Debate contribution: Democratic Consent Resolution

Debate contribution by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 10 December 2024.

MLA

Mr Matthew O'Toole

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

10 December 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Democratic Consent Resolution

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4716227

Read the official Assembly record

Text

The protocol came into existence, in a sense, in October 2019. October 2019 feels like a lifetime ago, although, in fairness, everything that happened before Jonny Buckley's speech feels like a lifetime ago.

Should Mr Buckley ever, for whatever reason, decide to leave politics — he is very young, and I hope that he does not — let me reassure him that the Grand Opera House beckons. May McFettridge would be jealous of that performance. It was one of the great ham acts of the pantomime season. We are debating a serious issue today. Unlike many of the motions that we have debated since returning to the Chamber, this is about something fundamental. It is about the relationships that we have following the UK's decision to leave the EU. It is about a decision that we did not make, which was for a hard Brexit, that has had profound consequences for our people, our peace and the society and economy in which we live. That protocol was first signed by Boris Johnson and his Government five years ago. Since then, we have seen two UK general elections, two Irish general elections, an Assembly election and institutional collapse. That institutional collapse was brought about by the party opposite — the DUP — because it did not like the post-Brexit arrangements resulting from the hard Brexit that it and its allies in the Conservative Party championed and brought about. That is why the protocol exists. It was surreal to hear Mr Buckley and, to an extent, Mr Aiken talking about the protocol — now renamed the "Windsor framework" — as if it fell from the sky and had nothing to do with Brexit. It would not have happened without Brexit. The UK's leaving the European Union is ipso facto why there is a protocol. It is also why I am here, and I will talk a little about my experience.

I will give way, yes.

The Member has made his point. I will return to the basic logical point that I was making, which was that, had the UK not decided to leave the European Union and had there not been a hard Brexit, there would have been no need for lobbying by the SDLP, the Alliance Party, Sinn Féin, the Irish Government and EU member states in order to protect us from a hard border on the island of Ireland. That was necessary because of Brexit — a hard Brexit that was chosen by people who did not have the interests of this place at heart. Tragically, the DUP and others in the Chamber got on board with that hard Brexit and were cheerleaders for it. I am afraid that, in many ways, they have no one to blame but themselves, although perhaps they can also blame Boris Johnson, their erstwhile ally, who is now retired somewhere, writing his memoirs and probably not paying much attention to the debate here today. Perhaps Members on the other side of the Chamber will reflect on that as they lambast those of us in the Chamber who are doing our best to make this place and our post-Brexit arrangements work.

I will give way in one minute — in fact, I will give way now.

First, it was not a motion; it was a letter. What would some of the anti-protocol crowd have to talk about were it not for the phrase "rigorous implementation"? I will come on to talk about our view of the protocol and our ambitions for our future relationship with the European Union. I want to see —.

Well, I was not a politician then. Do I regret wanting to have the protocol implemented? No, I do not. Does Mr Buckley regret hard Brexit?

Do you regret —?

Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. The Member brings me back to my former career, which I was going to talk about. There have been many consequences from hard Brexit that the DUP does not like.

I will give way to the Alliance leader in just a little while. There have been many consequences of hard Brexit that the DUP does not like, one of which is the protocol and the Irish Sea border, as it talks about. I do not call it that. Another consequence that it does not like is me. I would not be in the Chamber, had it not been for a hard Brexit. I would not be here and would not be a politician in Northern Ireland, had the UK decided not to leave the EU. I was, as the Member said, in Downing Street. I was a civil servant. I did not agree with the Government that I worked for, but, like lots of civil servants, you work for the Government that you work for. I was a civil servant in 2016. I spent the night of 23 June in 10 Downing Street. As a civil servant working on that campaign, I tried my best to stop the UK leaving the EU, because I thought that it would be a disaster for the UK economy. I am a nationalist. I believe that Northern Ireland should leave the UK and form a new Ireland inside the EU. However, I did not want to see the UK economy destroyed; I cared about what happened to the UK. I worked there at the time as a UK civil servant. I am being honest with Mr Buckley about that. He wants Northern Ireland to stay in the UK. I presume that he has the best interests of the UK and its economy at heart. I draw his attention to the repeated findings of the Office for Budget Responsibility and every other serious, credible economic forecaster and analyst who has said that Brexit has fundamentally damaged the UK economy. Philip McGuigan mentioned the finding that it cost the UK 4% in long-run productivity: that is the finding after the referendum. The forecast before the referendum when I was working on all that inside Whitehall was that the UK leaving the EU on the terms that it did would cost long-run productivity of 4·2%. That means tens of billions of pounds of lost economic output every year, less money for public services, fewer jobs and fewer opportunities — that is Brexit. So do not, members of the DUP, come in here and carpet me or others in the Chamber who will vote Aye on the motion today, when the consequences that we are dealing with are the result of hard Brexit. Members on the other side of the Chamber shake their head, but it is true. There are none so blind as those who will not see. I am happy to give way to any member of the DUP or TUV or anyone else who would like to intervene and tell me the name of one economic analyst who can find a benefit of Brexit or thinks that Brexit has not cost the UK economically. The Education Minister is here. He was not happy with me earlier. I am happy to give way to him. I am happy to give way to the two former Economy Ministers from the DUP. Actually, I think that we have three former Economy Ministers from the DUP here. If any of them can give me the name of a single economic analyst who thinks that Brexit has had any benefits, I am happy to give way to them. No. That is because there are not any. I have made my point. Brexit has been a disaster. Northern Ireland has had some protections from Brexit. If you want evidence of that, look at the numbers on our overall economic performance. The Northern Ireland composite economic index (NICEI), is produced regularly by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA). We go back to quarter 4 of 2019, when Boris Johnson, formerly beloved of certain Members in the Chamber, signed the protocol. If we compare economic output from quarter 4 in 2019 in Northern Ireland with that in the UK writ large, the UK's is about 2% above where it was then, while Northern Ireland's is over 8% above that. We have far outperformed the rest of the UK in that sense. I would not claim, nor could I claim, that all that difference has been delivered because of the protocol. What I will say, however, is that the idea that the protocol has ravaged our economy and that we are dong terribly as a result of it is clearly, obviously and self-evidently untrue. Had it been damaging our economy in the way in which some have claimed, the numbers would bear out that claim. They do not, and they have not. That is not to say that the protocol is some perfect thing: it is not. I would never say that. I have never said that, nor has my party ever said it. Let me go back, first, to the economic question and to some of the disruptions. The protocol, as a result of hard Brexit, has meant new processes for goods as they move from Britain into Northern Ireland. That has caused challenges that need to be worked on for businesses, particularly for small businesses, which do not have the same level of capacity as, for example, large supermarkets do to deal with those processes. Our party has always said, as have others in the Chamber, that there needs to be a focus on ensuring that the disruptions are as minimal as possible in order to deal with them. At no point will Members hear me or any other Member from my party say otherwise. Would that other Members in the Chamber were as frank and honest about acknowledging the damages from Brexit writ large. If they were, we might get somewhere. By the way, I would say, in parenthesis, that, while people talk about impacts on business here, there are businesses on the island of Britain that are dealing with the hugely damaging costs of all the trade barriers that have been erected between Dover and Calais. Please let us not pretend that hard Brexit has not been economically ruinous, as I said, for businesses on the other side of the Irish Sea. Members on the opposite Benches are again shaking their heads, but they are simply denying obvious, self-evident fact. There are and were challenges around implementation, and the EU has not got them all right. The UK has mostly got them wrong, but we have been frank about the fact that there needs to be a focused effort on improving things. That is why, in our paper, 'Our European Future', which I will talk a fair bit about today, there are practical suggestions about how we can grow our voice in Brussels and create better mechanisms for making representations to the EU-UK Joint Committee and the Specialised Committee. I would like to think that some of the Members who have talked today about all the challenges will get on board with this, but one such opportunity is through taking one obvious step — there are business representative groups that support this — which is to have the European Commission open an office in Belfast. It had an office in Bedford Street for many years and has an office in London that causes no major issues. If it were to have an office in Belfast, that would enable business trade bodies and Members of the Assembly to have meetings there, to make representations and to find out what is happening around the application of EU law or any checks that are or are not happening or, indeed, around future pieces of EU law. There is a reasonable proposal that, I hope, Members in the Chamber can get behind, and there are lots of others in our paper. Yes, by all means, let us look at how we can continue to ensure the smoothest possible implementation of the protocol. I also want to challenge one of Dr Aiken's points. He said that, if we did not vote against the motion today — the motion specifically relates to articles 5 to 10 — there would be no review and nothing would happen. That is not true, because the law has now been changed. Schedule 6A to the Northern Ireland Act 1998, I believe, now makes it clear that, if there is a vote today by simple majority, the relevant articles in the protocol will extend by four years but the UK Government will deliver an independent review. There is a review. That is something that the UK Government put in law. It was not something that we demanded or insisted on, nor was it something that we particularly supported, but it is not true to say that there is no review process, if there is a simple majority vote to continue the application of the protocol.

I will give way in one second. It is also important to say that that very differentiation between a simple majority and what is called a "cross-community majority" gives the lie to all the nonsense that has been talked about "cross-community versus simple majority".

There is a differentiation in our vote today, between a cross-community vote and a simple majority vote. If there is a simple majority vote, there will be review, but if there is a cross-community majority, the review period will be extended to eight years. What it does not give is what the DUP want: the ability to operate a veto against everyone in this community who voted Remain, and I do not care if it bothers people in the DUP that I am pointing out that people in the North voted Remain. The DUP wants a veto: that is what it demanded from the UK Government during the Safeguarding the Union process. It did not get one, but let me remind the DUP that cross-community voting, so called, does not apply to every single motion in the Assembly. It never has done. Pointedly, no cross-community consent was required for Brexit. Of course, the point has to be made that there is no cross-community consent, by definition, for the constitutional status quo. So it is a bit absurd for the DUP to try to superimpose it post facto on some of the things that it does not like about a hard Brexit. I give way to Dr Aiken.

No.

The answer is no, because I fundamentally do not agree with the proposition. However, I respect you and gave you the opportunity to make your point. I thought that the leader of the Alliance Party also wanted to say something, but she does not. That is fine; I will make some progress. I do not want anyone to feel that I am being miserly when it comes to interventions, although I will speak more briefly than Mr Buckley. We only have the protocol, and now the Windsor framework, because of a hard Brexit. It creates a corpus of EU law that applies in Northern Ireland specifically to the movement of goods. It is imperfect, but it offers critical protections. The idea that it has fundamentally damaged our economy is wrong, but there are specific challenges that specific businesses need to have resolved. I have no difficulty with that. I also want to acknowledge that there are real, genuine and sincere difficulties that people have with the protocol on the basis of their identity and their sense of belonging. I would never diminish or dismiss those concerns. I go back to my personal experience, which Mr Buckley referred to. On 23 June 2016 and subsequently, I felt that the terms of my citizenship had changed. That is a part of the reason why I changed my career and became a politician here. I am an Irish citizen and a European. It is because of my European identity that I believe profoundly in the values of mutual respect, pluralism and diversity. Those are the values that fundamentally animate my party. Those are the values that made John Hume believe and say that the European Union was the greatest peace project in human history. Our party stands firmly behind that aspiration. On 23 June 2016, and in subsequent years, many of us felt that that sense of our identity and belonging had been fundamentally taken away from us, so I understand that, for many unionists, the protocol presents difficulties. I would not diminish them and I would not dismiss them. The way to approach them is not to tear down political institutions, boycott things or threaten to collapse, or actually collapse, institutions: it is to work to make things better. To that end, the SDLP published its paper for what happens next. After today's vote, assuming that there is a simple majority, a review will be called and there will be a process in which we look at how we improve the operation of the protocol. Our party hopes that we will get the absolute best from the opportunities that lie in front of us from the protocol. We are a proudly pro-European party. We are the most pro-European party in the Chamber. We make no apology for wanting Northern Ireland to rejoin the EU in a new Ireland or for believing that that is the best future for all our people. Even for those who do not believe in that future, there are huge opportunities from a special relationship between Northern Ireland and the European Union. Let us bear in mind that not only is Northern Ireland bound by certain EU rules under the protocol but our people have EU citizenship by birthright. Our people also have the opportunity to rejoin the EU automatically at some point in the future. As I said, however, even if they do not want to exercise that right, although I do, there is a vast universe of opportunity awaiting us if we embrace our position at the crossroads of two markets. We are uniquely positioned — frankly, people all over the continent are envious — to take advantage of the situation. First of all, we have "dual market access", a phrase that has been bandied about today. I think that I might have been one of the first Members to use it in the Chamber. Mr Buckley dismissed it, saying that the head of Invest NI stated that there had not been any specific investment because of it. Although it is true that he said that there had not been specific FDI on that basis, he did not say that there was no potential or proposition. He did not say that at all. It would be mad for us to throw away our dual market access proposition. There are regions across the world that would love to have the proposition that we have: the seamless ability to move goods into the UK and EU markets. Just one example is decarbonisation and the green economy. The UK and the EU are moving towards net zero. That will mean a huge project and transition involving huge amounts of low-carbon manufacturing, such as the manufacturing of wind turbines. Mr Brooks was animated earlier. We have in his constituency a historic manufacturer, including of the kinds of machinery that can be used in renewable technology. Why not ensure that Harland and Wolff is able to move its goods for the purposes of renewable technology into the UK and EU markets, so that we and the workers of East Belfast can take economic advantage of our position by manufacturing goods and moving them into the UK and the EU single market? Why would we not take those opportunities?

Briefly.

He has made his point, but there has been huge progress in smoothing out the issues. The DUP is a party that wants to pursue and protect the status quo. That is not my lookout; I want Northern Ireland to rejoin the EU via a new Ireland. It is, however, some prospectus for young people here who are thinking about their economic, professional and constitutional future to hear the big opportunity that awaits us in having access to both markets being talked down. If I were defending the constitutional status quo — believe me, I am not; I would like us to leave the UK and rejoin the EU — I would be a little less negative about the possibilities in front of this place, but that is the DUP's lookout. It is for the DUP to make that argument. I do not think that constantly dragging us back into arguments about some of these matters is necessarily the way in which to make a positive offer. I am positive about our European future. I am positive about the opportunities that await our young people. That is what we are pursuing. Our party was in Brussels last week having meetings with members of our European socialist and democratic group to talk about what we would like to see. We would like to capitalise on Northern Ireland's dual market access. We want opportunities for our young people, and not just ERASMUS. Yes, at the minute, young people from Northern Ireland can participate in ERASMUS, but they need a sponsoring body in the Republic to help them. I want our institutions to be back fully in ERASMUS, but not just for university students; I want all our young people to benefit from youth mobility programmes. I want us to have a voice in the European Parliament. Some Members complain about the way in which the protocol is being implemented and about EU law. Why not take advantage of our unique position and have, via observer status in the European Parliament, our voice at the heart of where those decisions are taken? Why not take advantage of our unique position and give our young people all those opportunities? Why not look to see whether the European Investment Bank is willing to partner with the Shared Island unit to underwrite infrastructure investment in Northern Ireland? Why not look to see whether we can push to get more EU funding using the PEACE PLUS initiative as a model? Why not look for every single opportunity that awaits us? I am totally positive about our future. I am passionate about the opportunities that await us. Yes, the SDLP is the most pro-European party here, but these are practical, pragmatic ideas, too. My party has already written to the UK Government Secretary of State about our ideas. After the debate, we will write to the chairs of the Joint Committee, Maroš Šefcovic and Nick Thomas-Symonds, to make it clear to them that we want to see any future initiatives on the protocol focus not just on east-west interests or the interests of a narrow part of unionism but on the interests of everybody here in Northern Ireland. We also want to focus on North/South interests, because, for all the talk of disruptions across the Irish Sea — there have been some, and they need to be managed — there has been a huge range of other disruptions to the all-island economy and cross-border life that we need to examine. Under article 11, which talks about the North/South context, and article 14, which allows for the NSMC to make representations to improve the operation of the protocol, there is a real opportunity for us to start to deal with those challenges. Some in the Chamber want to focus only on the negative. Some in the Chamber want us all to forget their responsibility in delivering a hard Brexit. Some in the Chamber want to drag us back to the division and dysfunction of the past few years and the Brexit debacle that they helped to deliver. Not my party. We are hugely positive about a European future for this place. Let us harness our unique position. Let us take advantage of the unique position that Northern Ireland is in. Let us claim the rights and privileges that we have as people who are entitled to European citizenship with unique rights under EU law. Let us take advantage of those opportunities. Let us harness dual market access. Let us claim our voice in the European Parliament. Let us give our young people the opportunity to travel, live and work across the continent. Let us not be dragged down by negativity and pointless stunts. Let us choose a European future. I commend the motion to the Assembly.

4,077 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:45 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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