Opinion

Patricia Mac Bride: Disunited UK seems intent on wreaking vengeance

Scottish independence supporters outside the Supreme Court in London which made clear that the will of the people alone is not enough to allow a vote to take place on leaving the United Kingdom. Photo: Aaron Chown/PA Wire
Scottish independence supporters outside the Supreme Court in London which made clear that the will of the people alone is not enough to allow a vote to take place on leaving the United Kingdom. Photo: Aaron Chown/PA Wire Scottish independence supporters outside the Supreme Court in London which made clear that the will of the people alone is not enough to allow a vote to take place on leaving the United Kingdom. Photo: Aaron Chown/PA Wire

Writing in the Scottish Newspaper “The National” this week following his keynote address at the Ireland’s Future event in the Ulster Hall last week, SNP President Mike Russell said that Scotland and Northern Ireland live in constitutional Hotel California. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

It is a fact that both Scotland and the north were taken out of the EU against their will, but last week’s Supreme Court judgment on a second Scottish independence referendum made clear that the will of the people alone is not enough to allow even a vote to take place on leaving the United Kingdom. That power lies with Westminster.

There is an obvious route back into the European Union for the people of the north and the European Council made that clear in 2017 when it stated that in the event of reunification, a new island nation would be automatically a full member of the EU.

In a week when a YouGov poll found that less than a third (32 per cent in fact) of voters still thought it had been right to leave the EU, Britain is pursuing its strategy of divesting itself of any trace of Europe whilst simultaneously trying to negotiate issues around the protocol and renew damaged relationships. It is hard to see how the relationship can be mended given the repeated breaches of trust by successive British governments.

We know that the north re-joining the EU is likely to be better for the economy. Repeated analysis from government agencies and economists has shown that there has been no economic dividend from Brexit. In fact, GDP has decreased since the referendum. Whereas in this part of Ireland economic growth increased in the first quarter of the year by 7.8 per cent compared to the same period last year. This is a pattern that has been sustained over the last year.

A much bigger issue, however, is that the Westminster government is hell bent on diverging from EU law at breakneck speed through the Retained EU Law Bill which is currently at the committee stage in the House of Commons.

What this legislation will do is allow huge swathes of EU-backed legislation to simply expire at the end of 2023. This has the potential to impact on environmental protections as well as workers' rights including the EU working time directive which limits the number of hours a person can be required to work each week. It could affect protections around maternity leave and equal pay to name just a few. The only laws that will be preserved are those hand-picked by ministers. So much for parliament being sovereign.

It is of huge concern that the British government thinks it can review such a huge volume of legislation in such a short frame of time. This is an approach which can only lead to bad law making.

Through the Retained EU Law Bill we are seeing the erosion of human rights, attacks on human dignity and a widening of the gap between the haves and the have-nots. This legislation is being rushed through without any clear basis for change. The assumption is that Brexit means that anything that has the fingerprints of the EU on it must be done away with. But what is to replace it?

Uncertainty about legislative requirements and regulatory frameworks is not good for business and the protocol is exhibit A in that respect.

Bringing forward legislation that is likely to result in a further reduction in business growth and investment at a time of economic downturn and cost of living crisis is a colossal act of self-harm on a par with Brexit itself. Business will not invest in uncertain climates and significant regulatory divergence could make trading with the EU an even greater challenge.

The EU has a duty to protect its citizens and based on the 2021 census figures there are at least 689,000 of them in the north based the number of Irish and other EU passport holders recorded. That duty of care extends to legal protections, citizenship rights and financial support and these rights cannot be fully or properly exercised through a third country. When that third country then decides to strike down laws which will undoubtedly impact on those protections, it is a further issue that will sour an already poor relationship.

With growing support for referendums in the north and Scotland, you’d have expected the dis-United Kingdom to grow old gracefully, whilst divesting itself of some of the parts that are just not England and living out its dotage in bullish self- congratulation.

Instead, it seems intent on creating a Havisham-esque isolation in memory of what didn’t happen and wreaking vengeance on all those it thinks has scorned it. It is really themselves they are hurting the most though, and it isn’t a pretty sight.