My Lords, the Northern Ireland protocol stands on a palpable absurdity, namely the idea that checks on goods between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland will upset the political equilibrium, possibly even threaten the peace, but that such checks on goods between Northern Ireland and Great Britain are just fine and dandy. It is because we have all been dancing around that anomaly that we are meeting here in this Committee. All the ripples have been caused by trying to come to terms with something that is simply absurd.
I add my voice to all those who have complimented our chairman. Our committee indeed has, to use his phrase, “strong and divergent” views. There speaks nearly 40 years of diplomatic experience. That is one way of putting it. None the less, we have come up with some serious proposals with consensus. I think that we were able to do so for one reason, which is worth bringing out: of all the witnesses we heard from, there was not one that was actively pro-protocol. There was certainly a variety of views. I was very impressed. It was the first time that I had been on a Select Committee and everything that people said about the balance, fairness and thoroughness was absolutely right. We heard from every different quarter of opinion. There were those who thought it was a price worth paying, those who did not, those who put the blame on Brexit and those who put the blame on the protocol, but there was not one voice arguing that the protocol was an improvement on the status quo ante—not one.
I can broadly group under two headings the complaints that I heard from the various witnesses who appeared before us. One lot are what we might call the practical objections. They were uniform, I think, across Northern Ireland. You could not tell which tradition someone was from when they voiced them. They were concerns
to do with sausages, pet passports and all the other pragmatic difficulties of overzealous implementation. I think there would, in theory, be quite easy solutions to them if there were a modicum of good will. The second lot, I think it is fair to say, were objections voiced largely from unionist and loyalist sources and had to do with what we might loosely call the democratic deficit—the idea that Northern Ireland will have laws, even taxes, imposed on it by people that it cannot vote for. Those are much harder to deal with, at least within the protocol. We can safely disregard the various ideas that they can be resolved by somehow allowing Northern Ireland to be politically further annexed by the EU. They are a very difficult set of problems to resolve.
If I were an EU negotiator, I would be super-flexible about the first lot, thereby maximising the difficulties of any UK Government wanting to deal with the second lot. It would not really be any skin off my nose. We heard my noble friend Lord Empey quote the figures of the miniscule amount of the EU economy accounted for by Great Britain/Northern Ireland trade—0.008%. However, it seems that the Brussels negotiators do not have the same diplomatic skill that I see arrayed on the Bench opposite, albeit with a little gap now with the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, having absented himself. Instead of showing flexibility on the practical side and digging in on sovereignty—which is what we might expect them to do—they have been difficult and obstreperous about every issue, even requiring rabies shots for pets moving from Great Britain. It is very difficult to avoid the conclusion that they relishes our discomfort and are seeking to use the protocol as a pressure point, a way of exerting pressure on the UK to secure our long-term adherence to EU standards. We heard some of the figures: 20% of EU external checks are applied to 0.5% of its trade, if you count Great Britain-Northern Ireland trade as external trade. Why are they doing this?
It is extraordinary, listening to the debate in this Chamber, another Chamber, more widely in the media and, I have to say, from three speakers so far how often the only answer we get is, “Well, you signed it”. Seriously, is that all you have? How does that take us forward? It is true that it was signed, as what we might call an unequal treaty. History is littered with examples of treaties that ceased to be valid and were then abrogated or annulled. An apt example, given both the subject matter and this being its centenary year, is the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921. It was repudiated in stages by successive Irish Governments, first breaking their residual constitutional links with the UK, then declaring a republic and leaving the Commonwealth. I note en passant, as we old Brussels hands say, that when that the final break was made in 1949 the UK Government were remarkably affable about it. In fact, King George sent the following message to the Irish President:
“I hold in most grateful memory the services and sacrifices of the men and women of your country who rendered gallant assistance to our cause in the recent war … I pray that every blessing may be with you today and in the future.”
I wonder whether the European Union will be similarly accommodating if a similar repudiation happens. Somehow, I doubt it. Maybe that is something we can all agree on around this Room.
When a treaty is not working, when a treaty is a product, as this one was, of the Benn Act and of a Parliament that was not working to get the best possible terms, it will obviously have to go in one way or another. It seems to me that there are three options. In declining order of drama, there is outright repudiation, the triggering of Article 16 or asking for some changes within the existing structures. The first is the cleanest, and there is precedent, but so far I see little appetite for it.
There is already ample justification for the second. Article 16, just to remind members of this Committee and other noble Lords, contains the following clause:
“If the application of this Protocol leads to serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist, or to diversion of trade, the Union or the United Kingdom may unilaterally take appropriate safeguard measures.”
Leaving aside “environmental”, it seems to me that we have already passed that threshold on the others. In terms of economic disruption, Northern Ireland sells more to Great Britain than to the Republic of Ireland, the rest of the EU and the rest of the world put together. We heard from one of our witnesses that Northern Ireland-Great Britain trade is now subject to £10 billion of extra costs, and three-quarters of Northern Ireland businesses said they had been negatively impacted. As for societal difficulties, when, according to the opinion polls, half of Northern Ireland is against it—it is now almost exactly half and half—that is normally taken in the Northern Ireland context as a pretty good argument to desist from your course of action and try something more consensual.
As for trade diversion, that is not in doubt. We heard that north-south trade increased by 50% as businesses in the Province shifted their sourcing and trade, but to portray this as a good thing, to portray the cause of extra cost and bureaucracy forcing trade diversion as somehow an economic step forward, is rather like arguing that it was a great thing that the blockade in the Second World War led to people growing more potatoes in their gardens. The most basic principle of trade is that we should trust businesses to do what is rational and profitable. If they cannot do so because of needless paperwork—applied, to repeat, not in any proportionate spirit but for the sake of making trouble—it seems to me that must be reckoned a net cost.
So one way or another, the current deal is going. The only question is whether it goes in agreement with our European partners or through unilateral action. I have to say—I know this goes against the spirit of the meeting—that my noble friend the Minister has shown heroic restraint so far in asking nicely for changes, rather than making them unilaterally. When we think that the European Union triggered Article 16, albeit briefly, on no grounds beyond pique that the UK vaccine programme was ahead of its own, we have ample cause in terms of the economic and societal impacts that we have already seen.
I hope we can do this consensually. I hope that Northern Ireland becomes a bridge between the UK and the European Union, but there is no veto here: one way or another, the protocol has to go.
5.35 pm