New Partnership with the EU

Lady Hermon Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

Of course.

[Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)]

The Secretary of State and indeed the Prime Minister are very keen to repeat that no one wants a return to the borders of the past between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Of course no one wants a return to those borders, with Army patrols and all the rest of it, but the reality is that we cannot have a return to the border of the past because we do not have the Army watchtowers. They have gone, but dissident republicans have not; they have murdered two prison officers in the last four years in Northern Ireland, so this is a really serious issue.

I do not want to go back to that very hard type of border, but the border is porous in South Armagh, and there is 300 miles of porous border. If we are not going back to the borders of the past, are the British Government proposing to outsource our immigration control to the Irish Government when it comes to Limerick, Dublin and Shannon? What are the British Government going to do? I hope that some light is thrown on this in this debate today, because I am so tired of hearing that soundbite: “No one wishes to return to the borders of the past.”

[Mr Davis]

The first thing to say is that there is, of course, an open border now. I do not wish to give the hon. Lady soundbites, but there are other open borders in Europe—though perhaps not in places with quite the same security issues—such as those between Norway and Sweden, where customs and excise work across the border, but it is frictionless. That is what we would aim for. On the security front, the hon. Lady’s question is more one for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.