Debate contribution: UK-EU Customs Union

Debate contribution by Mr David Honeyford on 9 February 2026.

MLA: Mr David Honeyford
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 5369887

Text

If I were a business person looking on at the debate, I would be in absolute despair at what has been said — the gaslighting, actually — in the Chamber. The Northern Ireland economy is growing. We should celebrate that. We should be absolutely shouting from the rooftops that our economy is growing, people out there have better opportunities and we are bringing in jobs. We should not be arguing about where that growth is coming from. You can talk about services coming from services, but that is not actually true, Jonathan. If you were at last week's Committee and read the members' pack, you would know that the Department, InterTradeIreland and a third one — I cannot remember the third body that was there — said clearly that the fastest growing parts of our economy are life sciences and advanced manufacturing. It is about the units and products that are being built in those areas. Yes, services are wrapped around that, but growth is mainly coming from those areas. That is where we see it. Northern Ireland's economy is growing. This is a trading nation. It has always been a trading region that works by selling stuff. That goes right back to the early 1900s, when 90% of the economy was based around the greater Belfast area. Now, we are looking at close to single digits in that area. That is how far we have gone. Our prosperity depends completely on selling goods and services beyond our borders. We cannot make money by selling to each other. We have to sell stuff out of here. I cannot for the life of me understand why anybody would want to sell stuff only one way and not be able to sell in either two markets or multiple markets, why you would want to limit our business community, why you would want to create more barriers when you have created all the damage of Brexit in the first place and why you would choose now to simply have the UK-EU trade deal. It is just mind-blowing. I can tell you now that the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NICCI), InterTradeIreland, the Department and business owners here are all looking at this and asking, "Are you for real? Are you absolutely serious?".
No, I will not give way, because I have heard enough of the nonsense that you have spouted already. You created friction in the first place —.
No, we did not.
You voted for Brexit. You wanted Brexit. Own it — own it — because you delivered it. Well done. You did that 10 years ago. We will give you a round of applause. You delivered it, and you got what you wanted. The Windsor framework did not create the problems: it was there because of the problems that you created. Own your mistakes. Own what you have done. Do not pass it on to anybody else, because anybody with any common sense knows —
Anybody with any common sense knows that, if you are selling something and somebody wants to buy it, you sell it to them, and you make that relationship as easy as you can. The evidence from business and agencies completely backs up everything that is in the motion. Invest NI, InterTradeIreland, the Department, the FSB, the CBI and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry all just want to get on and make money for businesses to grow, create jobs and provide better opportunities, but you bring it all down to a culture war. You bring it all down to limiting opposition because it is not trade in the right direction. Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous? Imagine a shop owner in any street saying, "I'm not selling to you because I don't like you, but I do like you".
No, I will not give way. Honestly, I have listened to minutes of speeches and interventions on it. You have brought it all down to that. You have a slogan of "Making Northern Ireland work". Everybody understands that you have no intention of making Northern Ireland work. You mean, "Making Northern Ireland work for us". You go on about unionist demands, unionist this and unionist everything else: what about the greater good of everybody here and making the place work for everybody and making it better for everybody? In a geopolitical world that is absolutely fragile, you want less, not more. That sums up everything that we need to know about the DUP and your little sister — I was going to say "brother" but it is "sister" here this evening — the Ulster Unionist Party, along with the TUV. We need to secure more markets, not fewer.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Not flagged on a second assessment, because Jev’s answers did not settle it. The reasons are given below.

Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.50 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.61).
The text adopts the identity-based framing in its own voice (0.50).
Subject area: Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty.
The answers did not meet either automatic threshold.

This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.

Second assessment

Jev’s answers did not settle this record, so a second model, claude-opus-5-5, read the same text (without the MLA’s name or party) and gave its reasons on 21 October 2026. How the second assessment works

Verdict: Not flagged
Public interest or divisiveness: Mixed

Against the published rubric

The main thrust is an economic argument for closer UK-EU trade arrangements, backed by references to business bodies, the Department and committee evidence on where growth is coming from. The closing section turns sharply partisan, with 'Own it', the claim that the opposing parties mean 'Making Northern Ireland work for us', and the 'little sister' jibe. These lines attack named parties over their Brexit record and their stance on the motion, not a community as a whole. The remark about 'unionist demands, unionist this and unionist everything else' is framed as objecting to bringing trade 'down to a culture war', rather than as hostility towards unionists generally.

Public interest or divisiveness

Most of the contribution deals with the substance of trade policy, market access and the evidence from business and agencies. That serves the general public interest. However, the latter part is heated point-scoring against opposing parties, and its suggestion that they work only 'for us' carries a communal edge. That adds some divisiveness alongside the policy case, so the contribution is mixed.

Jev’s structured answers

Probability that each statement is true of this text (0 = no, 1 = yes). A criterion counts as met at 0.60 or above.
Question	Probability	Met?
Identity framing	0.24	No
Sectarian or communal antagonism	0.29	No
Cultural grievance politics	0.03	No
Dog-whistle messaging	0.52	No
Controversy escalation	0.40	No
Legitimate policy scrutiny	0.61	Yes
Overall judgement	0.50	Between thresholds

Context and attribution (stance)
Option	Probability
No identity-based framing	0.16
Reports or questions it	0.01
Criticises or condemns it	0.33
Adopts it (chosen)	0.50

Subject area (top five)
Subject	Probability
Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty	0.84
Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations	0.09
No identity-related subject	0.04
Another identity-related subject	0.02
Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups	0.01

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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