Yesterday the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland rejected the first attempt by unionist Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly to pull the Stormont Brake, and thereby try to block the application of the latest EU legislation to Northern Ireland, in this case the new EU Chemical Regulation.
While disappointed by his decision, some unionists have welcomed the fact that the Secretary of State has at least made a commitment to address concerns that the new law will cause Northern Ireland to diverge from the rest of the UK (with serious economic consequences), by floating a solution, namely that Great Britain should be brought into line with EU law as well.
Addressing the problem of the Irish Sea border through GB EU alignment is now the clear policy of the Government and is finding particularly advanced expression in the Product Safety and Metrology Bill currently in the House of Lords. The Secretary of State, however, and unionists who have welcomed Mr Benn’s alignment commitments as a ‘win’, should never forget the difference between union and alignment and that unionists are not ‘alignmentists’.
Unionism is about the four constituent parts of the United Kingdom being united in the same state and electing people, on an equal basis, to Parliament, and in some cases devolved assemblies, to make all the laws to which we are subject. It does not involve disenfranchising part of the union, subjecting it to laws made by a foreign power, and of then seeking to generate the illusion of a union by bringing the rest of the country’s laws into alignment with it (and thus the whole country into alignment with the said foreign power) even as the Irish Sea border remains in place.
To accept such an arrangement would be to affirm the effective hollowing out of our United Kingdom unionist and democratic traditions. In the first instance, it would involve exchanging the reality of union with a pretend, fake union, because the aligned laws, giving the image of one law and one country, would actually obscure the fact that they would be different laws, resting on different foundations, controlled by different countries. In the second instance, it would betray all our dearly held standards of citizenship and democracy, demanding the effective disenfranchisement of the rest of the UK in similar areas of law, so it suffers as we have suffered, as it is compelled to surrender its Brexit freedoms to become a rule taker from Brussels rather than being free to pursue closer relationships with the wider world.
This would make a complete mockery of Brexit, making it an exercise in giving more powers away rather than taking back control. It would allow the sabotaging of Brexit in Northern Ireland, created by the Irish Sea border, to be exported back across the Irish Sea to sabotage Brexit throughout the rest of the United Kingdom!
It is, of course, the case that the UK Government did Northern Ireland a grave injustice in failing to stand up for us in the face of the EU’s Irish Sea border demands. They should have rejected these out of hand because they involved asking the UK to offer up 1.9 million of its citizens to not only be denied Brexit but to be subject to disenfranchisement and effective colonial status in 300 areas of law. There is perhaps now a sense in which the foolishness of this mistake is coming home to roost. Some in Northern Ireland may be tempted to think that we should now try to get and our own back by allowing Great Britain to taste some of its own medicine. But this is a response that elevates small-minded spitefulness over the big-hearted unionist statesmanship that is required.
Unionists in Northern Ireland must now take the higher road.
As a unionist, I really want the best for the union as a whole because I know it is only when the union acts as a union, with the best interests of the whole union in mind, that we can succeed.
This is a seminal moment when the 17,410,742 million people who voted for Brexit from right across the United Kingdom, and indeed all those who, while voting to remain, prioritise the endurance of the United Kingdom, must come together to get our country back.
The only way in which this objective can be secured is if the whole United Kingdom leaves the EU, so the EU cannot use Northern Ireland as a political pawn to draw Great Britain back into alignment with it. And the only way in which the whole United Kingdom can leave is if we adopt the solution for dealing with the NI-ROI border which was first proposed from within the EU, (before certain people cottoned on the fact that an Irish Sea border would enable the EU to control the UK and sabotage Brexit), Mutual Enforcement. My Mutual Enforcement Bill, currently before Parliament, sets out the way of securing this, opening the door to Brexit and a free trade deal with the United States, which will not be possible while part of the UK remains in the EU, let alone when that part of the UK is used by the EU to draw the whole UK back into alignment with the it.
There is nothing to stop the current government adopting my Bill and thereby restoring the integrity of the UK and laying the foundation for a trade deal with the United States. I would urge people from up and down the country to press their MPs to ask the Government to adopt it as a matter of urgency. If they refuse to do so, though, then we should not forget that governments, even governments with big majorities, do not last forever. With this in mind, it was striking to me that although I lost when I divided the House last week to oppose the latest part of the Irish Sea border, I would have won on the basis of the party split had current polling been reflected in the make-up of Parliament.
To find out more about my Mutual Enforcement Bill visit: www.restoretheunion.co.uk
Jim Allister KC MP
So what do you want Allister?