European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill Debate

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Department: Cabinet Office

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Stephen Farry Excerpts
2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons & Money resolution & Programme motion & Ways and Means resolution
Friday 20th December 2019

(4 years, 3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Stephen Farry Portrait Stephen Farry (North Down) (Alliance)
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Go raibh maith agat, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I wanted my first formal comments in this Chamber to be in Irish to reflect the shared heritage of the language across all the traditions in Northern Ireland.

I am very pleased to be here as a representative of the Alliance party of Northern Ireland. I am the second member of my party to be elected, following in the footsteps of my party leader, Naomi Long, who was elected back in 2010, and of Stratton Mills, who sat here for about a year as an Alliance Member back in the early ’70s as the Member for Belfast North.

Before commenting on the Bill, I want to pay tribute to my predecessor, Lady Hermon, who was a diligent Member over 18 years and conducted herself with tremendous integrity. In recent years in particular, she was very dogged in standing up for Northern Ireland and particularly in protecting the Good Friday agreement in the context of Brexit.

I come to this House with a very strong mandate for remain—indeed, the remain vote in Northern Ireland grew in the election—and that strong remain vote continues to reflect the dominant majority of the people in that region. I will therefore be voting against Second Reading of the Bill in order to honour the wishes of the people who sent me here and the people of Northern Ireland.

There is no such thing as a good or sensible Brexit, whether we are talking about the UK or Northern Ireland in particular. Following on from previous comments, it is worth stressing that the House is potentially poised today to consciously vote to make the UK worse off economically. We are aware that that is what we are doing. It is an incredible situation the House finds itself in. The European Union represents perhaps the single greatest example of economic integration anywhere in the world, and we are walking away from that.

We are being presented with a false choice between working in the context of the European Union and pursuing a global Britain. We can best expand our trade and economy by working through the EU, where we have the strength in numbers to stand up and get better deals with the likes of the United States, Australia and China. That is in our self-interest. It is also important to bear in mind that the EU is more than an economic body. It is more than the sum of its parts and it allows effective and collective responses to global challenges, including migration, global poverty and, most critically in terms of the current agenda, tackling climate change.

Society in Northern Ireland only works when based on sharing and inter-dependence. Sadly, we remain a divided society. We are a complex society with lots of ambiguities. The Good Friday agreement balanced all those different challenges through a unique set of relationships. It is about the principle of consent, but it is more than that; it is about the internal dynamics, the north-south relationship and the east-west relationship. In terms of our economy, both supply chains and trade, we depend both on north-south and east-west linkages.

The challenge of Brexit is that if we do not go for a soft Brexit, as defined by the UK staying inside a customs union and the single market, Northern Ireland will be confronted with some form of border boundary interface and a degree of friction, which is very regrettable. Any perception of a border creates the feeling of winners and losers, and in the context of a place like Northern Ireland, where we are inching slowly towards a better and more reconciled and integrated society, that has the potential to be very damaging and destructive.

The deal negotiated by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) was a better attempt at a soft landing than the deal negotiated by the current Prime Minister. Indeed, the previous deal had the pragmatic support of the Northern Ireland business community and an unprecedented level of commitment from them, given that this is a rather contentious political issue. They understood that it was a genuine attempt to address the issues. The current proposal from the Prime Minister presents Northern Ireland with a much more challenging situation. While it certainly maintains an open border on the island itself, it creates a much more problematic situation down the Irish sea than people had a right to expect and was originally anticipated.

To be clear, some degree of checks down the Irish sea can be managed—indeed, there are already precedents in that regard—and Northern Ireland has always done things differently since the early 1920s. Nor do I see the notion of any special deal for Northern Ireland or an interface as being a constitutional question, but what has been proposed so far will be very challenging for our economy, in terms of both the east-west interface and the west-east exchange. Some estimates put the compliance costs as high as £300 million per year for our businesses. That simply cannot be sustained. So rather than Northern Ireland having a foot in both camps, Northern Ireland risks becoming peripheral. The Prime Minister, throughout the election campaign, has been very clear that there will be no checks down the Irish sea, but that is clearly at odds with the view of most experts and most people who have analysed the deal so far.

There is some common ground across all the parties from Northern Ireland. Clearly, I am coming from a remain perspective, as are my colleagues from the Social Democratic and Labour party, whereas my counterparts from the Democratic Unionist party are coming from a leave perspective. But together we have a reasonable argument, and we speak with a moral authority, about trying to mitigate the impact of that boundary down the Irish sea. At the very least, we would ask that the Prime Minister and Government meet us halfway in that regard.

Much has been made of the Prime Minister’s comment about being a one nation Conservative. Unlike my counterparts in the DUP, I do not interpret that as meaning one nation of the UK; the UK is about four different nations. My appeal to the Prime Minister is: don’t be a one nation Prime Minister for England, but be a Prime Minister for all four nations of the UK, and, as we proceed to the more detailed scrutiny of this Bill, pay particular attention to the needs of Northern Ireland and the damaging implications of what is now set to emerge in terms of that interface down the Irish sea.