Queen’s Speech — House of Lords, 2022-05-18
Topic: International Affairs
Maurice Morrow (Democratic Unionist Party, Right): My Lords, I am glad that at long last the Government have recognised that the protocol is unworkable, but I remain very unclear on what exactly they are going to do about it. It has caused serious problems with the flow of trade in the UK, with the Northern Ireland economy losing some £1 billion to date The central constitutional difficulty with the protocol is that it subjects Northern Ireland to laws made by a polity of which it is not part and in which it has no representation at all. Noble Lords will be familiar with the great icon of British constitutional history John Hampden, the Member of Parliament for Buckinghamshire, who famously refused to pay the tax that Charles I had imposed without the approval of Parliament—ship money. Of course, four years later Charles sought to arrest Hampden and four other MPs in another place—an act that ultimately led to the greatest period of political tumult ever witnessed on these islands, but which established as sacrosanct the principle that we are a constitutional monarchy in which Parliament, the representative body of the nation, has the final authority when it comes to making law The difficulty with the protocol is that it commits an offence that is like that of Charles, because it gives the responsibility for making laws for part of the UK in some 300 areas to a body in which neither Parliament nor the people of the UK are represented. The difficulty presented by the protocol goes further, though; rather than involving the UK Executive making the legislation for us without Parliament, like Charles, this legislation is actually made by another polity entirely We are left with a sub-committee of the European Affairs Committee on the protocol asking whether Northern Ireland could not be given some kind of compensating voice in the EU. It kindly involved us in consultation exercises on its proposed legislation. If, however, it is suggested that this solution is acceptable, it must be acceptable in general, and we must be able to dispense with Parliament and govern the United Kingdom through government departments and consultation exercises. To submit to such an arrangement would be to agree to the political disinheritance of the United Kingdom and would be utterly unthinkable. Ironically, that arrangement is even contrary to the terms of Article 2 of the protocol, which states: "The United Kingdom shall ensure that no diminution of rights, safeguards or equality of opportunity, as set out in that part of the 1998 Agreement entitled Rights, Safeguards and Equality of Opportunity results from its withdrawal from the Union" The relevant part of the Good Friday agreement meanwhile states: "The parties affirm their commitment to the mutual respect, the civil rights and the religious liberties of everyone in the community." Thus, any proposals that undermine the civil rights of people in Northern Ireland, including their hard-won right to vote, are contrary to the Good Friday agreement. The fight for adult male and female suffrage in Northern Ireland was a long, hard battle for our civil rights. Can the Minister assure the House that the Government’s proposed legislation will, at a minimum, ensure that the civil rights of the people of Northern Ireland are restored such that they are as well represented in making the laws that apply to them as people living in the rest of the United Kingdom Some may ask why, given its affront to democracy, Sinn Féin and the SDLP are so enthusiastic about the protocol. It is because it helps achieve their goal of breaking up the United Kingdom economy between Great Britain and Northern Ireland and creating an all-Ireland economy, which they realise would greatly assist them in their political cause: the formal break-up of the United Kingdom and the creation of a united Ireland. Moreover, many of them, quite properly under the terms of the Good Friday agreement, are citizens of the Irish Republic, and in that sense are not without representation in the EU.