Debate contribution: Democratic Consent Resolution

Debate contribution by Mrs Diane Dodds on 10 December 2024.

MLA

Mrs Diane Dodds

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

10 December 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Democratic Consent Resolution

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4716458

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I am not quite sure how to follow that bit at the end. Before I get to the substance of my speech, I want to put on record some of my concerns about the tone of the debate today, and particularly what I think of as a bit of sneering from some of the Members opposite. I do not think it does the Chamber any good at all. If we cannot acknowledge the concerns of those on this side of the House without the laughing — I see that the Member for South Belfast has not remained in her chair — and the labelling of people who do not agree with the protocol as backward and not progressive and not wanting Northern Ireland to go forward, that is deeply, deeply regrettable. I want that on the record today, because I think that it is important.

No, I want to make some progress. I will give way later. You know that I do. I am glad to be able to contribute to the debate today. It is a travesty to call it a democratic consent motion, but, nevertheless, I contributed to many European debates during my time in the European Parliament. I was directly and democratically elected to that Parliament. I held a mandate from the people of Northern Ireland to speak on their behalf, and we should remember that the democratic process is a precious instrument. The right to influence and vote on a law that governs a society is a fundamental tenet of our democracy.

In Northern Ireland today, however, in the Chamber this evening, thanks to the protocol, we have the utterly bizarre situation in which people in this directly elected Chamber — Members who hold a mandate to make laws on behalf of citizens here — are cheerleading for that basic democratic right to be held by a Parliament where they have no representation and no voice and are simply content to take the laws that the European Union sees fit to hand down.

I will when I have finished this section. There are Members in the Chamber who are so enamoured with the European Union that they are content to preside over the disenfranchisement of their farmers and their manufacturing companies; Members who see no harm in setting up barriers to trade with our biggest market and creating an internal customs barrier within the United Kingdom, all to please and to be subservient to their European masters; and Members who cannot bear to question the European Union through the Democratic Scrutiny Committee process. It is truly 'Through the Looking Glass' stuff and shameful to behold.

I thank the Member for his kind words; they are appreciated. Being a Member of the European Parliament and representing Northern Ireland as one of three Members, was an enormous job and a great honour. However, as the Member well knows, having MEPs who do nothing is not something that I am going to condone. As the Member well knows, I am proud that we are part of the United Kingdom. As long as the United Kingdom has a democratic mandate to remain outside the European Union, there is no place for that in Northern Ireland. I promised the Member that I would give way.

I am not against really robust debate, as you know because you and I have engaged in that many times. I am against the labelling of a community as backward because it does not support something. I will always call that out. We see that, and we are very annoyed by it. I will, of course, give way.

I accept entirely that you did not say that I, personally, am backward. What you did say was that people who do not support the motion are backward in their outlook for Northern Ireland. That is how I read it. On the intervention of the SDLP Member for South Belfast, I see that he would like to have an EU office in Belfast. Since I am on the subject of EU law, how impotent does the political process in Northern Ireland have to be when laws are set in a place where we can make no input to them but we can beg for an explanation of them in an EU office in Belfast? How ridiculous have we become? Thanks to annex 2 of the protocol, Northern Ireland is governed by the EU in over 300 areas of law — that is thousands of regulations — and not by the Assembly and not by our sovereign Parliament at Westminster. Those are areas of law on which no citizen of Northern Ireland can vote for change because no one they vote for can effect it. They are areas of law that create a competitive disadvantage for our manufacturing companies and farmers; that mean that certain trees and seeds cannot come into Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom; and that mean that Northern Ireland must apply the EU customs code for goods, meaning that Great Britain must be treated as a third country, or a foreign country, within the United Kingdom. They are laws that create that border in the Irish Sea — a border that is hardening through time, despite agreements and repeated assurances by Conservative politicians and a Labour Secretary of State who says that the only way to please Europe is to implement everything faithfully. Oh, how the rigorous implementers are applauding. I noticed today, interestingly, a lot of rowing back from that rigorous implementation phrase. You own it. It is yours.

928 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:46 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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