Legislating for UK Withdrawal from the EU

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

No, but it is not a matter for the great repeal Bill.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

The great “download and save until delete” Bill will actually lead to a carnival of reaction, when, alongside the so-called bonfire of red tape, we will see Ministers competing in a demolition derby to reduce various rights and environmental protections. It is also a charter for dilution before devolution. Does the Secretary of State recognise that for some of us to trust Tory Ministers with the “holding and moulding” powers that he wants to give them would be like asking Attila the Hun to mind our horse?

[Mr Davis]

I did not know that the hon. Gentleman had a horse, but let me say this to him: his entire approach—his entire assessment—is just plain wrong.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Thursday 9th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Walker]

We are fully committed to ensuring that as we establish our negotiating position, the unique interests of Northern Ireland are protected and advanced. The UK Government have a clear role in providing political stability in Northern Ireland, and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is doing everything he can to secure the resumption of devolved government. It is important that everyone engages constructively to reach a positive conclusion as quickly as possible. We are not contemplating anything other than the return of devolved government.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Would it not help enormously if the UK Government made it clear that they want to make both the common travel area and the Good Friday agreement, and all its strands, explicitly named features of the framework for future relations between the UK and the EU?

[Mr Walker]

Yes, and I believe that we have and will continue to do so.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Mark Durkan Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 3rd sitting: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 8th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry]

The SNP’s position on the peace process has been made very clear in this House: we would wish to do everything to support it.

Moreover, we do not wish the rest of the UK to suffer as a result of coming out of the single market. That is why the principal suggestion in this document is that the whole United Kingdom should remain in the single market. I am terribly sorry on behalf of Members representing English and Welsh constituencies that the Prime Minister has now ruled that off the table, but I am sure those Members will understand why we, representing Scotland, must try to see whether we can get a compromise deal for Scotland.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Does the hon. and learned Lady recognise that if the Government did accept that they could negotiate a separate place for Scotland within the single market, that could equally read across in respect of Northern Ireland, and would be particularly compatible in terms of the strand 2 arrangements and upholding the Good Friday agreement? In many important ways, it would go to the heart of upholding the peace, not upsetting any basis for it.

[Joanna Cherry]

Indeed. As usual, the hon. Gentleman makes his point with great force and great clarity. The difficulty is that in the Committee on Exiting the European Union this morning we heard from experts who have been observing the process of so-called negotiations between the British Government and the devolved nations in the Joint Ministerial Committee that these negotiations lack transparency and have not really made any significant progress. That is a matter of regret not just for Scotland, but for Northern Ireland and for Wales.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 6th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He will recall that, even in his own remarks, he talked about the questions that were raised in the context of the Scottish referendum. I am talking about whether or not an independent Scotland would have easy or ready access to the EU or whether it would have to negotiate, brand new, under article 49. If Northern Ireland were taken out of the EU as part of the UK, no article in the Lisbon treaty allows for part of a former member state entering the EU. Anybody could raise a question mark over whether or not a referendum in that context would admit Northern Ireland into the EU as part of a united Ireland. The question mark could be raised because the German precedent might not apply. The Taoiseach addressed that point last summer, and the British Government need to take it on board.

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman may be guilty of jumping quite a lot of steps in advance. There is no evidence that the people of Northern Ireland have any intention, at any time in the foreseeable future, of joining the Republic of Ireland. I think that this is a case of inventing theoretical problems to get in the way of what is a perfectly sensible process.

[Mark Durkan]

rose—

[Mr Harper]

I will take one more intervention from the hon. Gentleman and then I will make some progress.

[Mark Durkan]

Does the right hon. Gentleman not recognise that the key wording in new clause 150 comes from the Good Friday agreement itself? The paragraph appears in the agreement not just once, but twice. It is in the constitutional issue section of the agreement and it is in the agreement between the British and Irish Governments. If it was good enough and important enough to be in the Good Friday agreement and to be endorsed by a referendum of the Irish people in the north and the south, why should it not be respected now when we are being asked to reflect on how English people voted in a referendum?

[Mr Harper]

Again, I come back to what the hon. Gentleman just said about how the English people voted. If he looks at the separate parts of the United Kingdom, he will see that both England and Wales voted to leave the European Union. As I said earlier, this was a UK decision. The fact that different parts of the United Kingdom may have voted in different ways is not relevant. It was a United Kingdom decision, and the United Kingdom voted to leave.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Redwood]

I have not done so, because I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean and Government Front Benchers that the Government will, of course, do a perfectly good job in consulting and making sure that all parts of the UK are represented, and I am quite sure that Ministers who represent English constituencies will want to guarantee that the view of England is properly considered.

[Mark Durkan]

rose—

[Ian Blackford]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[John Redwood]

I am very grateful to you, Sir Roger. I was trying to deal with the previous intervention. As a courtesy to the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), I thought other Members should listen to my answer to her before I took another intervention. I am now happy to take another intervention.

[Mark Durkan]

The right hon. Gentleman has indicted the Labour party and the SNP for not, in this group of amendments, addressing questions in relation to England. Does he recognise that the grouping is headed, “Devolved administrations or legislatures”?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Paterson]

I am not sure that the words “looking after Ireland” will be that welcome in a proud independent state, but the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. He has taken the point I made: uncertainty is not good for Northern Ireland, and I shall happily vote against all the amendments, because they would lead to uncertainty. If EU funds have been provided, we can pick them up. The key players are the two main parties in this House, the two main parties in the Dáil, and the two main parties in Washington. Those are the real guarantors of the peace process. With that, I look forward to voting against the amendments.

[Mark Durkan]

The real guarantors of the peace process were the people of Ireland when they voted by referendum in May 1998 to choose and underpin the agreement. Neither of the two main parties in this House had a vote in that referendum, and nor did the two parties in Washington, so let us be clear on who the real guarantors are. In the context of a debate in which we are told we have to go by the imperative of the referendum that took place on 23 June last year, let people recognise that there is still an imperative that goes back to the joint referendum—that articulated act of self-determination by the Irish people, who chose to underpin and agree to the Good Friday agreement.

The right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) says he does not want uncertainty, but as far as the Good Friday agreement is concerned, the uncertainty is being created by Brexit. Neither he nor anyone else in this House should be surprised when they start to hear that the negotiations that take place after the Assembly elections will not just deal with the questions of scandal, the lack of accountability and transparency, and the smugness and arrogance displayed by the parties in government, but will go to the core of the implications for the agreement as a result of Brexit.

The fact is that although the Good Friday agreement has been wrongly dismissed by others, the EU is mentioned in it. It is there in strands 1 and 2—one of the most expansive references is in relation to the competence of the North South Ministerial Council; it is there in strand 3; and, of course, it is there in the key preamble of the agreement between the Government of the UK and the Government of Ireland, which refers to their common membership of the EU. As John Hume always predicted, that provided both the model and the context for our peace process.

It is no accident that when John Hume, who drove so much of the principles and method into the Good Friday agreement, was awarded the Nobel peace prize—well, just look at that speech and how many references there were to the signal role of Europe and the special contribution it had made and would make, and to the role that the experience of common membership of the EU would play. That is why he said:

“I want to see Ireland—North and South—the wounds of violence healed, play its rightful role in a Europe that will, for all Irish people, be a shared bond of patriotism and new endeavour.”

When he enunciated those words in 1998, he was not talking about a new concept. We can look across the Chamber and see the plaque commemorating Tom Kettle, a former Member of this House who gave his life in the first world war. Before that war, he said that his programme for Ireland consisted in equal parts of home rule and the 10 commandments. He said:

“My only counsel to Ireland is, that to become deeply Irish, she must become European.”

Before he gave his life in the war, he said:

“Used with the wisdom that is sewn in tears and blood, this tragedy of Europe may be and must be the prologue to the two reconciliations of which all statesmen have dreamed, the reconciliation of Protestant Ulster with Ireland, and the reconciliation of Ireland with Great Britain.”

That reconciliation was best achieved and best expressed when we had the Good Friday agreement, which was so overwhelmingly endorsed in this House and in the referendum of the Irish people, north and south of the border. We know that some people did not endorse it, and that some have held back their endorsement and refused to recognise that referendum result. Some of them are the same people who are telling us now that we have to abide by the referendum result in respect of Brexit and that we have to ignore the wishes of the people of Northern Ireland in respect of remaining in the EU. It is the same as when they said that we had to ignore the wishes of the people in Northern Ireland in respect of the Good Friday agreement.

No one should be under any misapprehension that there are implications for the Good Friday agreement. When we hear this lip service that we get from the Government, the rest of us are meant to lip synch along with it and talk about frictionless borders and the common travel area. All those things about the border experience and the common travel area predate the agreement itself, so if we address those issues and those concerns, we must understand that the terms in which they are addressed are not reliable and that they are not relevant to protecting some of the aspects of the agreement itself, which is why the amendments in this group that we have tabled are so important.

The right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) has already referred to new clause 150, which appears on page 74 of the amendment paper. We have also tabled a key amendment, amendment 86, to which the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) referred when he addressed new clause 109. There are also amendments 88 and 92, which deal with questions around the competence of the devolved Assembly, and the need for consent in respect of any changes to the competence of that Assembly or of devolved Ministers. Those amendments are not about the question of the Assembly giving consent to the triggering of article 50, so it is not about the same question that went to the Supreme Court—but it is about issues and principles that were addressed and are expressed in the judgment of the Supreme Court that too many people have sought to ignore.

As a supposed co-guarantor of the Good Friday agreement, the UK Government are meant to have a duty to protect and develop that agreement. Indeed, various Ministers have told us that they have no intention of allowing Brexit to undermine the agreement. If that is so, there should be no difficulty in having that commitment in the Bill. Politically, we all have to conclude from the Supreme Court judgment that no matter what principles have been agreed or established, none of us can have recourse to their legal adherence without their explicit inclusion in legislation and/or a treaty. We therefore have a duty to be vigilant against any legislative terms that could be used to relegate the crucial importance of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 and/or the Belfast agreement more widely.

Those sponsoring and supporting this Bill do so arguing the need to respect the outcome of the referendum on 23 June. We make no apologies for highlighting the primacy that has to be accorded to the overwhelming endorsement in our referendum, when, on 22 May 1998, nearly 72% of people in Northern Ireland and 96% in the south of Ireland voted in favour of the Good Friday agreement.

[Sir Hugo Swire]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about some extraordinarily challenging and difficult issues, which could have very serious implications in Northern Ireland. It seems to me that it is our duty—all of us who want to see Northern Ireland prosper and go forward—to recognise the fact that the UK is exiting the EU and that we have to make the most of it. Will he commit to the House that he will not make divisions over Brexit part of the SDLP campaign during the Northern Ireland elections?

[Mark Durkan]

The right hon. Gentleman has some neck to ask the Social Democratic and Labour party not to make divisions over Brexit an issue in the election. The wishes of the people of Northern Ireland, which were clearly expressed in the referendum last year, are being ignored. Are we now also to tell the people, “Ignore your own wishes”? The right hon. Gentleman obviously expects a party like the SDLP, which honourably fought a campaign to remain, to say, “Ignore your wishes. Set them aside. You have to be slaves to the impulses of a vote in England in response to some crazy argument.”

Clause 1(2) denies any regard whatever to protecting the constitutional, institutional or rights provisions of the Good Friday agreement or their due reflection in the Northern Ireland Act 1998, which is why we tabled amendment 86. Clause 1(2) seeks to ensure that the Bill is not restricted by any other legislation whatever. Amendment 86 would create an exception for the Northern Ireland Act 1998. Crucially, it would uphold the collateral principles in the other part of the Good Friday agreement, which is between the Governments of the UK and Ireland, and is not fully reflected in the 1998 Act. The amendment would also exempt section 2 of the Ireland Act 1949 from the override power in the Bill or its outworkings. I admit that the amendment would act as a boundary to the powers provided to the Prime Minister by clause 1(1) and would galvanise the protection for the agreement but, given that the Prime Minister is trying to tell us that she would observe those boundaries, why should she fear that being on the face of the Bill?

New clause 150 draws on key language from the Good Friday agreement, as I made clear to the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean. It is intended to ensure that any future UK-EU treaty—we are told that the Government want to negotiate a new UK-EU treaty—will make explicit reference to upholding the fundamental constitutional precept of the Good Friday agreement, which is the principle of consent that affords a democratic route to a united Ireland if that ever becomes the wish of a majority of people in Northern Ireland. In the case of any such future referendum, no uncertainty whatever must hang over Northern Ireland’s direct admission to the EU as a consequence of a vote for a united Ireland. Nor, indeed, must there be any uncertainty over Ireland’s terms of membership of the European Union.

Such uncertainty was deployed during the Scottish independence referendum, when people said, “Don’t make assumptions about Scotland having an automatic place in the EU or that the process will be easy. Article 49 will make it very difficult.” The difference for Northern Ireland is that it does not have the choice of becoming a new state. Under the Good Friday agreement, its only choice is membership of the United Kingdom or membership of a united Ireland. That agreement was made at a time when both countries had common membership of the EU. Any future referendum will not take place in that situation. Lots of people can place question marks over whether Northern Ireland would have straightforward entry to the EU in that context. Under the terms of the Good Friday agreement, that could constitute an external impediment to the exercise of that choice or even to the choice of having a referendum.

The Taoiseach identified this issue at the MacGill Summer School last year. It will be an issue for the Irish Government, as one of the 27 member states, when they negotiate their side of the treaty. It would be an odd position for the Irish Government as a co-guarantor of the Good Friday agreement to want this to be reflected in a new UK-EU treaty. This is not just an issue for the British Government as a co-guarantor of the Good Friday agreement; it should be something that they are equally and comfortably committed to.

Let us remember that the key precept of the principle of consent and the democratic choice for a united Ireland, as reflected in a referendum in 1998, was the key point that turned it for those people who had locked themselves on to the nonsense idea that they supported violence sourced from a mandate from the 1918 election. That was the key for quite a number of people to say, “Physical force has no more place in the course of Irish politics.” Physical force is now parked because the Irish people as a whole have, in this generation, by articulated self-determination, upheld this agreement, and that gives them the right, by further articulated self-determination, to achieve unity in the future. Anything that diminishes or qualifies or damages that key precept will damage the agreement. People need to know the difference between a stud wall and a supporting wall: just knocking something through because it is convenient and gives a bit more space might be grand and might do, but if at some future point, when other pressures arise, things start coming down around us, people should not complain. We have to be diligent and vigilant on these matters.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Hugo Swire]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that before there are any new bodies or any more reviews, the priority for the people of Northern Ireland should be to get a working Assembly and re-elect a working Executive to get on with running Northern Ireland, so that all these things can then be dealt with? Without that, there will be no more devolution of anything it seems.

[Mark Durkan]

Yes, and my party and I are fully pledged to doing that. Nobody worked harder to create the principles and the precepts of the agreement and to get those institutions established and up and running—and we did so, I have to tell the right hon. Member for North Shropshire, with very good assistance from the EU. As someone who was a Minister in Northern Ireland—both a Finance Minister and a Deputy First Minister—I had many negotiations with many people in the EU, including Michel Barnier, who was very constructive and helpful in relation to a number of funding issues. Yes, he had his particularisms about which one had to be careful and understand where he was coming from, and certainly his officials had to understand where he was coming from, but it was a useful and constructive contribution—one of many—from the EU.

[Tom Elliott (Fermanagh and South Tyrone) (UUP)]

Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that if article 50 is triggered we will no longer have InterTradeIreland, Waterways Ireland, Tourism Ireland, and the six bodies that were set up by the Belfast agreement? I do not see any threat to them from triggering article 50.

[Mark Durkan]

I point out to the hon. Gentleman that it was his party that said, “If we are going to go ahead and agree these implementation bodies, the cover has to be that the way in which we can show that they meet our test of mutual benefit is that they deal with matters that largely transpose EU business and involve questions of common compliance.” There is the Food Standards Agency, and Waterways Ireland and the Loughs Agency have some environmental compliance issues—and of course there is also the question of EU funding. As the hon. Member for St Helens North said, the role of the Special EU Programmes Body is not going to exist if no common EU funding is to be available any more.

If the rationale and justification for the existing bodies is wounded and weakened, those of us who negotiated and supported the agreement have the right to say, “We’ve already had nearly 20 years of this limited area of implementation co-operation. It now needs to be developed and expanded as the agreement promised it could be.” If the existing bodies are wounded and winged by the fact of Brexit, and if they limp along and struggle for relevance, clearly there must be—in the context of a review at least of strand 2, if not the wider agreement—negotiations on new bodies. Those negotiations, as we know, will not find themselves unlinked to other issues and factors as well. Some hon. Members have hummed to themselves that Brexit has no implications for the Good Friday agreement, and that as long as they say that they will consult Ministers and that they do not want border posts, no other damage has been done. They do not understand the politics that went into the agreement, and they do not understand the politics that will upset the workings of that agreement because of the implications of Brexit.

That is why if people have a care for the Good Friday agreement, they should have no problem with amendment 86. If people vote against amendment 86 on Wednesday, they will be voting against the idea that we can have the Good Friday agreement at the same time as pursuing Brexit.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

In following the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax), I have to say that I will not be one of those who will be patronised into the confidence and comfort that he thinks awaits us in this somewhere-over-the-rainbow picture that we are being painted of where the Brexit course will lead us. The fact is that the Bill in front of us is short. There is more substance in the reasoned amendments—even those that have not been selected—than in the Bill itself, but that does not mean that it is not pregnant with serious implication. That is why it is bizarre to see in the explanatory notes statements such as

“The Bill is not expected to have any financial implications.”

Tell that to the households that will lose money over the years ahead. Tell that to the many regions that will lose access to vital European funding and programmes. Tell that to the universities and to people working in research in our health service who will be denied access to European consortium funding.

Paragraph 14 of the explanatory notes states:

“The impact of the Bill itself will be both clear and limited, therefore mechanisms for post legislative scrutiny are not necessary.”

Clear and limited? A whole series of amendments have already been tabled for next week that are all about ensuring more scrutiny, getting proper answers about the processes that are afoot and getting the Government to take due heed of several key principles and priorities that must be borne in mind as this course is pursued.

Paragraph 16 tells us:

“Given the need to introduce legislation as quickly as possible, it has not been possible to formally discuss with Parliamentary Committees.”

There was plenty of time to introduce this legislation, but the Government and those on the Government Benches were in denial about legislation being necessary. They were saying that this matter could be pursued with no scrutiny in this Parliament and with no scrutiny by or say-so from the devolved Assemblies—it would be left entirely in the hands of the Executive under the royal prerogative.

I agreed with a point made by one Government Member who will be voting to trigger article 50. The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (James Berry) said that he wants the “best relationship with the EU…both for my country and my constituents.” That is what I want and that is what my colleagues, my hon. Friends the Members for Belfast South (Dr McDonnell) and for South Down (Ms Ritchie), want, too. The best relationship with the EU for my country of Ireland—my Unionist neighbours and their constituents would say Northern Ireland—would be one in which we can continue to enjoy access not only to EU funds, but to the other benefits of EU membership, which are built into the workings of the Good Friday agreement.

I remind the House yet again that, when the Good Friday agreement was negotiated, the common EU membership of Britain and Ireland was taken as a given and was written into the terms of the agreement between the two Governments—it is written into strand 1, strand 2 and strand 3—so we want to make sure that in future there is a special status for Northern Ireland so that we can enjoy a lean-to position with the south on the benefits of the EU and access to the single market.

That is why the whole question of membership of the single market and the implications of the customs union has to be spelled out by the Government and tested by this Parliament, and it is why we will be tabling a number of amendments to see whether the lip service that the Government are paying to the Good Friday agreement actually means anything. We cannot just accept the simple lip service that they mean no harm to the Good Friday agreement and have others lip synching along with that lip service as though it offers us any sort of reassurance or protection.

Article 50

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

I thank my hon. Friend for that. All I can say is that I am surprised it was only 61% in his constituency.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

The judgment’s terms tell us that we should not rely on mere political convention for legal adherence or political confirmation on key matters. That being so, Sewel will be meaningless in the context of the great repeal Bill. Does the Secretary of State recognise that the key constitutional precept of the Good Friday agreement—the principle of consent and the democratic potential for a united Ireland—will have to be explicitly included in any new UK-EU treaty in order to fully reflect the principle that those issues are a matter for the people of Ireland, without external impediment, and to properly reflect the terms of today’s Supreme Court judgment?

[Mr Davis]

I will not reiterate the facts of the Supreme Court judgment on the Northern Irish aspect. The hon. Gentleman can read those much more authoritatively in the judgment. I have said to him before in this House and reiterate to him again that there is more than one guarantee in this matter. The British Government are determined to preserve the peace settlement and all that underpins it; the Irish Government are determined to underpin it; and so is the Commission. I will say something nice about the Commission in this regard. When I spoke to Michel Barnier, my opposite number, he reminded me that he was involved in the original peace process. All the parties to this matter therefore have a vested interest in delivering what the hon. Gentleman wants.

New Partnership with the EU

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

I do not know where the hon. Gentleman was on 23 June, but the British people pretty much rejected that.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Brexit is a bigger factor in the political discoloration in Northern Ireland at the moment, partly because common membership of the EU and its institutions was absolutely germane to the Good Friday agreement. The Secretary of State needs to recognise that any negotiations that follow these elections and precede the restoration of our institutions will involve returning to and renewing fundamentals of the Good Friday agreement. That means that people will be looking at strand 2, and the need to ensure that the island of Ireland can work and be worked as part of the European economic area in the future.

The question of when powers over rights are transferred or devolved after the great repeal Bill will be a key political issue. No one in Northern Ireland will trust the House of Commons with the dilution of rights before powers are devolved when any attempt to improve them can be vetoed by the Democratic Unionist party, as we have seen in the past. It would be like asking Attila the Hun to mind your horse.

[Mr Davis]

I am not entirely sure that I understand the reference, but one of the reasons why I wrote to the Northern Ireland Executive was to ensure that we had representation in the Joint Ministerial Committee during the election process. I do not foresee the removal of any rights, and, as I said to a Labour Member earlier, this is one area in which we expect a great deal of co-operation from the European Commission to secure an outcome that will be beneficial for everyone.

The Government's Plan for Brexit

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Those who have spoken most strongly in favour of the Prime Minister’s amendment have generally taken some time to ridicule and carp at the Opposition’s motion. They have questioned the wording, asking what “plan” means, for example, and they have even criticised the language for its split infinitives and the like. They are denigrating the very motion that they now claim to want to pass, as amended by the Government amendment.

Sometimes consensus can be a great and powerful thing; at other times it can be a risky thing. Many Members have often counselled against consensus. When the consensus is entirely artificial, however, and is made up of a purely ephemeral coincidence of tactics without any substantive or strategic work, we should not fall for it. I am here to represent my constituents, who voted by more than 78% to remain, and I know that they would not fall for this amended motion.

[John Redwood]

Is it not a good idea to try to get a consensus to back the British people in their decision?

[Mark Durkan]

I am not one of the British people; I am here as an Irish person, proudly carrying an Irish passport. However, I fully respect the terms on which other hon. Members come to this House. I come to the debate in circumstances in which the people of Northern Ireland voted by 56% to remain, while the people of my constituency voted by 78% to remain, as I said. The people of Northern Ireland, moreover, previously voted for the Good Friday agreement in a unique dual referendum process involving the north and south of Ireland—that was the high watermark of Irish constitutional democracy. I am pledged to adhere to that and I make no apology to anybody for it. I do not seek to indict the terms on which anyone else comes to this House to speak in this or any other debate.

The principle of consent is meant to be the core of the Good Friday agreement. It is not only housed in that agreement, but it was the principle of consent that was used to endorse the agreement. A week after the 23 June referendum, the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs Villiers), tabled a written statement on the security situation in Northern Ireland. The words she used about republican dissidents on 30 June were interesting.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Mark Durkan]

She said—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. A point of order has been raised by Mr Kwarteng.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Thank you. The clock was stuck, and it is now working again.

[Mark Durkan]

The then Secretary of State said:

“Their activities are against the democratically expressed wishes of the people in Northern Ireland. They continue to seek relevance and inflict harm on a society that overwhelmingly rejects them”—

she could have been talking about the Northern Ireland Conservatives. She continued:

“Their support is very limited. Northern Ireland’s future will only be determined by democracy and consent.”—[Official Report, 30 June 2016; Vol. 612, c. 13WS.]

Where is the democracy and consent for the people of Northern Ireland when it comes to Brexit? Many of us are free to come here and vote against article 50 as and when the relevant provisions are tabled. When we do so, that will be consistent with our principled support for the Good Friday agreement and consistent with our pledges to our constituents honourably to represent them.

[Michael Gove]

As a result of the Good Friday agreement and the consent principle, the people of Northern Ireland voted to remain in the United Kingdom and to give foreign policy and treaty-making powers to the UK Government. There is no inconsistency between a UK Government choosing to trigger article 50 and the hon. Gentleman’s constituents having objections to that. There is no breach of a consensus.

[Mark Durkan]

I am afraid the right hon. Gentleman does not know the difference—people in Northern Ireland are very clear about this—between the principle of consent and actually giving consent. He has made a mistake that is consistently made, and it is a mistake that will strain some people’s belief in the Good Friday agreement.

People such as the right hon. Gentleman do not recognise the damage that they are doing. Carefully compacted layers of understanding created the bedrock of the Good Friday agreement, and fissures are being driven into those key foundations. Remember that, as a result of that agreement, the principle of consent is housed in the Irish constitution as well, because the referendum—north and south—changed the constitution. It removed the territorial claim, and two additional clauses were inserted.

If the key constitutional precept of the Good Friday agreement is not housed in any new UK-EU treaty that might result from these negotiations, we shall be in a very serious situation. The promise and the understanding that the people of Ireland, north and south, were given when they endorsed the Good Friday agreement in overwhelming numbers will have been betrayed and damaged. I do not accept, and no Irish nationalist, north or south, who supported the Good Friday agreement has ever said, that the principle of consent that is housed in the Irish constitution can be removed, replaced or surpassed by a vote in England on Brexit or on anything else.

The Good Friday agreement states very clearly that the question of Irish unity will be a matter for the people of Ireland, north and south, without external impediment. That key principle must be reflected in any new UK-EU treaty, making clear that if in the future Northern Ireland votes to become part of a united Ireland, it will do so as an automatic part of the EU, without any change in Ireland’s terms of membership and without the need for any new negotiations on the part of Northern Ireland. We cannot afford, in the Northern Ireland context, the sort of trickery that was used in the Scottish context to raise question marks over whether EU membership would apply. This is a key principle and tenet for those of us in the House who support the Good Friday agreement.

There are other risks to the agreement as well. There are risks to the weight of the rights in strand 1. There is also significant damage afoot in relation to strand 2, which involved a delicate balance of institutional and constitutional arrangements. That strand will be left in complete deficit after Brexit unless someone takes care of it.

Article 50

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

I will leave it to the Welsh Labour party to take my right hon. Friend’s advice directly. He will understand that it would not be appropriate for me to comment on who should or should not join the legal case.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Since the referendum result, there has been a carnival of reaction that has been in part vicious and pernicious, and that is now verging on the seditious with regard to the rule of law. The Prime Minister seems to want to just crowd surf that mood, wrapped in the royal prerogative. Would it not be better for this Chamber to move beyond yet another episode of roaming commentary and to give real consideration to the precepts and purposes that will inform negotiations? Does the Secretary of State recognise that it is not just UK constitutional interests that are at stake? Irish constitutional dimensions need to be taken care of, too.

[Mr Davis]

I referred to the Northern Irish case, which the Government won, and the decision about whether to leapfrog it will be made tomorrow. I am entirely aware that this is a very wide constitutional issue that has to be resolved properly. That is one of the reasons I am resisting calls to do something before the Supreme Court rules on the issue. That is the proper place for the decision to be taken.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Thursday 20th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

As I said, all law will be incorporated—no exceptions.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

On that point, employment law is a devolved matter in Northern Ireland, so under the great repeal Bill will that competence be automatically devolved, or will it be held in some sort of holding room here before it is devolved?

[Mr Davis]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. That is why I said last week when we were talking about the great repeal Bill that we will have extensive discussions with all the devolved Administrations to ensure that each appropriate piece of law goes to the right place.