Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill — House of Commons, 2019-07-08
Topic: International Affairs
Nigel Dodds (Democratic Unionist Party, Right): I suppose it is a sign of the success of Orangefest that it is now so inclusive that even Sinn Féin is now taking time off to prepare for it. I do not think there is any reason why the talks should not continue over the summer—even, if necessary, in a different form. I do think there is any need to say that the talks should cease With the indulgence of the House, I want to mention a couple of issues that have been raised during the debate, one of which is Brexit. I am not going to dwell on it, because there will be plenty of opportunities to talk about Brexit in the coming days, but I accept that it is to our detriment that we do not have the Executive up and running. Indeed, we have made that point to Sinn Féin: if they are concerned about Brexit, which is such a major issue, why do they boycott the Executive, the Assembly and, indeed, the Parliament of the United Kingdom, to which they are elected? Those people say that they have no voice, but they have stripped themselves of their voice, although they are heard by the Government, who meet them and everybody else. But if they voluntarily say, "I’m not going to turn up and I am going to boycott things", they can hardly blame everybody else We have heard that an Irish hard border is now inevitable in the event of no deal. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) on his elevation to the chairmanship of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, and I wish him well. We look forward to continuing our conversations and working with him. But I thought that his speech was somewhat depressing and that it placed more emphasis on the pessimistic side of Unionism, instead of talking it up and so on. I am not as pessimistic as he is on the outcome of a border poll, nor regarding the conditions in which a border poll would be called. I think that people have a better understanding of Northern Ireland than they did of Czechoslovakia in 1938, given the number of debates we have, the view of the Conservative and Unionist party, and our work with the Conservative party on these issues One issue that the Irish Government are now having to face up to, and one that they are not terribly comfortable about addressing, is the question put to them increasingly and very recently by the German and French Governments —that is, "In the event that there is a no deal, what will you do in Dublin to police or protect the single market?" Given that the Irish Government have been very clear that they will not impose any hard border—checks, controls and all the rest of it—in the island of Ireland, there is only one inevitable outcome; and there is a precedent for it, isn’t there? Nobody in the Brexit debate ever mentions the issue that has now actually been solved in the question of Brexit: the free movement of people We talk a lot about the free movement of animals, goods and services, but one of the biggest issues that people forecast might be a problem was the free movement of people on the island of Ireland. In fact, a lot of the documentaries and various TV programmes concentrated on how, years ago, people used to be stopped at checkpoints, were not allowed to come over the border to work, socialise and all the rest of it. But nobody is going to interfere with the common travel area. The common travel area—which, of course, predates European Union membership—works so successfully because there are no checks between the Irish Republic and the United Kingdom, but the checks are done at all points of entry into the Irish Republic and the United Kingdom The Irish Republic is, as the hon. Member for North Dorset has said, a modern and very Europhile country, which is part of the EU—and it is absolutely proper that it should be if that is what it wishes to be—but it has voluntarily agreed not to sign up to all the Schengen arrangements in order to protect the free movement of people on the island of Ireland. And yet we are told that, in order to protect the single market in terms of goods, services and all the rest of it, there will have to be a hard border in Ireland. Of course there does not have to be. As Members of my party have said over and over again, there is no desire or political will on the part of any party in the Irish Republic, here or in Europe to impose such a border, nor would it be physically possible. It cannot be done—so let us dismiss some of the notions out there.