European Union (Withdrawal Arrangements) Bill

Debate between Jim Allister and Alex Ballinger

2nd reading
Friday 6th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jim Allister]

Absolutely. I printed them off a couple of months ago and I was staggered by how voluminous just the titles are. It is not just 300 laws; it is 300 areas of law which have been surrendered.

I have a challenge for every Member of this House who comes from a different part of the United Kingdom from Northern Ireland—those who represent GB constituencies. My challenge to them today is: “How would you feel if in 300 areas of law affecting your constituents, you had no input—you couldn’t change, you couldn’t move an amendment—because those laws were made colonial-like in a foreign Parliament by those elected not by your constituents but by the constituents of 27 other countries?” How, I ask this House, could any democrat, any representative MP, say that is right and correct?

[Alex Ballinger (Halesowen) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for introducing this debate. He is talking about the democratic deficit; is it not right that the Northern Ireland Assembly will be debating consenting to the procedures on 10 December, and are we not pre-empting that debate by holding this debate here now?

[Jim Allister]

I will be dealing with that, but the hon. Member invites us to think that it is appropriate that those elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly should turn up on Tuesday of next week and vote to disenfranchise their own constituents—to say, “You, our constituents in Northern Ireland who sent us to the Northern Ireland Assembly, we are not worthy to make your laws. We must bow to the superiority of a foreign Parliament, and we must surrender to that foreign Parliament the right to make these laws in hundreds of areas of law.” The hon. Member might think that is admirable and is the very epitome of democracy, but I happen to think it is the very opposite.

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[Jim Allister]

Absolutely. I will return to that.

[Alex Ballinger]

Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

[Jim Allister]

I will make some progress. I will be as generous as I can with interventions, because I know that Government Members want to talk this Bill out—and, because they are not shame-faced enough, some of them want to vote against the principles of the Bill, but there we go.

The right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) makes an important point. The reason why that point has traction is found in EU regulation 625 from 2017. It determines that Northern Ireland is, according to our courts, for these purposes, EU territory. We have had several legal cases in Northern Ireland, such as the Rooney case. The judgment in that case established that the EU official controls on food and feed law, animal health, plant health and so on have to be in place because our High Court has ruled that under that applicable EU law, for regulatory and customs purposes, the entry point to the EU is the Northern Ireland ports. Could it be any more Union-dismantling than that? Under EU law, to which we are subject, the entry point to the EU is the ports of Northern Ireland.

Mr Justice Colton said that EU regulations must be interpreted according to EU law as a result of article 4.1 of the withdrawal agreement and article 13.2 of the protocol, which, he goes on to say, have domestic effect in the United Kingdom under section 7A the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. He said that under the withdrawal agreement it is at Northern Ireland ports that EU territory is entered. He went on:

“The UK is not to be treated as a unitary state for the purposes of OCR checks coming from GB into NI.”

Could it be any more stark that Northern Ireland has been colonised by the EU?

What is a colony? It is a territory governed by someone else’s laws from a foreign jurisdiction. When 300 areas of law—including customs, and including the very definition of Northern Ireland’s territory in trading terms—are governed by foreign EU laws, we have created a situation in which, in that context, Northern Ireland is a veritable colony. There are many people in the House—the Government Benches opposite are populated by many of them—who boast of their anti-colonialism. They constantly pride themselves on their anti-colonial heritage. Yet here we have a part of this United Kingdom colonised by EU law, to the point that we are told that when someone enters the ports of Northern Ireland, they enter EU territory.

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[Jim Allister]

The late Lord Trimble was absolutely right about that. What is happening on Tuesday is an invitation to the Assembly, courtesy of the Government’s directive, to tear up the key central portion of the Belfast agreement on cross-community consent. There is another point.

[Alex Ballinger]

The hon. and learned Member talks about the Good Friday agreement. Why does his Bill not guarantee that the institutions of the agreement have powers, and why is he happy to put those with UK Government Ministers, unlike the existing arrangements under the Windsor framework?

[Jim Allister]

My Bill is about seeking to restore democracy to the arrangements. That is why I want to take back from Brussels control over our laws. My Bill is a charter for democratic progress. The present arrangements are the antithesis of democratic operation.