We know by whom. As an aside, I rather like a heckling atmosphere, but I would prefer it if it happened not just when I am speaking.
With absolute due respect to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, who speaks so eloquently about constitutional and unconstitutional principles—I have listened very carefully to him for many years, not simply in recent weeks—I would be rather disappointed, and I think it would tarnish those principles, if it was thought that the decision was made because of the strength of feeling in this House. I would rather think that it was because the Government were satisfied by the debates, not that this House, rather unconstitutionally, might have got in the way of parliamentary sovereignty. There is a danger that some of the comments being made are self-aggrandising and self-congratulatory.
However, the main point for me—made clearly by the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and emphasised by the noble Lord, Lord Dodds—is that Northern Ireland is being treated separately, as a different entity. I am afraid that some seem to relish this: in many debates that I have sat through in this House, I have felt as though the 2016 referendum of the whole United Kingdom was being used as an excuse to interpret devolution as some kind of federalisation of the United Kingdom. Interestingly, even today, one noble Lord noted that 56% of Northern Ireland voted to remain in the European Union—that is of no matter, indeed no interest, if you believe in the United Kingdom.