Jim Allister

Let me give the hon. Member and others some rather uncomfortable facts. I am delighted to tell those Euro-fanatics who gather in this hallowed hall today that only 50 of my constituents in North Antrim signed this petition. Of course that is for very good reason, because unlike the rest of you, we have continued to have to live under the EU. We have continued to be subject to the bureaucratic stranglehold of the EU single market and its customs code. What has that meant? It has meant that in over 300 areas of law we in Northern Ireland are governed by laws that we do not make and cannot change because they are made by a foreign Parliament in which we have no say. That is the product of the denial of Brexit to the people of Northern Ireland. That is how we have been left. Those are the laws that govern the single market. I hear the moving desire of hon. Members to be back in the single market, but let me tell them what that has meant for Northern Ireland: we were told that it was the best of both worlds and a panacea, and if only we all had the best of both worlds. Well, having the best of both worlds and being able to sell into the mighty market of the EU was supposed to bring a flood of foreign direct investment into Northern Ireland. According to some enthusiasts, we were going to be the Singapore of the west, but the reality is that there has not been one foreign direct investment in Northern Ireland because of single market access. Before people get what they wish for, I caution them that being in the single market is no panacea. As I have already illustrated, in Northern Ireland it comes at the price of being governed by laws that we do not make and cannot change. Everyone here seems to want to put the whole United Kingdom in that position. I have heard hon. Members lament American tariffs, but they want to put themselves in the club that will be most tariffed by the United States. Where is the logic in that? It really is beyond belief. The real lesson from Northern Ireland is that the growth in our economy has come in the services sector, which is the sector that is outside EU control. Of the two sectors—manufacturing and services—the sector that has grown is the one outside EU control. The one that is still under the EU’s control is the one that has struggled and has not grown. That is a telling reminder of what it means for people to subjugate themselves in a subservient way to rules made in a foreign Parliament.