Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy McEntee, and echo the comments that have been made about her and her Department's sterling work on behalf of this country.

I am not as optimistic as others here for the following reason. I listened carefully to the entirety of what Prime Minister Johnson said on BBC Radio Four this morning. People have spoken here about incredulity, and I did not believe a word the Prime Minister was saying, and that is my problem. I believe he was engaging in disinformation, misrepresentation and exaggeration, all with a view to achieving something. I note there was further comment this morning that some members of the Conservative Party were hoping that they would get a deal from the EU and, tacked onto it, a statement from the EU that there would be no further extension so that Prime Minister Johnson could tell the House of Commons that this is the only deal that is available, there will be no extension and it is this deal or crash out.I would have absolutely no problem with him trying to raise the stakes to get an agreement through if I believed for one moment that he was intent on achieving an agreement but I do not believe that he is. Looking at the background of what is going on at the moment, the default position of the Tory Government that is now in office is to achieve a no-deal crash-out and then to start negotiating on the basis that remedying the chaos it has created in Ireland will be a bargaining chip. It cannot use that bargaining chip in negotiations now without repudiating the withdrawal agreement.

It is worth our while to remember why Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab, Rees-Mogg and Priti Patel are sitting at the Cabinet table in Downing Street. Although some of them voted for the withdrawal agreement, including a UK-wide backstop, their fundamental aim was to remove Theresa May from office by using the alliance between the European Research Group, ERG, and the DUP to make her position untenable. Whether this was for the sake of personal ambition or a genuine ideological position is hard to say. Again, it is hard to work out whether Prime Minister Johnson is motivated by his own political ambitions or a deep-rooted view on Europe, given that he wrote articles both ways before deciding to plump for the Leave campaign, as we all know.

It is also worth reminding ourselves of another proposition. The ERG-DUP alliance forced Theresa May to establish a red line of no checks or controls in the Irish Sea and forced her into the position of considering the whole of the UK as a single entity which would have a very close trading relationship with the EU. The ultra-right elements in the Tory party, such as Bill Cash, Mark Francois and all the others, leapt on that as a reason to reject her withdrawal agreement.

We are codding ourselves if we do not ask this question. Given the night of the long knives he inflicted on the Tory establishment, which has left him in a decidedly minority position, what kind of deal could he now bring back to Westminster that would command a majority? What kind of deal could he put before Westminster now, apart from one accompanied by the threat from the EU that there would be no extension if it was not accepted? Why would members of the Labour Party, including people like Kate Hoey and others, cross the floor to help him out when they know that the very first thing he will do is call an election and leave them scuppered? We should not fool ourselves about what is likely to happen. The present Johnson Cabinet is minded to produce a no-deal outcome. I do not believe the flannel and nonsense we heard today about them working with might and main to produce agreements or the disinformation saying they have been working dramatically behind the scenes and there has huge progress, which is constantly ladled out without any substantiation. I tend to believe it is not so and that it is a smokescreen. That is a pessimistic view and I am sorry to have to utter it.

Senator O'Sullivan said it is a pity that there is now nobody in Westminster to represent the majority of people in Northern Ireland who are opposed to Brexit. I want to deal with this very briefly, and not in an antagonistic way. I understand the Sinn Féin position to be one of abstention from Westminster but I would remind them that the abstentionists of 1918 did not abstain just to sit at home. They abstained to go to the Mansion House and establish an alternative Parliament. Dáil Éireann succeeded as an alternative Parliament for the people of Ireland. That is what happened in 1918. I do not state this in a lecturing or hectoring way but it is time for the majority in Northern Ireland to have some voice, other than the brave Sylvia Herman of North Down, to tell Westminster that the majority of people there do not agree with what is going on. I refer to the people Senator Marshall was talking about, the leaders of business and civil society. Their view of the Union is not based on the right-wing Tory view that it must be a Union with no differentiation in the status of Northern Ireland vis-à-vis EU matters and no recognition of the North-South all-island economy.