Brexit: UK-Irish Relations

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, I too was a member of the Select Committee and of the group that travelled to Belfast and Dublin as background for this report. I join the noble Lord, Lord Jay, who gave an excellent introduction, in recognising the importance of the contacts that we made there. I also join him in regretting the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, and echo his good wishes. The noble Lord, Lord Boswell, conducted major negotiations to get us to see everyone that we could in Belfast and Dublin.

Those that we saw from business, civic society and trade unions, as well as the politicians who talked to us, conveyed to us a pretty substantial degree of anxiety about the danger to Northern Ireland in Belfast and to the Republic of mishandling the Brexit arrangements, particularly the question of the border. Border trade is of course the major concern but there is also the question of east-west trade, issues of transport and infrastructure in Northern Ireland and the border regions, the interests of Northern Irish agriculture and some of the health and other social services that are now delivered in part under cross-border arrangement, as well as some concern about the peace process. It was clear to all of us that it would not be in the interests of Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland or Great Britain for sudden and drastic changes to be introduced to the border and to the customs and regulatory structure. That brings me to the central theme of what I am saying: all this need not be done at the same time, and maintaining some degree of continuity through a transition period—or a phased implementation period, if that is the phrase you prefer—is going to be important in handling this properly.

Maybe I should depart slightly from my script in response to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, because I have some sympathy with the immediate point that the report did not fully reflect the views of Northern Ireland unionist politicians. That was in part because of the failure to discuss with us until very late in the process, and it worried me slightly during the course of the inquiry. I accept that unionist opinion does not want Northern Ireland to be treated under a special status. Having said that, though, without differentiating the constitutional position of Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK, there are issues in Northern Ireland that need to be treated specially—relations between the north and the south, and trade relations with Great Britain—without pre-empting the fundamental broader long-term constitutional position.

I was going to say this later, but there is a responsibility on the main political parties in Northern Ireland in particular to ensure that Northern Ireland’s interests are protected but also that they are engaged constructively in this process. That requires a clear voice from a reconstituted devolved Government. Without that, we will fall into the dangers indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, that decisions will be taken over the heads of the political leadership in Northern Ireland.

The report is pretty substantial. The Government’s recent position paper takes things a little further, although I am afraid the letter we have received today has not really taken us much further than that. However, the position in Northern Ireland has not significantly advanced—in fact, it has gone backwards from when we were in Belfast in the conduct of this report. One area that I shall take as an example because I know something about it, which will be differentially impacted and needs a differential solution, is Northern Ireland agriculture. It may well be true that a lot of Ulster farmers actually voted to leave the EU but they are engaged in the CAP, and the fact is that much of Northern Ireland’s agriculture and the food industry in Ireland as a whole is interrelated. Livestock and products cross the border, while in many respects manufactured products cross the border several times before they finally go into the distribution chain.

It is therefore important that regulations on food standards, food safety, animal welfare, animal disease, movement of animals, hygiene and phytosanitary regulation is pretty much equivalent across the whole of Ireland. The Irish agricultural and food industry needs to relate more to the European context, albeit that Great Britain will also continue to be a major market for that produce. If the UK as a whole were to depart from the standards that have hitherto been set in Europe, the effect on Irish agriculture as a whole and Northern Irish agriculture in particular would be severe, so we need a mechanism which may require some cohesion between the north and south in Ireland, and which certainly restrains British regulatory authorities from departing too far from European standards in future. That is one example.

Part of the problem today is that, as the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, recognised, the approach to negotiations by all parties has aggravated the problem. The EU insistence that the Northern Ireland border should be part of the “divorce settlement” or withdrawal treaty before anything else is settled is illogical. We cannot have a final, settled position on the Irish border until we know what will ultimately be the trade arrangements between the EU and the UK and the migration arrangements, if any, between Ireland and the UK. That is obvious in relation to trade but is also the case in relation to the movement of people. The common travel area pre-existed the EU in different contexts throughout the troubled Anglo-Irish relationship for the past near-century, it relates to not having substantial border controls for people, and it is nationals of Ireland and the UK who enjoy the rights under it. Those rights to work and to live do not extend to nationals of other EU countries who may or will be residents of the Irish Republic. That means that Ireland may be seen as a back door to the United Kingdom under a more draconian border control system in the UK.

I do not want to be too alarmist about it, but there are anecdotes that suggest such moves are already taking place. You can imagine the reaction of some of the British press and its effect on Anglo-Irish relations if Ireland were seen as a back door and a soft touch to get around the new British immigration controls. So while this is most importantly about trade north-south and east-west, it is also about people. For the interests of all the people to be represented, we need a cohesive approach and engagement by the political parties of Northern Ireland. I regret to say that, so far, neither of the main parties has demonstrably shown that commitment. The DUP perhaps thinks that it has more interest in influencing the Westminster Government than in establishing an effective Executive in Northern Ireland, and Sinn Fein has resurrected its all-Ireland ambition and perhaps thinks that after the next Irish elections it will have more influence in the Dáil. That is a denial of its primary role, which is to represent the interests of the people of Northern Ireland, to establish a degree of devolved government in Northern Ireland and to help the British, Irish and EU authorities to come up with an effective solution to what is a serious and complex problem.