Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

A Cheann Comhairle, I welcome the strength and earnestness of your comments on voting in this House. We know we now need to act to address the genuine concerns of the general public.

There is near unanimity in this House that from an Irish perspective, there is no such thing as a good Brexit. However, there are bad Brexits and worse Brexits. In recent weeks, there was a genuine fear that Boris Johnson would pull the UK out of the EU without a deal. The threat of no deal has receded thanks to the Benn Act and the Letwin amendment, which are designed to prevent a no-deal exit, although I am not convinced that a no-deal exit is still impossible.

Last week's agreement between British and European negotiators is certainly better than no deal. The new agreement seems to guarantee an open Border, which has been our collective primary responsibility and objective in this House. Other than that, it is a worse deal than the one negotiated with Theresa May. The new political declaration sets out a vision of the UK diverging to a greater extent from the EU and its standards. The new text gives greater emphasis to respecting each other's autonomous decision making. The future role of the European Court of Justice is reduced and the UK's future relationship with the EU is no longer to be as close as possible but on the basis of a free trade agreement. This indicates that Boris Johnson wants to distance the UK from the Single Market and our customs union or even from a single customs territory, as was envisaged by Theresa May in her deal. If Boris Johnson wins the next general election, the UK is likely to move away from alignment with European rules. There is no commitment to maintaining a level playing field into the future other than not rowing back from existing shared standards. In short, it is no longer safe to assume that the UK will remain close enough to the EU rules for British-Irish trade to continue even as a semblance of what it is currently. It looks like the UK is now determined to go down a radically different path, including deregulating of industries regulated by EU rules. What analysis has the Government done or initiated to estimate the effect on our economy if the UK pursues a very different approach to the harmonisation envisaged by Theresa May and instead embarks on a much more hardline separation, as envisaged by Boris Johnson?

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