Debate contribution: European Future for Northern Ireland

Debate contribution by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 2 June 2025.

MLA

Mr Matthew O'Toole

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

2 June 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

European Future for Northern Ireland

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4981331

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I beg to move

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Time flies. This month, it will be nine years since the UK voted to leave the European Union. Of course, Northern Ireland voted to remain in the European Union. That act — specifically the fact that it was enacted in the hardest, most destructive way possible — remains, as our motion says, an historic act of economic and political self-harm. I want the debate to be about the future, not the past, but the events of the past decade are a fundamental part of our understanding how we got here and where we go next, including our detailed options. Those events are also critical to understanding why we need to choose a different future. In June 2016, as I said, voters in Northern Ireland chose a different future. We chose to remain in the EU, but that choice was negated and overruled by a choice made by voters in England

Members opposite are already making interventions. I am happy to take interventions from Members across the House, and I will be generous with interventions all the way through my contribution. However, that decision was made in England, and if the DUP Members opposite wish to challenge or correct that, I would be more than happy to hear them do so. I will come back to that point, because it is also relevant to our response to the amendment that is published on the Marshalled List. The UK has lost literally hundreds of billions of pounds of economic output as a result of a decision to pursue the hardest Brexit possible. That is no longer a subject for academic debate. It is not a legitimately or seriously contested point among economists. No serious economist doubts that the hard Brexit has cost the UK hundreds of billions of pounds of lost economic output. It is not just a statistic or an academic point; that is lost tax revenue, which has led to less spending on public services and the constrained spending and fiscal position that every party in the House, be they unionist, nationalist or neither, laments weekly. Of course, Brexit has contributed to the political instability that has not only plagued the UK but has compounded the persistent instability in these institutions. I think of the backstop, the protocol and the Windsor framework. I argued for many of those in the context of them being a protection from the worst consequences of a hard Brexit on this island. However, they are all things that every unionist deeply objects to. Not one of those things would exist were it not for Brexit. They literally could not possibly have come into existence had the UK not left the EU and left it in the hardest possible way. I will, again, pause and take interventions from any Member who wants to correct or challenge the point that I have just made.

I will, of course.

I acknowledge his point. He is entitled to make it, and I gave way for the purposes of him doing so. I repeat this point: people in Northern Ireland did not vote for that democratic outcome. The purpose of the motion, respectfully, is to deal with the fact that people in Northern Ireland made a different democratic choice. I respect that he chose to leave the EU, but that has had consequences for other people in this society, and, with respect, he and his party have to understand that it has had consequences. The UK state has changed deeply and structurally. Economists talk about the difference between a cyclical change and a structural change. Cyclical change cycles through the system. Structural change is deeper: it is change that does not get washed through or unwound. The UK state has structurally lost economic output as a result of Brexit. The UK has changed structurally as a result of Brexit. It is poorer and less influential in the world. You need only see the sucking up to Trump — the desperation to win that man's approval. You need only see the progress made by Reform, Nigel Farage's party, which could well be in government after the next election. You need only see statements by Farage and his fellow travellers, including his objectionable statements about Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, in the past 24 hours. Our party's commitment to the European project has never been about just diplomatic influence or trade; it is about peace and respect for diversity. It is about a profound belief that the European context is one that can help to solve and make progress on the historic divisions on the island of Ireland and to celebrate that diversity. The EU is also the place where we can deal with the challenges of the 21st century. Those challenges go far beyond identity or even some of the challenges of our history. I am talking about things like human beings' relationship with technology, which it feels like, at times, can overwhelm us. The European Union is one of the few entities that is large enough to properly regulate and confront the, at times, uncontrollable power of big tech, climate change and a range of other issues. The biggest challenges of the 21st century will require cooperation across national boundaries, which is exactly the kind of cooperation that the EU represents. It is imperfect but hugely important. As I said, our motion welcomes the EU-UK reset. We want it to go further. We think that a full-blown veterinary agreement would be a good thing. We have been a champion, the whole way through, for our specific arrangements under what is now called the Windsor framework and our ability to have dual market access. We championed it proudly and unabashedly when others would not and did not. We want to go further in the here and now. We want a voice in the European Parliament. We want a European Commission office in Belfast —

I do not have a huge amount of time, but I am happy to give way since I promised that I would.

As the Member is a former MEP, I am happy to take on board her views about the European legislative programme. I am pro-European, and I am not just making an argument about Northern Ireland in the here and now; I am making an argument about rejoining the EU in a new Ireland. I recognise and respect the fact that the Member will never agree to that, and I would insult her if I pretended that she was going to be persuaded, but I am, and lots of people out there are. That is what I am just about to come on to. A lot of the time, when we debate in the Chamber about unionists and nationalists and identity and history, we act as if it is all binary and people are not entitled to make decisions about the future on other grounds.

I think that lots of people in Northern Ireland want a European future, not necessarily because they are nationalist. Many of them are from unionist backgrounds, or, indeed, they are not unionist or nationalist. They might not even be interested in the constitutional question or identity all that much, but they sense something wrong about the way in which our politics is currently constituted and want to hear about the possibility of a European future.

I do not have time. I am happy to take interventions later on. The only way in which they can positively make that choice — this is why our motion says so — is via a new Ireland back in Europe. My professional background is well known. I was in Downing Street on 23 June 2016 and spent the night there on the day of the vote, so no one can tell me that the UK's politics has not structurally changed. The amendment before us today is a card trick. It pretends to the public that this is a choice between tea and coffee — on the one hand; on the other. It is a bit like saying, "Well, there are two ways you could get to Derry from here. You could, as most people do, go up the A6, but you could also go via Limavady or whatever". It is not the case that this is an equal and opposite choice between two equally plausible outcomes. UK politics has changed. Not one major party in Britain is calling for the UK to rejoin. Not one. I think that there is, at best, a 5% chance of the UK rejoining, but, even if the politics of the UK were moving in that direction, we have no ability to shape it. Theoretically, there could be a vote on the UK rejoining, but we could vote 90% in favour of rejoining and still be beaten by English voters. It is also the case that we have no ability to shape whether the UK rejoins. None. It is marginal. It is tiny. I hear Members from the Alliance Party chuntering because they are clearly uncomfortable with the point that I am making. They have spent an age making out that this is a question of narrow or even sectarian division. It is not. This is about a European future. There is only one way in which the people of Northern Ireland can make that choice, and it is a choice that my party and I are proud to represent. The only way that they can make that choice —

— is via a vote for a new Ireland under the —

— terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

1,609 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 01:20 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification