Lord Dodds says Protocol leaves Northern Ireland worse off than if it were a colonial possession

Tory peer Lord Cormack and Labour peer Baroness Chapman are laying the amendments before the House this afternoon, where the bill was having its second reading.

The bill, supported by the Prime Minister, seeks to give UK government ministers powers to suspend parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol.

Unionists have been hoping for the swift passage of the bill, which they believe may blunt or annul parts of the Protocol which hamper GB-NI movement.

The bill was first put before the Commons on June 13, where the Tories have a big outright majority - meaning the Prime Minister can basically force through whatever law she wants there.

In the Lords, the Tories have no such majority.

Even if they did, party whips have less control over members in the Lords compared with those in the Commons, since for many peers their stint in the Lords marks the twilight of their careers, making them less succeptible to pressure from party bosses.

As such, it is expected that Lords of various stripes will try to amend the bill heavily and delay its progress.

Lord Cormack is calling for the government to halt "further consideration of the Bill for six months, so as to allow time to reach a negotiated settlement with the European Union".

And Baroness Chapman's amendment says that "this House regrets that His Majesty’s Government have introduced legislation which is widely perceived to breach the UK’s obligations under international law".

It goes on to ask the government to consider "whether pausing this legislation would be beneficial".

Lord Ahmad - speaking for the government in support of the bill - told the House of Lords that the Protocol was originally drawn up to protect the Good Friday Agreement and avoid a hard Irish border.

"However, in practice, the Northern Ireland Protocol is undermining the delicate balance of the Belfast / Good Friday Agreement, and of course the functioning - as we all know - of the power-sharing institutions in Northern Ireland," he said.

"The Protocol has diverted east-west trade between NI and GB, and it's creating fractures within the UK internal market."

The government’s “strong preference” is to negotiate away these problems with the EU.

“But we cannot stand by and allow the current situation to continue,” he added.

Lord Cormack then rose to speak.

He said that while it is not for the Lords to try and kill off a bill which elected MPs in the Commons have already approved, he was seeking to delay it because “we have a specific responsibility to uphold the constitution of our country, and maintain the rule of law, nationally and internationally,” allowing more time for EU / UK negotiations.

"I believe we’d be far better negotiating with our friends and neighbours by treating them as friends and neighbours whom we totally trust,” he said.

"And if things go badly wrong, we have to return to it [the Protocol Bill].”

Next to speak was Baroness Chapman, who was more strident in her remarks, declaring the Protocol Bill “an insult” to the UK’s “diplomatic traditions”, and the Lords should “not have been asked to consider” in the first place.

She said the Tories are now trying “to take a wrecking ball to their own agreement” and as such, “this bill is an abject admission of failure” on behalf of the Tories.

She said the Protocol had “heightened... the unionist community’s concerns about their place in the UK – and these concerns must be heard… but the only feasible way forward is through negotiation” between the EU and UK.

It should be noted that the EU has previously denied negotiation is even an option.

EU negotiator Maros Sefcovic had said in May 2022: “The Protocol, as a cornerstone of the Withdrawal Agreement, is an international agreement. Its renegotiation is not an option. The European Union is united in this position.”

Among those voicing anxiety about the Protocol Bill was the Anglican Bishop of Coventry, Rt Rev Christopher Cocksworth.

Whilst acknowledging “no expertise in the technicalities of this bill”, he said “I share concerns that this bill risks not only reinforcing attitudes of distrust with European partners including Ireland, just at the point in history where concerted action is needed between allies, but also risks undermining our reputation” on the world stage.

Lord Dodds of Duncairn, the former long-standing DUP deputy chief, was among those voices backing the bill, saying it is needed because the Protocol “negates democracy itself”.

He said: “Up until 31st December 2020, the people of Northern Ireland, as in the rest of the UK, were able to elect legislators to make all the laws to which they were subject.

"On the 1st January 2021 however, every citizen of the UK living in Northern Ireland was subject to the deeply demeaning experience of having the significance of their votes slashed, as the responsibility for making the laws of Northern Ireland were taken from them and given to the members of a legislature of a foreign political entity of which they were not a part, and in which they had no representation.”

He said that the current status of Northern Ireland is worse than that of a “colony”, because the EU today “controls more of the governance of Northern Ireland than do many officially recognised colonial powers in relation to their colonies”.

Lord Howard, the former leader of the Tory Party, joined with those attacking the bill, saying Article 16 of the Protocol already “provides a perfectly legal route” for redress, saying he was “genuinely bewildered” by the fact the government has not triggered it.

Ever since the Protocol kicked in on January 1, 2021, it has allowed the UK to – in its own words – “unilaterally take appropriate safeguard measrues” in the event of “serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist, or to diversion of trade”.

Lord Howard said the Protocol Bill “doesn’t begin to compare to the invation of Ukraine, but our ministers frequently criticse that invasion on the ground that it’s a breach of international law” and thatthe UK “can’t pick and choose” which laws it follows.

Rising to address the House, Lord Bew – a former Queen’s University Belfast history professor, now a crossbench (non-party-political) lord – told fellow peers that he both a Remain voter and a civil rights marcher, as well as “a supporter of the Good Friday Agreement when it wasn’t quite so fashionable as it seems to have become”.

He said that the unionist community today is “alienated”, and the 1998 agreement obliges the government to address such alienation.

And long-serving DUP chairman Lord Morrow told the House: "The people of Northern Ireland have lost the ability to take part in the government of their country in relation to some 300 areas of law.

"Under the Brexit arrangements, these laws are now made for Northern Ireland by the EU, a polity of which it is not a part and in whose parliament it consequently has no represenation whatever.”

More to follow.

More from this reporter:

‘The tentacles of the Northern Ireland Protocol reach way beyond mere cargo and ports – and you could see the problems coming from outer space’

Planned Ireland’s Future summit in Belfast’s Ulster Hall may be met by unionist protests says Jamie Bryson