Debate contribution: UK-EU Customs Union

Debate contribution by Mr Eóin Tennyson on 9 February 2026.

MLA

Mr Eóin Tennyson

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

9 February 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

UK-EU Customs Union

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5369785

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I beg to move

Mr Deputy Speaker, it will not surprise you to hear me say that Brexit has been an abject failure. It has put up new barriers to trade, shrunk the economy and left people and public services worse off. We are a far cry from the sunlit uplands promised in 2016, and the oven-ready deal that Boris Johnson talked of in 2019 has turned out to be a turkey. The referendum campaign was one of the most dishonest in recent political history. The campaign was tainted by dark money and ignored the warnings of businesses and civic society. Far from control being taken back, the UK economy is now weaker and more isolated than at any point in recent history. A survey by the British Chambers of Commerce shows that nearly half of UK exporters now cite customs procedures as their biggest challenge. The message from business is clear: reduce friction, cut red tape and increase growth. The National Bureau of Economic Research, a leading US think tank, has published a decade-long analysis concluding that Brexit has reduced UK GDP by between 6% and 8%. The House of Commons Library has estimated that, every year, Brexit costs the Treasury £90 billion in lost tax receipts. That is money that could and should have been used to invest in our health service, tackle the cost of living and make life better for the people whom we represent. We know all too well that Northern Ireland, as a divided society, can function only on the basis of sharing and interdependence. Our people and businesses trade and interact daily on a North/South and an east-west basis. That is evidenced not least in our agriculture sector, where dairy products produced in Northern Ireland cross the border to be processed in the South and return to Northern Ireland before onward sale. Any form of Brexit, particularly the hard Brexit pursued by the DUP, was going to cause friction and create barriers. The question became one not of whether checks would occur but of where they would occur. Alliance warned that, inevitably, they would be at ports and airports. That is not because we want them to be there but because that is where they could be best managed and their impact mitigated

Does the Member wish to intervene, or is he just chuntering from a sedentary position?

OK; no problem. There will, of course, be those in the Chamber who try to pin all of the inevitable consequences of the Brexit that they campaigned for squarely on the Windsor framework. That argument not only ignores the fact that challenges are being faced by businesses UK-wide; it ignores the protections that have insulated Northern Ireland from some of the worst excesses of Brexit, with Northern Ireland's economy growing faster now than that of Great Britain. That argument also lays bare the folly of the same Members, who claimed, on the return of the Assembly, that the Irish Sea border had been removed. As I have said many times, that is the political equivalent of driving your car square into a brick wall and then blaming the airbag for your broken nose. There are also Members who, over the course of the debate, will wax lyrical about sovereignty. Businesses, farmers, hauliers and manufacturers do not have the luxury of worrying about such ideological and academic arguments. Sovereignty does not pay the bills or put food on the table. Those businesses want us to come to the debate with honesty, to confront the challenges and to shape a pragmatic way forward to drive growth and ensure that they can thrive and flourish. That is what Alliance has always offered and what it will continue to offer. That is why we pushed successfully for a comprehensive food, drink and agriculture agreement between the UK and the EU; it is why we pushed for more cooperation on research and youth mobility; it is why we defend our unique dual market access; and it is why we have brought the motion to the Chamber. A UK-EU customs union is the surest and most significant step that the Government could take to boost growth, tackle the cost of living and eliminate bureaucracy. Not only has public opinion changed dramatically since 2016 as the consequences of Brexit have been laid bare, but the world around us has changed dramatically. We live in a time of geopolitical uncertainty and rising populism and protectionism, with major economies, not least the United States, looking inwards and backwards rather than outwards and forwards. In the face of such instability and economic aggression, it is surely time to reorient our efforts back towards building a stable trading relationship with our nearest neighbours and largest trading partners in the EU. The Prime Minister has said that the Brexit deal hurt our economy significantly and that we must keep reducing frictions and move towards a closer relationship with the EU. A number of Cabinet Ministers have gone further than that in suggesting that a customs union is the way forward to boost economic growth. In recent weeks, it has been reported that the European Commission is open to negotiation. The UK Government must grasp that opportunity. Of course, as a passionately pro-Europe party, Alliance believes that only a full reversal of Brexit can undo all the tensions, contradictions and limitations that it has posed. For us, our relationship with Europe is about the kind of society that we want to build: one in which we work with our partners to tackle global challenges such as climate change, peace and security, poverty and migration. The motion is about a practical step that we can take to build on the protections in the Windsor framework and to undo some of the damage that Brexit unleashed. Some of those who shout loudest about divergence in the Irish Sea will, no doubt, oppose the motion. The irony is lost on no one that the surest way to remove the customs border in the Irish Sea would be opposed by the very Members who profess to care about the issue. Those Members have a choice today: do they want to continue with the politics of grievance and fear, continuing to fight a Brexit war of attrition, or do they want to choose a different path, be honest about the folly of the Brexit that they campaigned for —

— and focus instead on working with those of us on these Benches who want solutions, stability, cooperation and common sense? Whilst Mr Buckley is not necessarily a virtue of common sense, I will briefly give way before I conclude.

I believe in a culture of accountability and that, when a politician takes a decision, they have a duty to be honest with the public about the consequences of that decision. Part of the challenge of the Brexit debate so far has been that politicians are not willing to ground themselves in the basic facts. The fact is that, when you come outside the European Union, you create a border. There then comes the question of where that border can be best managed and mitigated. If you want to remove the border, you do it through closer cooperation with the European Union. Therefore, until we ground ourselves in the Brexit laws of physics and unless people are willing to admit that actions have consequences and that trade-offs exist, we will not make progress. I look forward to the Member's contribution, because this is a practical step that all parties, whether Leave or Remain, should be able to coalesce around in a bid to remove Brexit bureaucracy, support our businesses and remove the checks in the Irish Sea that Mr Buckley so often waxes lyrical about. I commend the motion to the House and look forward to the debate.

1,304 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:33 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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