Member

What the regulations before us today demonstrate is that the SPS border for goods moving from the Republic into Great Britain does not need to be a hard border. In so doing, they sweep away the justification for putting the border in the wrong place. This is a huge issue for three reasons. First, the repercussions of putting the border in the wrong place, in violation of the international border, has been to disenfranchise the people of Northern Ireland—not just in relation to one law or 300, but in relation to a staggering 300 areas of law. This constitutes the biggest reversal of democracy in the history of these islands. While our current legal arrangements declare that the people of England, Wales and Scotland are worthy of the right to stand for election to make all the laws to which they are subject, they tell us, the people of Northern Ireland, that we are worthy of the right to stand for election to make only some of the laws to which we are subject.