It is pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Gordon (Richard Thomson). I add my thanks to the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) and the Backbench Business Committee for securing this debate. It has been an important debate to air the issues with the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal and the subsequent Northern Ireland protocol. It is clear that there is agreement across this House on the text of the motion in front of us today and the need for flexibility, for the checks to be proportionate, and for solutions to be found through agreement and compromise with the European Union. It has been helpful for that to be made clear today.
The issues are clear. As the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex laid out very clearly in his opening speech, there has been a strain on power sharing and
increasing tensions. Brexit has always had the potential to unsettle the delicate balance of identities across these islands. It was helpful for the hon. Member for Belfast South (Claire Hanna) to put on record her acknowledgement that there are parity of esteem issues at play here. It has been important for us all to acknowledge the real hurt and pain that was expressed by our DUP colleagues on behalf of the Unionist community in Northern Ireland. This has caused real pain and hurt in Northern Ireland, and it is important that we all acknowledge that.
The Prime Minister made promises to the people of Northern Ireland that there would be no border with Great Britain, knowing full well that his Brexit deal would introduce barriers across the Irish sea. He made promises to the Unionist community, because he knew that economic separation would be unacceptable, and the political instability that we have seen over recent months has its roots in the profound loss of trust that that has caused.
As the leader of the Labour party and I heard loud and clear in Northern Ireland last week from Unionist leaders, trust is at rock bottom. The language that has been repeatedly used is one of betrayal that they and the economic integrity of the United Kingdom have been sacrificed to narrow party interests.
Trust is absolutely essential in Northern Ireland; it is what has secured and has always sustained the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. In moments of instability, what Sir John Major, Tony Blair, Mo Mowlam and the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith)—Labour and Conservative—all understood was that trust, leadership and partnership are paramount to finding a way forward in Northern Ireland.
As a co-guarantor of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, the Prime Minister owes it to the people of Northern Ireland to restore the trust that he has squandered, but his custody of that precious agreement has been designed to shore up his own party advantage, and nowhere can we see that more clearly than on the Northern Ireland protocol. It is reckless and foolish that, after insisting that he would never place barriers down the Irish sea, he negotiated just that, and after denying that he had done it for an entire year has now started to renege on his own deal.
The strategy of brinkmanship and picking fights using Northern Ireland as a political football is not the work of a serious politician, and led to diplomatic rebuke from one of our closest allies, the United States. Communities are sick and tired of this in Northern Ireland. They just want to see serious solutions, and as we have heard today, solutions are available. We have heard plenty of suggestions, and I would welcome the Minister’s response and her assessment of how feasible many of those suggestions are.
Several political parties in Northern Ireland, the CBI, farmers and businesses right across the UK have all advocated for the Government to negotiate a veterinary agreement with the EU. Just this morning, Aodhán Connolly told the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee that the solution is a veterinary agreement with a guillotine clause. That would bring assurance to Northern Ireland and benefit food exporters right across the UK. The Prime Minister promised an agreement of this kind, drawing up trade negotiations with the EU, but has failed to deliver, when countries such as New Zealand
and Switzerland have succeeded. More than a quarter of all trade to Northern Ireland is subject to onerous SPS checks, largely on food and agricultural products. Such an agreement would lower the overwhelming number of checks across the Irish sea.