My bill will resolve the unbearable situation facing Northern Ireland
3 min read
If MPs would not want their constituents to be governed by laws they cannot change, they should support my Private Members' Bill.
Fixing the foundations has been a theme of recent months in Parliament. If ever such was necessary, it is in relation to the post-Brexit arrangements affecting Northern Ireland.
When a part of the UK is governed by laws not made in this Parliament or the devolved assembly but by a foreign parliament, there is something desperately in need of being fixed. When such prevails in 300 areas of law, it is a problem of huge proportions. And when those foreign laws require a partitioning customs border within the United Kingdom, action is imperative.
This is the unbearable situation in Northern Ireland under the Windsor framework. Colony-like, we are ruled by laws we don’t make and can’t change. My question to every Great British MP is simply this: would you be at ease with your constituents being governed by laws you can’t shape or change? If not, then, it’s time to support my Private Members' Bill.
These are not merely incidental laws. They shape our economy, our agriculture-food industry, our trade and which place us under the European Union's Customs Code, requiring Great Britain to be treated as a third country when it trades goods to Northern Ireland. The result: an international customs border in the Irish Sea!
The excuse for such is the compulsion to avoid a land border at the international frontier. But my bill will provide for a better way, which respects the territorial integrity of the UK and the democratic right to be governed by our own laws. That workable alternative is ‘mutual enforcement’.
Mutual enforcement, which was first mooted from within the EU itself, simply means that the UK would enact a new UK law, making it illegal, on pain of criminal sanction, for any person to move any product from Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland which is not compliant with EU product standards. Additionally, any due customs would be collected and passed over. If, as it ought, the Republic of Ireland did the same, then, through 'mutual enforcement' the need for border checks is removed.
My bill will provide the statutory basis for taking such forward, remembering the volume of trade crossing into the Republic from Northern Ireland is a mere 0.003 per cent of the entirety of EU imports – yet, for this, we have the absurdity of an international customs border dividing our nation and discouraging trade and supplies from GB.
Yes, let’s fix the foundations of our union – by restoring equilibrium both to NI’s place in the UK and the UK’s relationship with the EU. Pursuant to international law, the EU should be respecting the territorial integrity of our country, but sadly has been gifted an arrangement that wholly disrespects the supposed sanctity of this basic principle of international relations.
Jim Allister is Traditional Unionist Voice Leader and MP for North Antrim.
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