‘We are weaker when we are divided and we have allowed the EU to divide us’
Jim Allister argues Brexit is yet to be completed (Image: Getty)
The Government is clearly very excited about its long-planned EU Reset Summit which takes place on Monday. In order to understand the summit, it is first important to step back and remind ourselves what Brexit is all about, and then consider what has happened in relation to Brexit since 2016.
The problem with UK membership of the EU was a lack of control over our own legislation in many different fields. Yes, we were represented in EU governance structures, but while we had a seat on the Council of Ministers, we could be overruled by qualified majority voting, and while we had MEPs in the European Parliament, we could be overruled by majority voting. And then, of course, there were those Judges in the European Court of Justice. Brexit was all about taking back control.
Rather than taking back control across the whole UK, however, the Brexit deal took back control in England, Wales and Scotland but at a price. In the other part of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland, rather than taking back control we had more of it taken away. Before Brexit, Northern Ireland was subject to EU law but was represented in the two chambers of the EU legislature, the Council of Minister and the European Parliament.
Now it has no representation whatsoever and the laws are just imposed. The deal also required the construction of a customs border to protect the ‘integrity’ of the market created by means of the imposition of the EU rules on Northern Ireland, vis-à-vis the market in Great Britain, which is now deemed by law to be a ‘third country’, that is a ‘foreign country’, in relation to Northern Ireland.
The hope expressed at the time was that it would not be possible for the EU to permanently humiliate the UK by dividing us into two and that Northern Ireland would inevitably secure Brexit in the relatively near future. Instead of this arrangement leading to the delivery of Brexit in two steps rather than one, though, it is now clear that the principal effect of leaving Northern Ireland in the EU has been to place Brexit in jeopardy for the whole United Kingdom.
Since long before the reset summit, it has been evident that Labour has been using Northern Ireland as a rationale for subjecting the rest of the UK to EU law. One of the absurdities of trying to cut a country into two, as the EU has sought to cut the UK into two, is that, if the laws are separate, pertaining to two different customs codes, then creating the appearance of a UK single market for goods depends on ensuring that GB adopts the same law (or similar law) as the EU puts on Northern Ireland.
It is clear that the Government’s approach to its reset summit will be to do as much as it can to further the alignment of UK law with that of the EU. To this end, a campaign website has appeared to support the Government with the slogan: ‘Let’s align our rules with the EU on goods and services wherever it makes sense’ If we answer yes to this question, we will inevitably be confronted with a helpful suggestion: ‘Given that we effectively follow EU rules, why don’t we re-join the EU because then we will be represented in the European Parliament and the Council of Minister and actually play a role in making them!’
The truth is that had the referendum been honoured and the whole United Kingdom left the EU to take back control over its own laws, we would not be facing this reset conference on Monday. Having suffered the consequences of Northern Ireland being denied Brexit, I will not countenance the Government using Northern Ireland as ruse to sabotage Brexit in Great Britain just as the EU has sought to make Northern Ireland into a political football for the purpose of sabotaging Brexit across the whole United Kingdom.
The Government must tread carefully. In an amendment to an opposition motion this week, it claimed an ‘overwhelming mandate’ to pursue the summit. Even if it could claim a mandate for everything it intends to do via its manifesto, which is doubtful, we must not forget that it is a government with the smallest ever vote in our modern history, just 9,708,716 votes compared with the biggest democratic vote in our history, that the whole UK should leave the EU, 17,410,742 votes! For context it is worth remembering that even the last minority Labour Government of February 1974 polled 11,645,616 votes, nearly two million more than Labour today! There has never been a government in modern British history with a greater reason to act cautiously. If it defies the referendum and the quest to take back control, it will pay a very heavy price indeed at the next General Election.
We have just celebrated the fruits of our nation coming together with VE Day, which has served to highlight the special contribution of Northern Ireland to UK defence, not least in guarding the Western Approaches and in providing both the Chiefs of General Staff from 1940 until the end of the war. We are weaker when we are divided, and we have allowed the EU to divide us at the very moment when we were supposed to leave the EU and walk confidently onto the world stage. Going forward, the EU must be told that no self-respecting country can allow itself to be divided into two by a customs border and or have any portion of its population partly disenfranchised.
And let us take on and call out the fantasy that there is no solution. These injustices can readily be avoided by moving the customs and SPS border to join the tax, excise and currency border, on the international border, where they can be enforced without hard infrastructure, through Mutual Enforcement.
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