Top Tory says national identity is ‘spiritual’ when asked how GB citizens would react to stopping trains and checking luggage between north and south England

Simon Hoare, chairman of the Commons’ Northern Ireland Commission, was speaking on the Nolan Show a short time ago.

The broadcast was dealing with the Irish Sea border and the place of Northern Ireland in the UK.

Mr Hoare, MP for North Dorset, had this posed to him by Stephen Nolan: “I’ll tell you what, Simon.

“Here’s what some unionists might argue, Simon.

“Hop on the train in Manchester and put a border post up between Manchester and London.

“And have the train stop, and have everybody’s goods searched, and then have to fill in paperwork on your way to London if you’re leaving from Manchester.

“And then tell me you feel as British as you were yesterday.”

Mr Hoare replied that “the filling out of a form [should not make] a blinding bit of difference to how one identifies”.

He said: “I could be wrong. And I appreciate there’ll be some people shouting at their radios going ‘oh there’s Hoare again banging on about this’.

“I don’t identify my sense of belonging and nationality and heritage and all the rest of it by the paper or electronic forms that have to be filled in by suppliers bringing goods to my local High Street.”

A sense of nationhood, he said, “is a spiritual thing it’s a heritage thing it’s an emotional attachment, it’s not codes and numbers”.

Mr Nolan quoted Article Six of the Act of Union to Mr Hoare, as follows: “The subjects of Great Britain and Ireland shall be on the same footing in respect of

trade and navigation, and in all treaties with foreign powers the subjects of Ireland shall have the same privileges as British subject.”

After the 26 southern counties of Ireland left the UK, the 1800 Act of Union applied to the remaining six Northern Irish ones.

Mr Nolan put it to Mr Hoare that the government’s ongoing talk of letting Northern Ireland have “unique access” to the EU contravenes the 1800 treaty.

“I’m not a lawyer,” said Mr Hoare.

“But I am a Conservative who believes in the rule of law and ind of the judiciary and these arguments have been put before the courts on many occasions, testing the legality of the Protocol [and] the process by which it was arrived upon, and the courts have opined upon that.”

He noted, however, that there may be further court proceedings on the matter later.

Shortly afterwards, a caller from Carrickfergus put this to Mr Hoare: “If we put a border around your Dorset, how would you feel?

“We were used to security checks everywhere we went for most of our lives... and now we’re putting up borders again, in a place we didn’t agree to or ask for.

You make it out like we’re the Falklands or some far out cry of the British Empire.

“We’re not. We’re part of the main part of Britain.”

Mr Hoare replied: “Exactly. And I’d think all my answers Mike would have underscored that point.”

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