Northern Ireland

Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)]

My Lords, those who have shown a keen interest in Northern Ireland affairs understand that the protocol that was foisted upon the people of Northern Ireland caused real damage to stability in our Province, even though it was heralded by many in this House as positive and something that should be embraced by all. It was claimed that the protocol was seeking to safeguard and preserve the core principles of the Belfast agreement, but in fact it had the opposite effect.

The lesson from these past years is the necessity to have a consensus in a divided community—not the usual pandering over the years to republican demands but a genuine consensus from both unionists and nationalists at every juncture. It has been the convention of Stormont since 1972, some 26 years before the Belfast agreement, that controversial decisions cannot be made on a majoritarian basis. Indeed, the use of majoritarian votes, which are to be returned in November, was peddled as the republican excuse for the Troubles and was abandoned.

How have we got to where we are today? With the protocol having caused such damage to Northern Ireland’s constitutional position within the United Kingdom, and indeed to our economy, it was modified by the Windsor Framework—another short-term fix seeking to cobble together something that would, it was hoped, pull the wool over the eyes of unionists and allow normal programming to proceed.

The Democratic Unionist Party laid before the people of Northern Ireland seven solemn tests. The noble Lord, Lord Bew, may not know this, but we do know what those seven tests really mean. It was by those tests which any deal would be measured, and I have not deviated from the true spirit of those tests. The Government have now got the Northern Ireland Assembly up and running, and, personally, I believe that is all they really cared about. But those who are unionists by conviction must constantly hold this Government’s feet to the fire.

We would be foolish to accept mere promises or empty rhetoric from this Government, recognising that successive Governments have broken promises to the people of Northern Ireland in the past. In recent debates, Members of this House warned us that, if we did not accept what was offered in the Windsor Framework, we would be heading to joint authority between London and Dublin. That was the big stick that was wielded over our heads. Yet in the other place yesterday—this is amazing—the Alliance Member of Parliament, Stephen Farry, said

“I too am happy to put on record that I do not believe that joint authority is part of the Good Friday agreement”.


It is amazing that he did not share this statement with his colleagues in this House. Of course, we need to note that he acknowledges this now, when the Assembly has been restored. It was good enough for his friend the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, to threaten us with this during the debates in this House, as if it was included in the Belfast agreement. Indeed, they are all coming out of the woodwork now, for the shadow Secretary of State Hilary Benn MP, in yesterday’s debate in the other place, also said

“it is simply a fact that the Good Friday agreement and the Northern Ireland Act 1998 do not provide for joint authority with the Irish Government over what happens inside Northern Ireland. That is also acknowledged by the Irish Government”. —[Official Report, Commons, 26/2/24; cols. 63 and 74]

However, we all know that the Irish Government have sought to interfere in the internal affairs of Northern Ireland, even telling us that the basis on which the Assembly operates should be changed. We all know that there are those who want the principle of consent to be done away with, and any unionist who enters into such negotiations to that end would be surrendering to a full-blooded republican agenda in Northern Ireland.

The humble Address that has been moved by the Minister is supposed to give the unionist people of Northern Ireland reassurance and comfort. But when one delves into its substance, one has to ask: does it? It reaffirms the importance of upholding the Belfast agreement of 1998 in all its strands, and I welcome the desire expressed. However, on examination, do the current arrangements have that effect? Do they not rather place them in jeopardy, such that they should be changed as a matter of the greatest urgency?

The heart of that agreement was cross-community consent, but that has not been upheld. The consent principle was heralded as a bedrock of the agreement of 1998 and was respected from 1998 until 2020. The Belfast agreement is a treaty in international law that states that any change in the status of Northern Ireland must only be with the consent of the majority of its people. But at the behest of the European Union, there has been a change to the voting arrangements in the Assembly. Since 1992, votes and issues that have been contentious could not be decided on a majority basis, but the Minister knows full well that arrangements that undermine the principle of consent have already been put in place. The Windsor Framework directly violates the consent principle—even though this humble Address states the opposite. It involves far-reaching constitutional change transferring 300 areas of law to a legislature including the Irish Republic but excluding the United Kingdom without the prior consent of the people of Northern Ireland; nor do the elected representatives of the people of Northern Ireland have any power to change them. There has been much talk of the Stormont brake as the way to stop the EU juggernaut in its tracks, but where the Stormont brake applies we have to accept that the Assembly has the demeaning right only to try to stop laws that have already been made for us by a foreign Parliament—so much for consent and democracy.

Through the determined efforts of my colleagues, some important changes have been made, but a few words in an humble Address to His Majesty will not undo the serious damage that has been done to our constitutional position within the union. This Government’s surrendering to the demands from the European Union has undermined our relationship with the rest of the United Kingdom. In many areas of our lives, we are termed legally as “a third country”—not as an integral part of the United Kingdom. Our current arrangements may technically be acceptable from the vantage point of the way our dualist system approaches international law, but they are not remotely acceptable in terms of an humble Address which implies that we are fully compliant with the requirements of the Belfast agreement, when nothing can be further from the truth—at least be honourable enough to tell the people the truth.

Let us not forget that this Address is not an address to anyone but an humble Address to His Majesty the King, and, as such, Parliament has a particularly developed obligation to speak the truth. Therefore, it must be pointed out that rather than respecting the Belfast agreement, which we are constantly reminded is the binding international law, we have since 1 January 2021 flouted it, and we continue to do so. Rather than standing up to the EU, our Government have simply abandoned the principle of consent and in November of this year, Northern Ireland will be travelling back in time for its first majoritarian vote on a matter of great controversy for over 50 years. That vote cannot be regarded as a vote in one job lot on all the laws imposed in the last four years. Quite apart from the fact that you cannot deal with four years of legislation in a single vote, a no vote would not result in the repeal of those laws; it is actually a Stormont vote to cede power for a period of years to a group of states including the Republic of Ireland and excluding the United Kingdom and would be the most controversial vote in the history of Stormont. Of course, we know that, as usual, Sinn Féin, the SDLP, the Alliance Party et cetera will all be delighted to slavishly obey their masters in Europe.

There is no doubt in my mind that, no matter how flowery or honeyed the words uttered in this humble Address or in the assurances given, we in Northern Ireland have in a number of areas been detached from the mainstream British economy, and that can be rectified only when 300 areas of law are removed and brought under the control of our local elected assembly, when the principle of consent is restored as proposed under the Belfast agreement, and when the Irish Sea border is dismantled and Dublin’s interference in our internal affairs ceases. We as unionists have a positive case to present, but we must honestly admit there is much more work to be done to arrest the undermining of the union and stop the eroding of important aspects of our constitutional position within our precious United Kingdom. If the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, were to press her amendment to a vote, I would certainly join her in the Lobby.