Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Lord Clarke of Nottingham Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 11th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)]

My Lords, by far the most important reason for opposing this Bill is the fact that it is a clear breach of international law and gives Ministers powers to free themselves from parliamentary supervision in future, on an unprecedented scale. This has already been eloquently and authoritatively set out by many speakers, so I do not propose to dwell on it. I agree entirely with everything that everybody from my noble friend Lord Cormack onwards has said on that subject, and I think it would be a great blow if we were to pass legislation of this kind.

I thought in the 1990s and the 2000s—that more optimistic time—that one of the greatest things happening across the globe was the development of a rules-based international order, which gave us all great hope that we should have a more peaceful future. I never imagined that the United Kingdom would contemplate defying the rule of law—moving away from the basis of international order in a treaty with its closest allies and friends—in the way now being contemplated, but there we are. As I said, many Members of this House have eloquently set out that case, and I am sure many Members of the Government are secretly, privately, very worried about their being party to this.

Moving on to the actual politics of it, remember how we got here. The policy now being put forward is not that of a Conservative Government, unless the new Government are a total reversal of their predecessor. Boris Johnson was very proud of the agreement he reached after it was negotiated by the noble Lord, Lord Frost. There were long negotiations and no doubt about what had been negotiated. They had found a solution to the Irish problem caused by the Good Friday agreement and the fact that you cannot safely have controls on the border—something rightly sacrosanct to both the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom Government. They came up with this marvellous remedy that Northern Ireland would remain in the single market and the customs barriers that would inevitably follow from our withdrawal would be, first, along the English Channel between Dover and the continent, and then down the Irish Sea, with the Northern Irish having the advantage to many parts of its economy of being able to remain in the single market.

That was the policy; it should be the policy still. The part that changed was changed by the policy of the Democratic Unionists. They are the authors of this Bill, as already very eloquently expressed in this debate by the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, and his colleagues. They demanded the pistol. Theirs is the finger on the trigger because they used it as the basis for not joining a power-sharing Executive in Northern Ireland, causing the crisis. Boris Johnson immediately started changing his position once this happened. Within a week or two, he was making statements about what he had just signed—which were plainly incompatible with the policy contained in what he had just signed. From then on, so long as the Democratic Unionists would not join the power-sharing Executive, we have gone on and on until the stage we have reached now.

I do not doubt the Democratic Unionists’ sincerity on the symbolism of a customs border down the Irish Sea; they have always been consistent. But I think there is another reason behind the DUP’s position: the party has just done badly in Ulster elections and is using the Northern Ireland protocol as its explanation, as it would say—excuse, I would say—for not joining a Northern Irish Executive under Sinn Féin leadership. Sinn Féin should be entitled to the First Minister’s position. They are all nodding away at me. They still hold that pistol and the Government—

[Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)]

I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord for giving way since he has made a direct accusation. I reassure him and the House that the Democratic Unionist Party would have no difficulty in re-entering the Executive with a Sinn Féin First Minister. We do not like that outcome but we will do that if the protocol is sorted out, so let us not go down a blind alley or a false argument as far as that is concerned.

[Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)]

I am extremely reassured to hear that but it is still “if the protocol is sorted out”. Who will decide whether the protocol is going to be sorted out? Who will determine the negotiating position of British Ministers in their discussions with the European Union? It will be the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, and his Democratic Unionist colleagues. The British Government will not—and, given the policy now, cannot—sign up to anything unless the Democratic Unionists agree because they will not achieve their aim of getting back to power-sharing. This is an impossible position.

We should have had a softer Brexit, but the hard Brexiteers took over. We should have stayed at least in the customs union, but that is now water under the bridge. The fact that we have come out is causing difficulties at Dover as much as it is in Belfast; it is causing damage to the United Kingdom economy just as it is to sections of the Northern Ireland economy—although some are lucky enough still to be in the single market and benefit from that. The only way out, as everybody has said, is sensible negotiations, but negotiations on the British Government’s own terms. They should get the DUP onside if they can, but we cannot allow the whole thing to be dictated by the sincere opinions of the Democratic Unionist Party, as it has been so far to get us to this position.