My right hon. Friend is entirely correct. What have we achieved over the last five years? A game, and not a very enjoyable game, of whack-a-mole,
for it is about as strategic as whack-a-mole. An issue comes up involving the VAT margin schemes for second-car salesmen; we find a solution. Then another issue pops up, and another, and another. Whack-a-mole! That is the best strategic approach that this Government, and the previous Government, have adopted to deal with issues that are affecting us because of the decision taken back in 2019.
I remember the parliamentary discourse about the quest for agreement, but I know this. When the previous Prime Minister, Boris Johnson—[Interruption.] Just let me finish. No need for your wee quips. When Boris Johnson engaged with this issue, in respect of the protocol, he went to the Wirral for a walkabout in a wedding venue with Leo Varadkar, and became smitten with Leo. He ditched the democratic consent principles in section 4(5) of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to which the hon. and learned Gentleman has referred. It was always part of the preceding arrangements that a consent vote in Northern Ireland would adhere to the consent principles in the Belfast agreement, and Boris Johnson ditched them.
In “Safeguarding the Union”, there was a commitment to remove and repeal a legacy provision in section 10(1)(b) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, on having due regard to an all-island economy—a commitment that Labour supported, but now repudiate because it is in “Safeguarding the Union”. Let me remind the House that it is only in “Safeguarding the Union” because it features in the Windsor framework. Much of the approach from the Government Benches seems to amount to “We cannot achieve anything with the European Union unless we demonstrate our trust and our integrity—or our servitude!—to the European Union.” Paragraph 53 of the Windsor framework indicates very clearly that there is no need to have a legal due regard to an all-island economy that does not exist. Anyone who stands up here today and talks about their full-throated support for the Windsor framework should read what paragraph 53 has to say about the all-island economy. It is a matter of fact that we do not have an all-island economy; we have strands within our economy that operate on a cross-border basis in the context of two legal jurisdictions, two tax jurisdictions, two currency jurisdictions, two VAT jurisdictions and two regulatory jurisdictions, unless covered under annex 2 of the protocol. We do not have an all-island economy. It is a superfluous piece of legislation that is drawn out of the joint report from 2017, and it should go. It should go because I say so; it should go because it was agreed under the Windsor framework, which is quickly forgotten and ignored.
We have talked about article 2 in this debate. No one on this side of the Chamber is indicating that we should leave, through this argument, the European convention on human rights, nor that we should replace the Human Rights Act 1998, which embeds those commitments in our domestic legislation. The argument being raised on article 2 of the Windsor framework is that what has been presented as an international treaty, an agreement and a resolution on trade is impacting and frustrating the ability of this sovereign Parliament because of how the courts in Northern Ireland are interpreting the provisions on myriad areas outside trade.
Immigration is a classic example. The hon. Member for Walthamstow was right that we worked on this and we talked about this, but let me be very clear: whenever
I stood up in this Chamber on behalf of my colleagues as our spokesman on home affairs to say that I would not vote for the Illegal Migration Act 2023, it was not because I did not think there was an issue with immigration. I do. It was not because I was ill-prepared to support Government in their endeavours. I was prepared to do so. I said this in this Chamber and my colleagues supported me: it was because, though the Government said that the provisions would apply in Northern Ireland, we were indicating that they would not.
The very same people who told me that the immigration legislation would apply in Northern Ireland launched a leadership campaign on the back of the arguments I was making afterward. We were right, but it is wrong that a trading agreement should have any impact whatever on the ability of this sovereign Parliament to set a uniform immigration policy across the whole United Kingdom. It was wrong then, and I am glad that the Secretary of State on Wednesday night indicated that that is a ground of appeal that the Government are bringing forward, because it is wrong.