Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

Lord Murphy of Torfaen Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 11th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)]

My Lords, if it had not been for the United States of America I very much doubt that there would have been a Good Friday agreement. The support we had from our American colleagues and friends was immense.

I return to the necessity for the Bill, which in my view does not exist. The noble Lord, Lord Howard, quite rightly referred to using Article 16. There would not then have been any need for a Bill to be in front of us at all.

I am amazed that the Minister, who I respect immensely, referred to the protocol as if it had come down from the heavens. He denounced in his speech great parts of the protocol which his own Government created. That is the amazing part of this debate.

I want to refer specifically to the Good Friday agreement, because it has been prayed in aid by all sides in this debate in order to justify the Bill and the situation we are in now. I was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland too, and I was responsible—a long time ago; 26 years ago now—for part of the talks that led to the Good Friday agreement. I chaired strands 1 and 3 of that agreement. In so far as it was concerned, the agreement was based very largely on a couple of issues, one of which was common membership of the European Union. We were in the same club and there is no doubt in my mind that, if you read the Good Friday agreement, you will see that going right through it is reference to our joint membership of the EU. Of course that was an important issue as well.

However, the big issue, above all, was that after three years of negotiation we achieved a deep consensus among the people of Northern Ireland in order to achieve what we did. To that extent, I accept the unionist—or some unionists’—point of view that there is no consensus with regard to the protocol. Of course, very many nationalists will argue the opposite, but it remains the case that there is no consensus. There was no consensus when we started the talks that led to the Good Friday agreement in any event, and, when we had agreed it, you could not say “Well, I don’t like that bit about the police”, or “I don’t like the release of political prisoners”, as they were called, or “I don’t like that side of it on the north-south agreement”, or “I don’t like that side on criminal justice”. We had to accept the whole of it in order to ensure that there was peace in Northern Ireland, and the people of Ireland, north and south, voted in simultaneous referendums to agree to it.

It is extremely important still to accept the principle that you cannot just have bits of it with which you agree. You all agree that you should agree by negotiation. Look at what is happening in Northern Ireland now: the very fact that there is no Assembly, no Executive and no north-south bodies is equally against the spirit of the Good Friday agreement, as is the case with regard to the border in the sea between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

There is, of course, only one solution. The Minister rightly referred to the preference being negotiations. I do not agree with it being a preference; I believe it is an absolute necessity. The only conceivable way in which this can be resolved is by proper, structured negotiations —not just going across to Belfast for a couple of days and coming back—between the EU and the United Kingdom, and between the Irish Government and the British Government. Both Governments are guarantors of another international treaty, the Good Friday agreement, so it was great to see that the Irish Foreign Minister met our Foreign Secretary the other day. That is a good start. There also need to be proper negotiations between all the political parties in Northern Ireland. It is only by those detailed, structured negotiations between Governments, the EU and the political parties that this issue can be resolved.

“Ah, it’s too difficult”, people will say. They said that in 1998. Look at the issues that we did resolve, despite all those problems. We can resolve this one. The alternative is direct rule, and none of us wants that to occur. We are now almost 25 years on from the Good Friday agreement. That could be a means by which we could relook at it—it says in the agreement that we can review it. If we do not that, if we do not negotiate properly, and if we rely on the Bill and other things to try to sort this problem out, then the peace, prosperity and stability will indeed be in jeopardy.