Brexit: UK-Irish Relations

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Empey (UUP)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bew, and his very relevant reality check on what we are currently facing. The noble Lord, Lord Jay, presented the committee’s report. I am glad it was done. It is important that people look at these things. Sadly, as was said—I think the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, made the point—in the run-up to the referendum nobody was drilling down into the minutiae of this. That has been demonstrated over the past 14 or 15 months in the consequences we have seen.

I serve on the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly’s Committee C, which is looking at the agri-food sector. Of course, the agri-food sector has a very effective lobby, but the people in the Republic who are really concerned are those who provide services. There are far more people employed in services nowadays. The way things are going is actually creating a major threat to what we believe to be rural Ireland. Some 40% of all Ireland’s food and drink ends up in the United Kingdom. We are talking about huge sums of money and vast numbers of people employed. Let us be under no illusion: the drop in the currency alone and the fact that a lot of the companies’ insurance has run out are having a profound impact on the economy of the Republic, and it is only scratching the surface at the moment.

He is not in his place but the noble Lord, Lord Hain, made some comments—particularly outside the Chamber but certainly inside it today—advocating that we in Northern Ireland remain in the customs union and the single market. We cannot contemplate the partition of the United Kingdom, which is what in effect that means. What we need is a deal between the United Kingdom and, if possible, the whole EU but, if not, at least with the Republic, where we would have a customs union between these islands. That is the way ahead.

During the gap in the debate for the Statements, I attended a function downstairs run by transport organisations. They make the point that 90% of the Republic’s hard exports to the European Union travel through the United Kingdom to get there. If anybody is dependent on the full impact of us leaving the EU, it is the Irish Republic. These are staggering figures. I had no idea it was on that scale. The current policy of the European Union negotiators is to separate out these three issues: Ireland, the so-called divorce settlement, and the rights of EU citizens. I do not dispute that these are key issues but you cannot isolate the future trading relationship from them. I take the view that it is far more effective to look at how we meld and keep our two economies together. That is more important than some ideologically or politically driven Brussels-led determination to ensure that we get a beating in these negotiations, which would be a very short-sighted position.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

If the noble Lord will forgive me, I thought I heard him say that an option might be for us to have a customs union with the Republic of Ireland, even if we could not negotiate new customs arrangements with the European Union. Is that not a complete impossibility?

[Lord Empey]

It depends on whether—we come back to the term “special status”—the European Union is very flexible. I want to see a successful negotiation between the United Kingdom and the European Union, but it will always be particularly difficult on the island of Ireland.

We have to keep this in perspective. The amount of goods travelling north to south is, in European terms, comparatively modest. It is about 15% of Northern Ireland’s trade. The trade coming to Great Britain is 60%, and among the rest of the world mainland Europe has only 8%. So our main trading concern is with the rest of the United Kingdom and to have any kind of interruption or border in that would make absolutely no sense. We would be inflicting an economic wound on ourselves.

I turn to a couple of other points that have been made. First, many people spoke about the Good Friday agreement or Belfast agreement. The noble Lord, Lord Trimble, was kind enough to give me responsibility in that regard, along with the noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney. We were all part of it and, perhaps because they both had duties here at Westminster and I did not, I probably spent virtually every day of those two years in the negotiations. The role played by the European Union in them was very modest. In fact, it was rarely mentioned except when it came to the conclusion. Then we looked for help from the European Union, which was forthcoming—and very generous it was. European Union expenditure is still there and, although it is probably reaching its penultimate phase, we nevertheless have to keep it in perspective. Even at its peak, when we were an Objective 1 region and had ERDF and so on, it accounted for only 3.5% of the total public expenditure in Northern Ireland at its maximum. It is a lot less now.

The second point is more psychological, because it was accepted that we were both parts of the European Union. Everybody understood that and it was never debated on a line-by-line basis. Your Lordships should remember one other thing: that neither of the two principal parties which are now not leading the Executive were present for the strand 1 negotiations. The DUP was outside—calling the rest of us Lundies and traitors—and, while Sinn Fein was inside, ideologically it refused to participate in strand 1 negotiations and produced no papers. Sinn Fein did not ask us for an Irish language Act then. It just sat there and did nothing, while the DUP was not there. So they have not got into their heads the essence of what we were trying to do: to create a partnership-led Government, where both main traditions walked up the aisle together to send out a signal that we had embarked upon that partnership. That has not happened.

While I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Hain, on some of his earlier points today, I agree with him on this: our voice on the Brexit debate is stilled. I am aware of no coherent process for getting our views in there and I would like the Minister to address this in his wind-up. How will our views be injected into the negotiations? How will we have any sense of where they are going? Does anybody really understand the minutiae? I doubt it. The noble Lord, Lord Hain, is absolutely right that our voices are stilled at this crucial time. Given that the Northern Ireland Executive does not exist and that our total contribution from Stormont has been one two-page letter last August—that was the only contribution the Executive have made to the Brexit debate—then, at one of the most momentous times in our history, we are out to lunch. That is a criticism on all of us. It is outrageous and cannot be justified.

I know that the Minister’s colleague, his right honourable friend the Secretary of State, is doing his best, but we are now up against people who have different and bigger agendas. The Government have to find a formula so that the views of our business, our trade unions and our professionals—the people making money and creating jobs—are injected into this debate. That, in my opinion, is the yawning gap that we face right now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, the contribution to the debate of most concern so far was the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Bew, a distinguished historian, who said that Brexit has already been deeply destabilising in the Republic of Ireland, particularly with regard to its economy, and that it is likely to become a lot more so as it advances.

The Government’s position paper on Ireland makes all kinds of assertions that everything is going to be okay, but the stark reality is that unless the relationship between the UK and the European Union basically does not change so there is no serious disruption to UK-EU trade, the assertions are essentially magical thinking and the only issue is how much harm Brexit does to Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and their relations with Great Britain.

In his opening speech, the noble Lord, Lord Jay, said, with the discretion which distinguishes a diplomat of his eminence, that his committee had not meant to hint that there was a comparison between the threat of Brexit to Northern Ireland and the threat of a breakdown of the Good Friday agreement. We all hope and pray that he is right, but the truth is that since we do not know what form Brexit is going to take, we do not know what the impact might be and how serious the consequences for the political stability of Ireland, north and south.

At any rate, it is impossible to overstate the moral and political responsibility which Her Majesty’s Government have to ensure that the impact of Brexit on Ireland is minimised. In the Good Friday agreement, Britain formally declares that it,

“will pursue broad policies for sustained economic growth and stability in Northern Ireland and for promoting social inclusion”.

It also promises,

“a new regional development strategy for Northern Ireland ... tackling the problems of a divided society and social cohesion in urban, rural and border areas, protecting and enhancing the environment ... strengthening the physical infrastructure of the region, developing the advantages and resources of rural areas and rejuvenating major urban centres”.

These are solemn commitments made by the British state to the people of Northern Ireland, yet they will be affected, and may be undermined, if Brexit takes the form of a hard border and restraints on trade.

In terms of the magical thinking which has seized the Government, I emphasise two points. First, customs duties and controls will not be frictionless and of little account simply because the Government declare that that will be the case. I am not aware of any border in the world where customs controls are magically frictionless and it all takes place in the internet cloud, and Ireland does not show any sign of being a pioneer in that respect.

The noble Lord, Lord Cope, said that it would be all okay because we have managed with differential rates of VAT in the past. The difference in the standard rate of VAT between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom is the difference between 23% and 20%, so I do not think that takes us very far if we are going to go off a cliff edge in terms of customs duties and trade barriers between Britain and the European Union. Of far more concern, given his eminence and his closeness to these discussions, was the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Empey, who seemed to suggest that everything would be fine if the trade talks between Britain and the European Union completely collapsed because we could, with even more magical thinking, have a customs union between Britain and Ireland. That is the one option which is absolutely not on the table if the Republic of Ireland is going to remain within the European Union. I have not yet noticed any sign that they are going to follow us in heading for the departure lounge.

The second point of importance—here I am entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Hannay of Chiswick—is that intoning the three words “common travel area” at the beginning of every sentence, and airily pointing out that everything has been all right in the past, misses the point that Britain and Ireland’s visa and associated policies have been identical for the last 45 years and were largely the same for the previous 50 years after the independence of the Republic of Ireland in 1922 and the creation of Northern Ireland.

Because I am speaking late in the debate I have had the advantage of being able to read the Government’s letter to us on how everything is going to be basically fine after Brexit. I can describe it only as pure waffle. There is nothing in there of substance. How it manages to continue for eight pages is a diplomatic triumph, given the lack of content. To give just one example among many, under the heading,

“Impact on the peace process and on north-south and east-west relations”,

we read the sentence:

“The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union’s first visit to another EU Member State was to Dublin in September last year. Through the annual meeting of UK Permanent Secretaries and Irish Secretary Generals, we remain committed to continuing our strong cooperation”.


Let us hope that these meetings take place almost daily if they are capable of producing any concrete results. But in my experience of the affairs of the world, it is not meetings that make a difference, it is the actual substance of policy, and on that we have had no reassurance whatever.

When Gladstone introduced his Home Rule Bill in 1886, he told the House of Commons:

“I believe we have reached one of those crises in the history of nations, where the path of boldness is the path, and the only path, of safety”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/5/1886; col. 602].


It was a tragedy that Parliament in the 1880s and 1890s rejected Gladstone’s bold path which could have avoided so much of the terrorism and horror of the 20th century. However, we did take the path of boldness in the Good Friday agreement, and I entirely echo the words of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, that this is one of the high points in statecraft within the United Kingdom. Ireland is much the better for it, and I believe that the path of safety today is not to endanger this by a hard Brexit which puts the prosperity and security of Ireland in the lap of the gods.