I do not intend to speak long; that will allow others to get in, but it is primarily because we have spoken about this issue morning, noon and night for much of the past eight years and because Northern Ireland in general wants to move on. The hearts of people at home are sinking at the prospect of going back in time, of our heading like a demented moth towards the hard Brexit flame, and of our reopening debates from a time that was so destructive to our public services and our economy. That was a time when our economy, our jobs and our crumbling health service were put on the back burner while we indulged in years of discussions about sausages and smoky bacon crisps. We remember the menacing rallies that accompanied those discussions, and the way the Northern Ireland Assembly was held down. The people I represent do not recognise the “Mad Max” scenario that Members continue to paint in which there is a lack of food and other products on our shelves. That is not the reality that people are living in.
I do not want to relitigate all that has happened since 2016, but it is fair to say that Brexit sharpened all the lines that the Good Friday agreement was designed to soften around identity, sovereignty and borders. It is a fact that has not really been mentioned—I am not a majoritarian person—but Northern Ireland very clearly rejected Brexit in 2016. In the eight subsequent elections, in increasing numbers, it has supported parties and candidates who have sought to put mitigations in place. My party and I will stand by every decision we took in those years. In this Chamber, the other Chamber and the media, we begged Unionist Members not to make this a winner-takes-all scenario, not to follow Boris Johnson down yet another blind alley, not to take the assurances that they were being given. In all those times, there was not a whisper about consent, consensus or cross-community affairs.
Many of the people I deal with see the implementation difficulties. Brexit was entirely a project about trade friction, and it has created friction for many people. Those people, including small businesses and the people I represent, absolutely want to address those issues. They want to streamline processes and to use the framework provided to solve problems. They do not want to tear down the edifice of the solutions, as the Bill would do. In fact, last week, the Northern Ireland Assembly, as
Unionist Members will know, endorsed my party’s proposals for moving forward—proposals not to rejoin the European Union, not to cancel Brexit, not to reopen all those wounds, but to look to the future, so that our voices are heard in decision making, and to try to grab every single economic opportunity that comes our way, east and west, and north and south.
My party and the people who opposed Brexit have never tried to make people choose between trade and possibility in either direction. We believe that we have been handed some lemons by Brexit, but we are ready to make lemonade. The lengthy opening speech by the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim will do nothing to allay the fears of many of my constituents that at its heart, this is about repudiating rights and hardening the rules on movement of people and goods, north and south. It feels to many people that that is what he is attempting to do, as well as to bring in the legacy of the past.