Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Barry. For British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Tory right, Brexit was always about a reckless drive to accelerate the race to the bottom, undermine standards in worker rights or the environment, for example, and, no doubt, to further enhance the role of the City of London as a centre for financial speculation and emulate this country in trying to develop a tax haven model that would reduce corporate tax obligations on multinationals in order to encourage investment to the United Kingdom. It was about whipping up anti-immigration sentiment and tightening what are essentially racist immigration laws in the UK. In pursuit of that ultra-neoliberal and right-wing race to the bottom agenda, Boris Johnson was reckless and willing to run the possibility of a no-deal Brexit and the erection of a hard border, which would have been a disaster for this country.

Europe was also very concerned about protecting the Single Market and insofar as the protocol or agreement guarantees no hard border, it is very much to be welcomed. I have no doubt many officials worked very hard on the details of this arrangement on many levels. Ultimately, the greatest credit must go to the majority of people, North and South, in this country who utterly reject the Johnson ultra-neoliberal, right-wing, reckless and, frankly, racist agenda and, equally, who have opposed any notion that there should be a border erected between North and South. That was pressure from ordinary people, with a majority in the North and South recognising that a border would be an absolute disaster. That pressure guaranteed that we got the protocol.

That is very much to be welcomed and I go further in saying it opens the possibility we should pursue actively of trying to get rid of the Border altogether. The logic both around Covid and the possible consequences of a hard border in the event of a no-deal Brexit opens the real possibility of ending the disaster of partition and we should actively pursue a border poll to bring about that end to partition. It should be one of the key lessons we take out of this.

Having said all that, we should be absolutely clear that the Scottish Parliament voted against this deal. The Stormont Assembly voted against this deal. The left in Britain voted against the deal. Apart from the protocol and guaranteeing no hard border, it is a terrible deal. It is a terrible deal for fishing communities, for example. This is not just because of the recklessness of Mr. Johnson but the historic mistreatment of the fishing industry and communities in this country at the hands of the European Union.

It is a terrible deal in that it looks to hold on to prohibitions on certain types of state aid. State aid in Europe and the UK seems to be fine for banks, for example. They can gamble and wreck the economy but we will have state aid for them. If we tried to have state aid for public enterprise, public infrastructure or services that ordinary people need, Europe would cry foul, as would the Johnsonites and ultra-neoliberals.

What about the Mercosur deal? The EU opposes protection against a race to the bottom deal but it has signed up to a rotten Mercosur deal that will flood Europe with cheap beef, damage the interests of small farmers and do immense damage to the environment. It is good we will not have a hard border, and that has been achieved, but let us not paint this deal in overly rosy colours.

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