The Times - UK (2021-11-10)

Time to reform this shabby

House of Lords

Alice Thomson

Page 25

consequences. That is flatly not true.

That it involved a border in the Irish

Sea and regulatory obstacles for

Northern Ireland was entirely obvious

when it was signed. Indeed it was the

subject of extensive public debate.

And it wasn’t a minor detail, either.

You might even say that Theresa

May sacrificed her premiership

because she saw what such a protocol

would mean and didn’t want it. We

agreed to something knowing the

consequences and gave our word that

we had a deal. If the Conservative

Party no longer thinks our

international agreements matter or

that our word as a country is

important then, really, what is it?

What has it become?

And even those MPs who don’t

regard the whole thing as a matter of

honour might reflect on the practical

consequences. A country that loses a

reputation for honest dealing has to

pay an economic premium to get

people to trade with it and a

diplomatic cost when striking

international agreements.

Sometimes in politics disasters

come upon you too late to deal with

them properly. They are upon you

before you have given them much

thought. This isn’t the case with

Article 16. Conservative MPs still

have time, they can still put pressure

on the government.

They should tell their whips that

asking them to vote for one fiasco is

enough for now. Lord Frost should

take the EU offer on the table and

not expect them to back another.

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Tories must decide if they care about reality

A moral error was made with Paterson but it is not too late to avoid a similar fiasco with the Northern Ireland protocol
LEON NEAL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Conservative-inclined Remainers who

would not have voted for a no-deal

party. That might have been a

relatively small group. It is that large

numbers of voters wanted to get the

whole thing over with, tie up the loose

ends, get on with life. It is these

people who will feel bemused and

perhaps betrayed if the whole saga

begins again. As it might well if we

trigger Article 16.

MPs should certainly consider

whether they wish to explain to their

constituents that the promise to get

Brexit done came with an asterisk

and small print about not having

really meant all the stuff about

Northern Ireland.

And then there is the third question.

Do you care about treaties and

Britain’s word? The government has

argued that the Northern Ireland

protocol has had unexpected

MPs must think deeply before letting

Lord Frost suspend the deal he made

the United Kingdom, the other

separates parts of Ireland, in breach

of the spirit of the Good Friday

agreement. Yet aside from absurd

suggestions — the Republic should

also leave the single market — this

simple choice is all that remains.

And to pretend it doesn’t is a flight

from reality. Gavin Barwell, Theresa

May’s former chief of staff, explains

in his excellent recent volume of

memoirs that he could never get the

critics to grapple with the border

question and it seems this problem

remains.

To trigger Article 16 while still

supporting the Good Friday

agreement is to reject both available

options. It is to campaign under the

slogan “Reality? No thank you!” And

this is indeed, as Sir John says,

unconservative.

There is a parallel here with the

Paterson affair. A group of very

self-confident people managed to

persuade the rest of the party to act

as if Paterson had not done what he

absolutely had done. Everyone was

persuaded to treat the most ludicrous

“dog ate my homework” defence as if

the accused was Dreyfus. It is an

object lesson in the deleterious

consequences of ignoring reality.

The second question Conservative

MPs must ask themselves is: do you

care about your election promises?

The government won the election

offering to “get Brexit done”. It

agreed a deal that included the

Northern Ireland protocol and said it

would pass this deal and implement

its provisions.

The reason why the prime minister

agreed to the protocol is that he

thought he would be much stronger

fighting an election with a withdrawal

agreement than offering a no-deal

Brexit. And he was correct. Doing

that deal was central to the result.

It is not just that there were some

N

ot long after I started
working for John Major in
1995, we had a strategy
meeting at Chequers to
discuss how we might
fight the forthcoming election. An
election that was already looking —
how best to put this — difficult.
In a private moment in the garden
between sessions, I shared with him
my view that our best hope was for
him to be as authentic as possible, as
“John Major” as he could be. Even if
it didn’t work, and it was very likely
that nothing would work, he would at
least find it personally satisfying. He
replied that he agreed but expressed
his intense frustration about how
boxed in by the right he felt he was.
When I listened to my former boss
on the radio on Saturday, expressing
his anger at various aspects of
government conduct, I realised I was
listening to the release of the tension
he had felt throughout his last years
in power. And I enjoyed hearing him
be himself.
I also thought that, on the two
issues he concentrated upon, he was
undoubtedly right. The first, the
Owen Paterson fiasco, concerned a
moral and political error the
government has already made. The
other concerned a moral and
political error it may be about to
make. So let’s focus on that.
The government is engaged in a
dispute with the European Union
about the operation of the Northern
Ireland protocol, the special
arrangements designed to prevent

Brexit creating a hard border in

Ireland. Despite the offer of

substantial concessions, the prime

minister and his negotiator Lord Frost

are considering “triggering Article

16”, in other words unilaterally

suspending large parts of the protocol.

Of this potential manoeuvre Sir

John said “I think it would be

colossally stupid” and added that it

would be “unconservative”. I agree

that it would be both. I think before

Conservative MPs and ministers allow

Lord Frost to suspend the deal that

Lord Frost negotiated, they ought to

ask themselves three questions.

The first is this: do you care about

reality? If this country insists upon

having its own regulatory system and

trade policy, entirely independent of

the one adopted by its neighbours,

then this has obvious consequences.

Somewhere between our regulatory

zone and Europe’s there will be a

border. Indeed the desire to have a

border is a central point of Brexit,

since you can’t both take control of

your border and not have one at the

same time.

Indeed, when some of us did try to

suggest adopting common policies

with the EU that would soften the

border or even eliminate the need for

one, we were told this wasn’t really

Brexit. “Brino” it was dubbed. Brexit

in name only.

The advocates of having a border

won the day, with the only question

being where this border should be.

Between Great Britain and Northern

Ireland, or between Northern

Ireland and the Republic? One of

these puts a border between parts of

You can’t control your

border and not have

one at the same time

A country that loses

a reputation for honest

dealing pays a price

Comment

Daniel

Finkelstein

@dannythefink

the times | Wednesday November 10 2021 23