This is the script of my speech in the House of Lords today in the Second Reading debate on the Internal Market Bill. I was the 21st speaker out of 115. Others addressed detail – I chose to address ethics. A four-minute speech limit was in force. There were some powerful speeches on both sides of the argument; most were impassioned and courteous.
My Lords, I fully endorse the arguments set out by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. I concur with the concerns set out in reports cited by other noble Lords earlier. I welcome the commitments articulated by the Minister, but question how they can be trusted, given the underlying ethic of this bill. (And it is absolutely right that Archbishops ask such questions.)
Relations with potential partners usually depend on integrity. Trade, security, migration, and so on, all rest on the matter of fundamental trust. Trust cannot be one-sided or it is not trust at all. Respecting one’s interlocutors is essential, and this is inevitably evidenced in language. The Bill before us assumes that our interlocutors cannot be trusted, will behave in bad faith, and that we need to be protected from them. If they don’t give us what we demand, we are free to do our own thing … including breaking the law and reneging on agreements we made less than a year ago which were said to be “oven-ready”and “a good arrangement” that required “no more negotiations”. What it doesn’t ask is why our word should be trusted by others?
My Lords, integrity and morality matter at the level of international relations and agreements. Unless, of course, we are now agreeing to reduce all our relations and transactions to some sort of utilitarian pragmatism?
Morality also applies to how we both remember history and establish what will shape the national mythologies that future generations will inherit. My Lords, what story will be either celebrated or commemorated next year – the centenary of Partition on the island of Ireland? One that chose to end violence and respect difference – including different perspectives on identity, justice and unity? Or one of a conscious abrogation of agreements that were built from bloodshed and a courageous willingness to stem the wounds of grievance? Ireland – both the Province and the Republic – need some certainty in shaping a future narrative; but, what sort of certainty is built on a broken word, the negation of trust or the arrogance of exceptionalism?
Irish Church leaders are surely right to be concerned about what this Bill implies for relations between the devolved institutions themselves and with the UK government. These leaders straddle the border in Ireland and their deep concerns about a breach of the Good Friday Agreement need to be listened to and not simply dismissed with a wave of boosterish optimism from Westminster.
Others will speak about the implications of closing any legal route to challenge the government’s implementation of the Protocol. But, let’s be clear: parliamentary sovereignty does not translate easily into executive sovereignty.
A decision to prefer short-term pragmatism over longer-term ethics will lead to a future in which a question mark will hang over any statement by those whose word and adherence to the rule of law cannot be trusted. More is at stake here than economics.
