the piece.

Having set out everything that is wrong, let me come to the solution. The Government have always told us that we cannot conduct sanitary and phytosanitary checks away from the border. It cannot be done, so we must have a border—in our case, in the Irish sea. But this week a statutory instrument was laid before this House that does exactly that. It does it for goods that come from the EU, via Northern Ireland, to GB. It says that the goods can be checked wherever they arrive, such as at factories or other premises; they do not have to be checked at the border. If we can do that for goods coming through Northern Ireland to GB, why can we not do it in reverse? Of course we could check goods without tampering with sovereignty; we could do so anywhere within the territory of the United Kingdom. It is not the impracticability of carrying out the necessary checks that is the problem; it is the fact that under the surrender of sovereignty it has been insisted that they are carried out in the Irish sea border.

That brings me to clauses 16 to 18 and the concept they would permit of mutual enforcement. I readily accept that the clauses draw heavily on the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill 2022—which found the approval of the previous Parliament—but they are none the worse for that. What they do is simple: they say that two respecting neighbours—that is what I hope the United Kingdom and the EU are—with the necessary trust between each other can operate a system where they mutually check the goods flowing through their territory to ensure they meet the standards of the recipient territory. That is a fundamental tenet of much of international trade. It is something that can be built upon in respect of this matter that the United Kingdom says, “Yes, we know the EU wants to protect, it tells us, its single market and, yes, we want to protect our single market, so we will undertake, by virtue of criminal sanction for those who do not, to check that goods flowing from our factories to your consumers, from our territory to your territory, meet the standards you set, and we expect you to do the same.” That can be done without any of the paraphernalia that we presently have.

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[Peter Dowd]

I do not think it is a humiliating concession, but if it is a concession at all, I think it is an attempt, given the circumstances that we faced, to reach an agreement with trading partners in the light of the decision of the British people. We live in a world where we do not get everything we want. We live in a world where there is a little bit of give and a little bit of take, and sometimes we are able to give more than we take, and vice versa. As I have said, however, I do not want to go down that rabbit hole, because I do not think it is necessarily the subject of today’s debate. We touch on it, and it is pertinent, but I do not think it should dominate the whole debate.

There is no doubt that the subject is fraught with all the concerns and anxieties and consternation to which I referred earlier, and we have to operate in the wider political environment and milieu in which countries have to operate all the time. I think it only fair to point out that the law of unintended consequences may decide to poke its head around the door, and perhaps even to walk into the Chamber, and there will be nothing that we can do. That is the very nature of the issue that confronts us. There are no easy solutions. There are no easy answers to difficult questions. There are no off-the-cuff responses that will sort out the issue. That is a statement of the obvious.

[Ben Coleman]

I very much like the image of the law of unintended consequences poking its head around the door. One thing that has occurred to me during this debate is that we need, in Northern Ireland and Great Britain and the whole of our United Kingdom, to try to reduce the red tape that Brexit has introduced. One of the most important steps that we could take is to enter into a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement with the European Union, but if we are to do that, we will need the EU to trust us, and to accept that if we negotiate with it and reach an agreement, we will stick by that agreement. Is not the challenge, in the context of this particular Bill, that one of the laws of unintended consequences might be that the EU simply will not engage in the discussion and negotiation that we need in order to proceed with those red-tape-reducing measures?

[Peter Dowd]

That is a perfectly valid point. Clearly, the hon. Gentleman has had a sneak preview of the points that I will raise later on. I will take up that matter with my staff.

It is important to recognise that those views are considered. I am sure that those views have been informed by many events, circumstances and long-held political opinions, and by culturally held views, which, in turn, have been informed by many personal and political experiences—some constructive and positive, and others negative and traumatic. In justice to the debate, I am sure that Members have attempted to bring if not a fresh perspective to it, then at least a perspective that takes into account the views of others from across the Chamber.

In this debate, the word “irrelevant” may itself become irrelevant, because we must face up to the fact that many of the points being made are not irrelevant, given the wide-ranging impact that any change to the law would have on internal and external relationships, both in a formal legal sense and informally, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Ben Coleman) said.

On trust, the Bill asks the House to abrogate our treaty obligations under the withdrawal agreement. That is worrying. Having given this some thought, I decided to look at the treaty landscape and the issue of necessity, which has been raised. That then sets off the justified claim about the potential for abrogation, so it is a good place to start. The ecosystem around treaties goes to the heart of the efficacy of partnerships, relationships and—dare I use the word—trust between those who sign a treaty.

This issue really goes to the heart of the question of trust, belief or faith in what we say as a nation. I look to our finest playwright to set the scene—in fact, I go to scene four from Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part 3:

“For trust not him that hath once broken faith”.

The concept of oaths and promises was explored by William Kerrigan in his book, “Shakespeare’s Promises”. It is important to quote this, because it goes to the heart of the matter. He writes:

“It is impossible to imagine any kind of moral life without obligations, and impossible to imagine obligations without types of promises. We are always up against them. Before we ever reflect on what a promise is, we have made them and are expected to make more of them. We are born into nations that enter into treaties and agreements. Promises are with us like gravity. Man is a promising animal.”

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[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to be called in this debate—and nice to have an opportunity to stand up. It is also nice to see such enthusiasm for this subject from Labour Members, and I can see how disappointed many of them are not to have been called in this debate.

There are so many things that one might say about the extremely interesting Bill introduced by the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister). We know that it will not progress, as Labour Members intend to talk it out, but I want to talk about some of the ideas and principles that have been raised today, and indeed some of the ideas and principles that are contained within this interesting Bill.

Many new and enthusiastic Labour Members were not here during the difficult days of 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, although some senior and experienced Members were. When looking at that densely packed history, there is a temptation to step back. We perhaps do not need to go back quite as far as Sophocles, although the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) always peppers his interesting remarks with cultural references. I was reminded of something else that Sophocles said: “There is a point at which even justice does injury.” There is something in these conflicting ideas of law, international law, obligation and principle that rings with Sophocles.

In those Brexit days, mistakes were made by hon. Members on both sides of the House. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) has referred to mistakes made by the then Administration. They created a starting position that some of us did not want and that has had long consequences. But we are, as has often been said, where we are. From those starting points there has been progress of a type.

The initial proposals for the backstop were unquestionably bettered by the protocol. The Windsor framework, I believe, is better than the protocol. “Safeguarding the Union” is better than the Windsor framework, but that does not mean that further progress is not possible.

As the Windsor framework approaches its second birthday, it is worth taking stock of what has emerged from it. Obviously it made some improvements and achieved some of what it set out to do, but there is still the problem that Opposition Members have raised with the flow of certain goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That is not a frivolous concern; it is a serious concern. The promised investment—we were going to see Northern Ireland becoming a Singapore of the west—has not happened. I have asked about it in my conversations and in my visits to Northern Ireland, and I have heard that it has certainly not yet materialised.

On Wednesday night, the House debated the Secretary of State’s statement on legacy and on the challenges that he is bringing to judgments made at the Court of Appeal in Belfast. The interpretation of the Windsor framework is a very live issue that could have profound and long-reaching consequences for how law operates in this country. Even then, it must be acknowledged that popular opinion in Northern Ireland is shifting slowly. Queen’s University Belfast carries out regular polls on how people feel about it. It is becoming less popular over time. That may change, but it is an issue. These are all practical issues, even before we reach the serious issues, which must never be discarded, about sovereignty.

If this is where we are right now with the framework, we have to ask what will happen next. The Labour Government were elected not six months ago, with a considerable majority, on a manifesto that committed to

“implementing the Windsor Framework in good faith and protecting the UK internal market”.

They must be sure to do both. Both elements of that promise to the British people are extremely significant.

Opposition Members have raised many issues that have arisen with particular goods in particular sectors. Nowhere are those issues more pressing than in the SPS arrangements and the veterinary medicine arrangements. I talked to farmers in Belfast a few days ago, and they said that they were concerned that the Government do not appreciate that time is of the essence. The right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) mentioned the need for haste in the Paymaster General’s work. It is indeed pressing, because the timescale that the EU is briefing out is the next two to three years, and the grace period is due to end at the end of 2025. More than 50% of Northern Ireland’s medicines will not be sourceable from the UK. That has a huge implication for farming and agriculture, which is a major part of the economy in Northern Ireland, as I do not need to remind Members of the House.

[Ben Coleman]

Does the hon. Gentleman think that the Bill would make it easier or more difficult for the Government to enter into successful negotiations on a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement?

[Alex Burghart]

As the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim says, if the Bill were to pass—as we know it will not, because it is being talked out—there would not be the same need for that sort of deal, because goods would be flowing freely from GB to Northern Ireland, so the question is at best academic.

[Ben Coleman]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?