Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

As with many people in this House and country, I was engrossed in the issue of Brexit. I find myself reading The Spectator, New Statesman, The Daily Telegraph, The Sun, The Mirrorand The Guardian, listening to Radio 4 and Radio 5 Live, and watching the House of Commons non-stop to try to see what will happen next. I have a sense that there is not a big swell of anti-Englishness in this country. It is a slightly sad and very uncertain feeling but our position on this issue is neutral. We are not taking a nationalistic position.

I read an article by Newton Emerson in The Irish Timestoday, stating a number of things about the role of the Good Friday Agreement in this process, influencing our need for a backstop and so on. It is true that the Good Friday Agreement does not go into fine details about customs arrangements or border control systems. It was more of a constitutional arrangement. Later on this morning, as part of my constant feed of Brexit material, I listened to Conor McGinn, the Labour Party MP for St. Helens, who I think chairs the House of Commons' Irish committee. He is originally from the Border area, just north of Newry. In a sense, he answered Newton Emerson for me by saying that the issue we are dealing with is not just about the technicalities of trade and what sort of documents, tariffs or technical arrangements are required, or even fishing quotas or airline rules. It is a broader, deeper, fundamental question of the relationships on this island and between this island and the neighbouring island.

I keep asking this worthy question of whether we have been right and if the Government has been right in taking such a firm position with regard to the backstop. There will rightly be questions asked about whether there should be a no deal, crash-out Brexit, where we end up with the worst of all arrangements with no backstop and all the difficulties that the Minister, Deputy Ross, seems to be grappling with about what we would have to do with the Border. It is right for us to ask if we are right in this insistence. Newton Emerson stated that we did not seem to trust the UK Government. I do not think that is where our relatively united position on the backstop is coming from. As someone who voted for the Good Friday Agreement, that vote was a fundamental, substantial change in this Parliament, which has been here for 100 years, and as a people, saying that we ceded our national claim on the territory but we gained recognition that Northern Ireland is different. If, at some time in the future, although we will not do it by coercion, force or a majority of numbers, but in a consensual, soft way, the North is to come back to join with the South, that is also a possibility. That is a subtlety, not a tariff or customs arrangement rule. It is a subtle but significant constitutional issue that we agreed to.

I sense a nearly uniform agreement in this House on the position the Government has taken. That is where this comes from, not distrust or a nationalist position. It is adhering to what we voted for in the Good Friday Agreement, that we abhor the use of violence in Northern Ireland or relating to an Irish claim on the North, but at the same time we will not abandon those Irish citizens in the North who, because of the commitment we made, will be of the European Union no matter what happens in the next three months. It is interesting to watch the House of Commons and these daily amazing scenes. Does that subtle position of acceptance and agreement sometimes relate to such things as the shape of this Chamber? I sit in a strange position here at the edge of the bend, not on the left or right. I think it is one of the nicest places to speak from because one can see different sides. I am sure people have sat in different locations in this House to compare seats. The Government is in some of the toughest seats.

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