Northern Ireland voted to stay in the European Union but this week, as the UK Parliament debates the Tory government’s Withdrawal Bill, that view is at risk of being totally unrepresented.
In what scant time has been given for debate, the DUP will advocate their anti-EU politics and Sinn Féin MPs will stay away, leaving the 470,000 people in Northern Ireland who opposed Brexit in the referendum with no voice. Nor is there a functioning assembly or executive in which an anti-Brexit voice can be heard and, of course, the Secretary of State and his ministers are also all pro-Brexit. In short, it looks like Northern Ireland’s anti-Brexit majority have been hung out to dry.
That matters because while all the focus in the London-based media has been about how arguments over how the ‘divorce bill’ for the UK leaving the EU has brought negotiations to an impasse, insiders know the really intractable problem is the question of the Irish border.
The British government might hope that what many label a ‘Canada-style’ deal would solve the problems caused to Ireland by Brexit, but that is nonsense. A deal that improves trade between countries separated by the Atlantic would make life for those who daily live, work and trade across the Irish frontier all but impossible. The EU’s deal with Canada does not eliminate customs checks, it merely streamlines the process.
And while many hope that Northern Ireland could be granted some sort of special status and permanently stay in the Single Market whether or not the rest of the UK stays or leaves, that only works if we are to accept either the customs border being moved to the Irish Sea or the permanent hobbling of an agri-food sector excluded from the wider single market rules, just as is the case with Norway.
The only way to stop this is to keep the option of No Brexit on the table. And that is what my organisation – Best for Britain – campaigns for. But if no Northern Ireland MP will speak out is there anything that ordinary voters can do to shift the political debate?
I think there is. In fact making your voice heard matters more than ever. We are asking all voters that want us to keep all options open – including the possibility of a new deal within the EU – to sign our petition and lobby their MP in the run-up to the vote.
Whether your MP is a DUP fanatic or a Sinn Féin abstensionist shouldn’t matter – they need to hear your opinion. Lobby your MLAs – they are still being paid and so should still be speaking out.
They need to hear from the people north of the border that no Brexit is better than a bad Brexit.
ELOISE TODD
chief executive of Best for Britain
London
Let’s work together for an inclusive injured pension
Trevor Ringland (August 24) again seeks to cast the role of the ‘security services’ as a force for good.
Citing the ‘blowing to bits’ of people by non-state combatants and that the ‘security services’ ‘…sought to save lives…’ ignore the facts. Terms such as ‘innocent’ and ‘ordinary victims’ are emotive and politically loaded though hardly surprising as Trevor was co-chair of the NI Tory Party which promotes a hierarchy of victim hood and a state-security narrative of the past.
The three largest bombs on the island, McGurk’s, Dublin-Monaghan and Omagh involved agents of the state and collusion. Surely this wasn’t a force for good.
Does Trevor believe those who engaged in systemic torture throughout the 1970s, water boarding, hooded-men, those who used electric cattle prods and other instruments for forms of torture on detainees should avail of pensions or was that just a continuation of what went on in Kenya and elsewhere in the Empire?
Are former POW’s targeted and seriously injured in attacks organised by the ‘security services’ ‘deserving’ of a pension?
Should these godfathers of state-sponsored terror continue to receive pensions?
Trevor’s solution that republicans should financially support their own injured is preposterous.
As taxpayers we all contribute to the public purse from which any injured pension will hopefully be made without exception.
The same public purse that funded those same public servants that tortured, colluded and organised the ‘blowing to bits’ of countless citizens we paid them to protect.
Is it too much to ask Trevor to use his influence to ensure that an injured-pension is delivered to all instead of the selective vetting of some victims for political purposes?
Let’s work together for an inclusive injured pension.
MARK THOMPSON
Relatives for Justice, Belfast
Whipped majority vote can be inaccurate
A whipped majority vote at Westminster on the Brexit issue may produce ‘fake’ results.
If the House of Commons had 550 MPs, 300 Tory/DUP MPs and 250 Labour/SNP/Lib-Dems/others, a majority would require at least 276 MPs.
Now, if 70 per cent of the Tories supported a ‘hard’ Brexit, 210 MPs, and 30 per cent supported the Single Market, 90 MPs. While if 80 per cent of all the others supported the Single Market, 200 MPs and 20 per cent supported a ‘hard’ Brexit, 50 MPs the total supporting a ‘hard’ Brexit would be 260 MPs and the total supporting the Single Market would be 290 MPs.
The Tories and DUP have a majority, just. So if they apply the whip, (or threaten those MPs who want to vote against Brexit with ‘backing Jeremy Corbyn’ – which amounts to the same thing), they can win. But actually, in a free vote, a majority might well support the single market.
A whipped majority vote can be hopelessly inaccurate. Indeed, it can produce a result which is the very opposite of what a majority of MPs actually want.
PETER EMERSON
Belfast BT14
Simpler solution
James Annett (August 25) suggests that it would be simpler for the Republic to rejoin the Commonwealth seeing as it is going to cost Britain more than £60bn. Maybe he would explain who would pay the billions Ireland would have to pay to leave the EU. Surely he’s not suggesting Ireland should.
The simpler solution is for the north to be reunited with the rest of Ireland (it should never have been partitioned in the first place) thereby saving England the billions it pumps into the north every year of its existence.
The latest voting and census figures show we are heading that way anyway.
JOSEPH KENNEDY
Dunmurry, Co Antrim
Sinn Féin’s priorities
Sinn Féin voters from Dublin to Belfast and from Derry to Cork are hurt – but by cuts and not by lack of Gaelic.
And by obstructing the restoration of a Stormont Executive Mr Adams is handing power back to a few English Tory ministers.
Is this what SF voters wanted? Does this serve their interests? Is this now the SF priority?
TOM CAREW
Ranelagh, Dublin 6
Expression of thanks
Depaul would like to thank the generous people of Belfast for showing their compassion and support to our homeless services. On Wednesday June 21 staff from Jury’s Inn stood in the city and raised £286.
PHILIP KEE
Fundraising Officer
Belfast BT15
