Northern Ireland

Debate between Colum Eastwood and William Cash

Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir William Cash]

The heading of the statutory instrument that we are discussing in this motion is “Constitutional Law”, and I am sorry to say that what my hon. Friend says—some reference to pathological something-or-other—makes absolutely no sense in relation to constitutional law. We in this country operate a constitutional law that confers sovereignty upon the Westminster Parliament. That includes the people of Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Northern Ireland, and it should do so equally.

Since Brexit, more than 640 laws, as we see each week in the European Scrutiny Committee, which I chair, have been passed already for Northern Ireland by the EU Council of Ministers: behind closed doors, in Brussels, by majority vote, without even a transcript. Can we imagine laws being passed in this country, in Westminster, without Hansard—without a transcript—and by majority vote? It is unthinkable.

[Colum Eastwood]

If memory serves me right, the hon. Gentleman voted for the protocol, which did not have a Stormont brake and had far more checks in it. Can he explain why he is voting against this?

[Sir William Cash]

Very simply, because we agreed that we would bring in the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, which I will come on to in a minute. That is the difference. That Bill would have dealt with the situation. We in the rest of the UK have left the EU and so are subject to our own laws and not those of the EU, as we were for the last 50 years.

As I said to my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith), this remains unfinished business. Pre-Brexit single market legislation continues in Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Protocol Bill dealt with the unacceptable imposition of EU laws, but that Bill is now being disposed of, to my very grave concern, although it was passed in this House by a majority of 72 on Third Reading, and most of the hon. Members here today—on the Government side of the House, anyway—voted for it.

The Windsor framework does not effectively disapply EU law as such in, for example, the customs regime, because that falls within the legal competence of the EU in relation to goods. If the UK purports to use its so-called veto—the Stormont brake—on this question, the EU will be able to get round it sooner or later on the green lanes and may invoke retaliatory measures. I am afraid I am not impressed by the expression “exceptional circumstances”—words mean what just we choose them to mean, as Humpty Dumpty said. The question is who is to be master—that is all—and I believe firmly that it will be the European Union.

One of my sadnesses about this whole business is that there really was a need for proper time to discuss alternative legal arguments in consultation with the Government. There are papers that have been produced in the last 48 hours and over the last few weeks—blogs and commentaries by distinguished lawyers—that clearly demonstrate that the arguments presented by the Government are not those agreed by other eminent lawyers. This is a point of law as well as a point of fact.

I am sure the question of democratic consent and the inadequacy of the Stormont brake will be addressed by DUP Members today. That question is as important for all of us as the main principle of the Union. The procedures have been rushed, and I simply cannot accept that it is right for a statutory instrument to be approved in this House today, when there is not yet a legal decision in the Withdrawal Agreement Joint Committee—that will not be until Friday, so we hear.

Furthermore, I now hear that the House of Lords, which is part of that Joint Committee, is not going to consider the statutory instrument until Wednesday 29 March, which is after the Withdrawal Agreement Joint Committee sits. The Government, in seeking approval of the statutory instrument today, are not doing so in synchronisation with the House of Lords. I find that manifestly unsatisfactory.

I am deeply concerned, too, that these procedures are not following the criteria of Standing Order No. 151 regarding the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. I think, if I may say so with great respect, that the Chairman of the Committee, the hon. Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden), should really be here today to explain its position. I was surprised to see a letter from the Secretary of State to the Chairman of that Committee dated 20 March.

Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Debate between Colum Eastwood and William Cash

Committee stage
Wednesday 20th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I promise to be brief, because we have heard a lot over the last number of days and we have heard a lot repeated as well. The Bill clearly and blatantly breaks international law. It breaks an agreement that the Government made with the European Union and that was trumpeted to the electorate as a fantastic deal. I think the Bill will end up going the same way as the Prime Minister.

[Sir William Cash]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Colum Eastwood]

No, I will not.

[Sir William Cash]

Will the hon. Gentleman be good enough to give way?

[Colum Eastwood]

I will not. Sit down!

This Bill is a sop to the DUP and a campaigning tool for the Foreign Secretary in the Conservative party leadership election. If it is driven through, the only likely outcome is a trade dispute with the European Union. Well, good luck to the next Prime Minister if they want to go into the general election with prices going even higher than they already are.

I have heard a lot from some interesting people about the Good Friday agreement. I have always supported the Good Friday agreement, and I am delighted that so many people support it now. However, there is a nonsense at the heart of the argument that the Good Friday agreement is based on consensus. It is not; that is not possible. I sat in the Northern Ireland Assembly for almost nine years, and there was very little consensus in that place. Things got gone and things got voted on, but majorities made decisions.

The reality for all those people who say they care about the people of Northern Ireland is that the people of Northern Ireland do not want this Bill. Their elected representatives do not want this Bill. The representatives of the business groups we have been told so much about do not want this Bill. Anybody with any sense knows that this is a blatant breaking of international law.

We have also heard an awful lot about the Union. I think that some people in this place, who have talked a lot about the Union but have acted in a certain way around this Brexit farce since 2016, will come to regret it. There will be statues erected in the new Ireland to Boris Johnson and some of the Members of the DUP, because that is the road that they have taken us down. I fully respect—by the way—the principle of consent, and it was my predecessor who made sure that it was in the Good Friday agreement. The constitutional position of Northern Ireland, whatever anybody says and however much I want to change it, cannot be changed until the people of Northern Ireland and the people of the Republic of Ireland vote to change it. To say anything else is just not true.

I wish to end my remarks with an ask of the DUP. We have been told over the past number of months that the Northern Ireland Assembly cannot meet unless this piece of legislation goes through. Well, this piece of legislation is just about to go through the House of Commons. Will the DUP now take the opportunity to go back into Stormont to live up to their responsibilities as democratically elected leaders in Northern Ireland and do the job that people are crying out for them to do? If they do not do so, the SDLP will put a recall motion into the Northern Ireland Assembly tonight, asking them to come back in to nominate a Speaker and to nominate a Deputy First Minister, who I hope will be the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson).

Despite all the talk about the Good Friday agreement, we have to get back to working together, to working the common ground, to dealing with the issues in our health service, in our economy and in all those issues that people say they care about. We will not be able to do that if we stay out of Government for months upon months upon months, because that is how long it will take for this Bill to get Royal Assent. That is my appeal to the DUP.

I make this appeal to the Government: there is no option to unilaterally rip up an agreement. The only way that we can do these sensitive, difficult things is to sit down with our partners and negotiate. I met Lord Frost many, many times when he was in that position. I did not get the sense that he was a man determined to find accommodation and compromise. Whatever things may look like in September, I appeal to the Government to sit down with the European Union and stop using Northern Ireland as a political football.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Colum Eastwood and William Cash

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 29th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir William Cash]

There has been a heated and, in many respects, misconceived debate about the question of our compliance with international law. I had something of an exchange with my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) on Second Reading. I made the point that UK law has, in the past, breached international treaties. That stands, because it is important for us to recognise that that has been the case.

Indeed, it is often forgotten that the EU guidelines of 29 April 2017, which my right hon. Friend’s Government allowed to happen, unilaterally imposed on us requirements contravening article 50 of the Lisbon treaty and insisted that we should obey the basis of the EU’s idea of the conduct of negotiations. As Clausewitz said, diplomacy is war by other means; I believe the gloves are about to have to come off.

The withdrawal agreement and the political declaration recognise the autonomy of the EU and the UK, but whereas the UK is a sovereign state, the EU is merely an international organisation. UK sovereignty is expressly recognised by the EU as of its own kind—sui generis. The EU manifestly contradicted that by insisting on European Court jurisdiction, thus subverting the constitutional status of Northern Ireland itself. It was even reported that that was the price we would have to pay. The EU continually denied our sovereignty during the negotiations with a wanton disregard of our unique, unwritten constitution and sovereignty, which it is bound to understand because we have been in a relationship within the same legal order for the last 40 years.

[Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir William Cash]

I do not have time, I am afraid.

At the same time, there have been a number of UK precedents, which I have explained already. I do not have the time to go into them; I will attempt, as other Members will have to, not to go into huge detail, but I will give a few examples. In 1945, a Finance Act passed by the Labour party overrode international law. The same applied to the Indian Independence Act 1947 and the Burma Independence Act 1947. In fact, in the case of India, more than 400 treaties were broken.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Debate between Colum Eastwood and William Cash

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Colum Eastwood]

It is, of course, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Rosie. Did I get those words right? I think I did.

In my view, this Bill is unfixable. It is probably unamendable. It is an assault on international law and an assault on devolution, and I think it is the beginning of the biggest act of economic self-harm for many a year. Our proposed amendments address the fact that the Government have, once again, forgotten about—that is a generous way of putting it—frontier and cross-border workers in Ireland. That is why we have tabled amendments 81 to 85, in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast South (Claire Hanna).

Before I get on to those specific amendments, I want quickly to address the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill). The amendment seeks to prevent from coming into effect, unless actively approved by the House of Commons, those parts of the Bill that give Ministers the powers to implement, against international law, parts of the Northern Ireland protocol. I fully believe that the hon. Gentleman is making a genuine attempt to inject some accountability into this process. However, let me tell hon. Members that people in Northern Ireland have been watching and they have absolutely no faith that this Government have one iota of interest in accountability, international law or the interests of people where I come from.

[Sir William Cash]

It seems to be generally understood that my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) will withdraw his amendment. I do not know whether that has been stated formally yet, but I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman could take into account the fact that that appears to be the case. I do not know whether Mr Speaker is aware of that. Sadly, my hon. Friend is not in his place at the moment, so it is rather difficult for us to be absolutely precise. I wonder whether I could have a ruling from the Chair on whether the amendment has been withdrawn.

[The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

It is important to remember, as the hon. Gentleman has said, that Sir Robert Neill is not in his place at the moment. It is a question of the amendment having to be moved and withdrawn, neither of which has happened, so I think we need to wait until he is here. At the moment, we work on the assumption, obviously, that it is something that can be discussed.