Good Friday Agreement: Impact of Brexit

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

Thursday 11th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

It is always a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice. He, like the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, myself and my noble friend Lord Dubs, who successfully opened this debate, were all members of the class of 10 April 1998—as of course was the noble Lord, Lord Bew, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames.

It has been a fascinating but difficult debate, because these are difficult issues set against the background of a number of things. First, we are now obliged by law, by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act, to consider these matters in the question of how we deal with Brexit. We decided that only weeks ago. Secondly, it is against the background of the current uncertainty about how we deal with the Brexit negotiations—central to which, of course, is the position of the Democratic Unionist Party. Thirdly, it is against the background of 56%—a clear majority—of the people of Northern Ireland voting to remain in the European Union.

Can the agreement actually survive Brexit? Of course it can. I have not the slightest doubt that the Good Friday agreement is as robust as it has always been. It has been challenged, but it will survive. The basic principles that underlie it of consent, parity of esteem and the other issues that we discussed during the lead-up to the Good Friday agreement have not changed. After all, people in the north and south of the island of Ireland voted for it and I have absolute confidence that, were there to be another referendum on the terms of the Good Friday agreement, north and south would vote for it again. The biggest threat is not Brexit but the fact that the institutions of Northern Ireland are not up and running. There is no Assembly. There are no north-south bodies and everything else that goes with that. That is the real threat to the Good Friday agreement.

Also—and this is important to understand because a number of noble Lords have raised it—there are strains that are having an impact on the Good Friday agreement as a result of Brexit. Of course there are. Community relations have been strained because of it. There is no question but that some nationalists and republicans believe that Brexit gives an opportunity for a border poll to achieve a united Ireland much more quickly than anybody would have thought, and there are some unionists, although by no means all, who see it as a way of securing the union and strengthening their Britishness. The border is inevitably an aspect of strain on the Good Friday agreement. It is also obviously an issue in itself, otherwise we would not as be stuck as we are at the moment trying to resolve it.

I was in Ireland last week and I travelled for the first time on the train between Dublin and Belfast—a packed train, incidentally, with not a seat available on it. As you come up to and cross the border, you do not know you are doing it. The only way I found out that we were actually in Northern Ireland was by asking my travelling companion about the number plates on the cars—and even that does not always give you the answer. It is a seamless border and there is no question but that over the past 20 years what had been a border rooted very much in security at the time when the Good Friday agreement was being signed has now gone. The border is blurred. The borders between people in the north and the south and between the peoples of the north of Ireland have been blurred—so that is without question an issue.

The noble Lord, Lord Trimble, raised an interesting point: the impact of Brexit on the Republic of Ireland will be greater than on any other country of the European Union—and in many ways greater than the impact on Northern Ireland itself. Over the past months and years we have seen the obvious technical and legal insistence by the Irish Government to be part of the 27 in the negotiations. Because Ireland knows a lot more about what happens on the island of Ireland than the European Union, there should have been more bilateral discussions between the Irish Government and the British Government. I do not have the slightest doubt on that. When we made the agreement in 1998, we were all members of the European Union; it was the backcloth to what we were doing. Right through the agreement in strands 1, 2 and 3, reference is made to the European Union and our common membership; we were in the same club. Because of that, it was much easier to make the agreement.

While I was in Ireland, both north and south, last week, I looked at the issue of security, which I am not sure has been given sufficient attention in our negotiations over the past months. The police forces on both sides of the border are deeply troubled by the possibility that any sort of border apparatus or establishments might be set up which could then be targets for attack by dissident republicans. There is no question at all but that that is a huge issue. Putting that apparatus back up would create a huge security problem, as would the absence of the European arrest warrant and the fact that we would no longer be members jointly of Europol and Eurojust. All of those things will make it more difficult to catch criminals who flee to either side of the border. These are issues that ought to be considered and I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us something about them.

This week the House gave a Second Reading to the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill, which will have an effect on the common travel area. There is no question about that. It could mean, for example, that trains are stopped in Portadown and Newry and people’s passports checked in a way that they are not at the moment. There may be good reasons for that from a security point of view, but it is an aspect of our leaving the European Union that, again, has an impact on the very old common travel area. The idea that somehow we cannot treat Ireland differently from the rest of the European Union is negated by the fact that we do have a common travel area between our two countries and we treat the situation in a unique way that we do not elsewhere.

My noble friend Lord Dubs raised the issue of citizenship. One of the most significant aspects of the agreement is that in Northern Ireland you are able to be Irish, British, both or, I suppose, neither if you so wish. Under the new dispensation, if you are an Irish citizen holding an Irish passport but you come from Northern Ireland, presumably you are a citizen of the European Union and therefore you will be allowed all the privileges that that citizenship gives you, whether it be free movement to other countries, access to health services in France and other European nations or whatever. That of course puts the British citizen at a disadvantage who does not have European Union citizenship. That is another issue which will have to be grasped over the next few months.

Strands 2 and 3 in particular of the agreement, covering north-south and east-west, will inevitably be affected by our leaving the European Union. The north-south bodies rely heavily on European money. What will happen when the money disappears? Will the Government guarantee its replacement so that what those bodies do, reliant as they are on EU money, can continue? Also, as has been mentioned by a number of noble Lords, because of Brexit, relations between the Irish Government and the British Government are not as good as they have been. We have to ensure that those relations are dealt with and improved as the months go by.

There seem to be two problems. We are facing two major negotiations in Northern Ireland at the moment, one on Brexit and the other on the restoration of the institutions. We have no Northern Ireland Ministers having an impact on these negotiations, which is tragic. I hope that the institutions will be restored as soon as is humanly possible. I know that the Minister and the Secretary of State are now in intensive talks with the parties in Northern Ireland. They have to talk about Brexit and its impact on all the matters that have been discussed in this debate—but, most significantly, they have to ensure that over the next few months we return to the restoration of those institutions so that we can have up and running a proper Assembly and Government in Belfast which will themselves be able to deal with the issues that your Lordships have dealt with in this debate.