Northern Ireland

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 4 April 1974.

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Photo of Mr Lawrence Orr Mr Lawrence Orr , South Down 12:00, 4 April 1974

Is the hon. Member seriously arguing that it is necessary to wait a long period of years before this House can express its views about an international agreement which has been entered into? Is he telling his constituents that that is the right attitude to take about the EEC? An agreement was entered into at Sunningdale. That agreement was brought before the House. The Northern Ireland representatives here made it plain that they did not approve of it. The Northern Ireland electorate was asked whether it approved or not and decisively said it did not. The electorate rejects Sunningdale because the whole edifice of a Council of Ireland is totally and absolutely unnecessary.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) has argued that many things contained in the agreement might have been necessary. It is certainly necessary to deal with the question of fugitive offenders. They could be very easily dealt with by an extradition treaty. There are certainly many economic matters which are of common concern to our part of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, but there is no need for the erection of an elaborate organisation with a Council of Ministers and an Assembly drawn from the two Parliaments in Ireland, and for the erection of a secretariat and everything that goes with it. They are unnecessary, and, therefore, there must have been another reason.

This edifice has been created to deceive someone. As I said during our previous debate on the matter, it is designed to deceive. It is designed either to enable the Government of the Irish Republic to deceive their people into thinking "Yes, we are moving towards a united Ireland", and to help the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) to deceive his supporters into thinking "Yes, we in the SDLP are making advances towards a United Ireland", or to deceive the Ulster people. It is one or the other. With the veto provisions and everything else built into it, it is an elaborate piece of deception. The people of Ulster, whichever side of the political fence they are on, are sufficiently mature to recognise deception when they see it.

It is not only unwise of the House. It is leading towards a major catastrophe if the House builds its political concepts and methods of dealing with such a situation upon that kind of illusion.