Jim Allister's bill to remove the Irish Sea border will 'fix the foundations' of Northern Ireland’s place in the UK

He told MPs: “Since I came to this House in July, I have lost count of the number of times I’ve heard from the Government benches affirmations about ‘fixing the foundations’. Well, there’s one foundation that most assuredly needs fixed, and that’s the foundation which flows from the inequitable post-Brexit arrangement, as they affect my part of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland.

“Because the foundations of this United Kingdom have been disturbed and dislodged by these arrangements. So the primary purpose of this Bill is yes, to fix those foundations, to restore equilibrium to Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom.”

Reform deputy leader Richard Tice intervened to describe the Stormont brake mechanism, which allows members of the Northern Ireland Assembly to refer elements of EU law to the UK Government, as “rusty and not attached to anything”.

Mr Allister responded: “When you pull the brake if you could, nothing happens, so that’s the value of it.

“The most limp excuse that I hear for this plundering of the Northern Ireland statute booked by the EU is ‘oh, international law requires this’, Sorry? What sort of international law says a state must self-harm by disenfranchising its own borders? There is no such international law.”

Labour MP Andrew Lewin questioned whether words like “colonisation” are part of “the message we want to send” to Brussels, after Mr Allister claimed Northern Ireland had become a “colony” of the EU after “the foundations of this United Kingdom have been disturbed and dislodged by these arrangements”, which sought to ease trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland while preventing a hard international border with Ireland,

The MP for North Antrim told the Commons: “What is a colony? It is a territory governed by someone else’s laws from a foreign jurisdiction.

“When you’ve 300 areas of law, including customs, including the very definition of what is Northern Ireland’s territory in trading terms, which are governed by foreign EU laws, then you’ve created the situation where Northern Ireland in that context is a veritable colony.”

Mr Lewin, MP for Welwyn Hatfield, intervened and said: “I believe that the European Union is our ally, 27 democracies, and I have to say I’m concerned by some of the language I’m hearing – he talks of colonisation, he talks of surrender.

“And I would just gently ask whether that is the message that we want to send to our 27 allies and friends in the European Union?”

Mr Allister later said in response: “The EU has behaved as a sovereign grabber in respect of Northern Ireland and that is where they caused the offence and continue to cause the offence.

“And if honourable members think it’s a good thing to back that up, to endorse that, then they obviously don’t think very much of the territory of Northern Ireland.”

The private member’s Bill would give ministers powers to block parts of the EU Withdrawal Agreement and Windsor Framework in UK law, in particular parts of the deal which apply EU customs rules on certain goods entering Northern Ireland, and which grant the Court of Justice of the EU jurisdiction over parts of the Withdrawal Agreement and framework.

Former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith told MPs that Friday’s debate was “moving slightly into the ridiculous” in tone, and that Mr Allister’s proposal was “simply to give us a solution to what is an unworkable position right now”.

He added: “It isn’t about 27 nations hating the UK. It ultimately is about function.”

Mr Allister later described “the fantasy of dual-access bonanza” – a reference to the economic links between Northern Ireland and both the UK and the EU – and said: “We already have so many items, if you go to buy it online, it will pop up ‘not available in Northern Ireland’.

“Why is that? Because the small suppliers from GB find it impossible to handle the burden of bureaucracy, so they’re simply saying, ‘we’re not supplying to Northern Ireland’.

“And that is something which frustrates so many people in Northern Ireland, when you go to order something, ‘not available in Northern Ireland’.

“It’s a huge frustration for many including, I might say, Mrs Allister, who like many’s a woman wants to order things and finds ‘not available in Northern Ireland’.”

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