European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Hywel Williams]

I thank the hon. Lady for making that point. I am loth to stray into Northern Ireland politics for extremely clear reasons.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I would avoid it.

[Hywel Williams]

I take that advice. I say only that it has been suggested that some in Northern Ireland would surely see the Government’s taking this decision with no Assembly in place as being the diktat of a governor general, or at the very least unwise as a basis on which to proceed.

As I said, the elephant in the room is the question of who speaks for England. This is the last constitutional conundrum—the constitutional exceptionalism that successive Governments have failed to address in this place. Who speaks for England? Clearly on this matter, it appears that this Conservative Government do so. Are the Labour Opposition sanguine about that? I hope to press this amendment to a vote. I do not know how Labour will vote on it, but I remind them that their Labour colleagues in Cardiff are certainly not sanguine.

The Minister may point to the resurrected Joint Ministerial Committee as a cover for—