Hansard

When is an international treaty not an international treaty? Ordinarily, there should be a punchline inserted at this point, but unfortunately the joke is on us in so many ways that it is embarrassing and dangerous.

I attended the Quality Meat Scotland breakfast meeting last week at the Royal Highland Show, where the First Minister gave a well-received address to the farming and red-meat industry attendees. However, what I found incredibly interesting that morning was the presentation from Professor John Gilliland, a former president of the Ulster Farmers Union and chair of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs rural climate change forum. His talk was interesting for several reasons, but one thing that really struck me was that, almost in his first sentence, he congratulated us in Scotland on having a viable, working First Minister who works on behalf of the people of Scotland, because people would love to have that in his part of the world.

The Northern Ireland protocol was supposed to be the tool that allowed Northern Ireland to have the functioning Parliament that the majority voted for, but here we are debating the fact that, once again, throwaway lines and promises from Boris Johnson have proven to be nothing more than his usual speak-first, think-never routine. That did not matter as much when he was editor of The Spectator, but it matters now that he is the Prime Minister. He is destabilising an entire country and threatening a trade war with the EU.

It appears that the Tories have little respect for international treaties, whether they were signed in 1706 or 2020, and they think that it is okay to ignore or break them and carry on regardless of the consequences. In the words of Maroš Šefcovic,

“the UK government tabled legislation, confirming its intention to unilaterally break international law.”

Although it is bad for the people of Northern Ireland to leave them without a functioning executive, it is also extremely damaging to us here in Scotland, because it raises the serious potential of a trade war with the EU during a Tory-inflicted cost of living crisis, and puts at risk the vital trade of goods between Scotland and Northern Ireland.

I know that the Tories are having difficulty this week with the concept of a political leader delivering on a promise that was made during an election campaign, but let me remind them of what their party leader said to the Democratic Unionist Party conference in Northern Ireland in 2018:

“We would be damaging the fabric of the union with regulatory checks and even customs controls between Great Britain and Northern Ireland on top of those extra regulatory checks down the Irish Sea that are already envisaged in the withdrawal agreement.”

He also said:

“I have to tell you no British Conservative government could or should sign up to any such arrangement.”

However, less than a year later, Mr Johnson put a border down the Irish Sea.

I have no problem with damaging the fabric of the union, particularly in relation to Scotland, but I have a huge problem with a London-centric Tory Government that thinks that it can play fast and loose with the politics of Northern Ireland and the economic impact that its decisions have on Scotland.

Boris Johnson does not care about Northern Ireland. He did not go there and make that—empty—promise because he believed in it. He did it because it was expedient for him, for his party and for his Government to do so at that time.

In October 2019, the Prime Minister assured the House of Commons that his protocol was a

“great success for Northern Ireland and the whole country”,

and that it was

“fully compatible with the Good Friday agreement.”—[Official Report, House of Commons, 19 October 2019; Vol 666, c 581.]

Now, the UK Government is saying that legislation to unilaterally override the protocol is

“necessary ... to preserve peace and stability in Northern Ireland.”

The man has more faces than a dice.

I do not raise the issue because the Northern Ireland protocol was the best solution for Northern Ireland. Like the majority of people in Northern Ireland and Scotland, who voted to remain in the EU, I think that recognising and enabling people’s democratic wish would have been the best solution for Scotland and Northern Ireland. However, as I said, the Tories have a problem with recognising democratic mandates.

I quote Maroš Šefcovic again. He said:

“The Protocol was the solution agreed with the UK government to protect the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement in all its dimensions, avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland, and protect the integrity of the EU’s Single Market.

We know that there are some practical difficulties in implementing it ... That is why my team and I had been engaging extensively with all stakeholders on the ground, resulting in a set of solutions put forward in October—showing genuine and unprecedented flexibility.”

The EU is showing “genuine and unprecedented flexibility”—