United Kingdom: Union

“I believe that every Scotsman should be a Scottish Nationalist. If it could he proved that a separate Scottish Parliament were desirable, that is to say that the merits were greater than the disadvantages and dangers, Scotsmen should support it”.—[Official Report, Commons, 24/11/1932; col. 261.]

In this age, it is difficult to appreciate how someone whose very political identity was unionist—a unionism formed around Irish unionism—could make such a bold and seemingly contradictory assertion. However, that statement is not as contradictory as it first appears; in fact, it may offer a glimpse of how the union can be strengthened over the next 10 to 20 years.

A stocktake of the union may seem to some to be a fool’s errand from a unionist perspective when one considers the apparent, if superficial, fragility of the union in both Scotland and Northern Ireland over the last decade. In both, a demographic inevitability is often cited in favour of Scottish independence and Irish unity. In Scotland over that decade, British identity has plummeted while political nationalism has dominated the Scottish political scene. Perhaps that is soon to change, but the SNP was seemingly only strengthened by the referendum defeat in 2014. In Northern Ireland, meanwhile, the assumption that demographic change could lead to a nationalist majority seems at first glance fulfilled with the Sinn Féin primacy at the ballot box and a Sinn Féin First Minister. That is the sunny disposition coming out.

However, regarding the future of the United Kingdom in both Scotland and Northern Ireland, public opinion and party-political support should not be confused. Yes, since 2014 Scotland has been divided almost equally on the desirability of an independent Scotland, however—not to sound like the BBC—despite the foretold supposed kryptonite powers of both Brexit and my former boss Boris Johnson, that parity has not changed. Most importantly, the number of people who want an independence referendum now is less than half of those who favour an independent Scotland. Only yesterday, a poll showed that independence as a priority for Scottish voters is at its lowest level ever. It is no wonder that Nicola Sturgeon probably felt she had run out of road—as well as for various other reasons with which I shall not detain your Lordships this afternoon.

In Northern Ireland, support for Irish unity remains stubbornly stuck at 30%, with the fastest-growing demographic groups—self-identified Northern Irish and “neither unionist nor nationalist”—favouring remaining in the UK by 2:1. As we also know, the number supporting Irish unity diminishes as people consider the disruption and changed public services that would result.

Should those who support the union therefore enjoy a feeling of complacency about the continuation of the status quo? The answer is clearly no. While the current level of support for the union seems broadly stable in Scotland and Northern Ireland, in Northern Ireland most people see unity as inevitable when asked and traditional political unionism appears to be in retreat. At the same time, despite the fact that the SNP is now going through its own political travails, support for independence remains stubbornly stuck at 50%, with support among young people very high. Political uncertainty and a reaction against disruption and existential change have provided the union in Scotland and in Northern Ireland with a strategic breathing space of which the UK Government and those who support the union must take advantage. That is why John Buchan’s words in 1932 now seem so prescient: the union needs a new identity.

Born in 1875, John Buchan was the epitome of British imperial unionism. He was to serve as Governor General of Canada as well as being a unionist MP. However, if one looks at the unionism he celebrated, it was a union of diversity. In the Houses of Parliament, we see the English rose, the Irish harp and the Scottish thistle equally displayed—a display of diversity, difference and national pride. It was not some uniform symbol of British national identity that we would see, for example, in France at the same time. Even at its international height, the strength of the United Kingdom came from its diversity and not a desire for uniformity or what would now be called “muscular unionism”, where only the union flag, Britannia and related symbols can be deployed to argue for the union.

Some unionists may regret that the union is not to be saved by even more red, white and blue. They will be disappointed by what they will portray as my weak-kneed approach to the union’s cultural identity. There is, though, often a disproportionate relationship between those who did least in the 2014 Scottish referendum, when the future of our country was under existential threat, and their now fervent muscular unionism. The very idea that this approach will do anything other than alienate from the union the broadly younger and forward-looking median voters for whom the constitution is not a priority seems to me obvious. Yes, unionists must be able to celebrate their sense of Britishness as they see fit—I always will—but for the state to try to enforce a false Britishness on people who are currently, on balance, in favour of the United Kingdom would be counterproductive at best.

That means that the First and Deputy First Ministers of Northern Ireland reaching out to celebrate all Northern Ireland’s identities and cultures should be celebrated, and not pilloried as we have seen over the last fortnight from some quarters. Reaching out to all communities was something that the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, was a trailblazer in during her time as First Minister and it is surely the very essence of unionism. One need only look at how much damage the nationalist cause in Scotland has done to itself by using government as an extension of its narrow vision of Scottish nationalism. Unionists should rejoice that the SNP has chosen to do so. By refusing to engage with those who disagree with it or understand their views, the SNP has only helped secure the integrity of the United Kingdom. There is a lesson for all of us in this.

The danger to the union, both in Scotland and Northern Ireland, is a radicalised, nostalgic, reductive unionism of the last resort, where speaking forcefully about the union in a way that is completely disconnected from the priorities of real people does little to strengthen it. Too often, those of us who support the union assume that others see the world as we do, through that prism. A new train service to Glasgow or Cardiff, if it happens, should be celebrated by the United Kingdom Government because it improves connectivity and not because, as all too often department press officers are told to say, “It’s good for the union”. Immediately, a cynical public assume that the UK Government make an investment not for the betterment of all their citizens but for some distant and disconnected political term. Constantly using the word “union”—as we are doing in today’s debate, very helpfully—and not pursuing policies that strengthen the union does nothing other than tick a box. Supporting the union should always be about actions in real people’s lives and not political polemic. A United Kingdom responding to its people’s priorities across the United Kingdom is the very best way to secure that United Kingdom.

Of course the constitutional settlement must be upheld, and I applaud the UK Government for doing so over the recent gender reform issue in Scotland, but it should not be done for political partisanship. I find it odd that some of the most vociferous commentators concerned about the Scottish Government engaging in reserved areas did not have the same concerns when a Labour/Liberal Democrat Administration were doing exactly the same thing.

Instead, the United Kingdom should play to its strengths and go with the groove in both Scotland and Northern Ireland. That means ensuring in Northern Ireland—this will go down very well with some contributors to the debate—that the “best of both worlds” economic advantage of being in the UK and EU single markets is fully utilised. The UK Government should not be mealy-mouthed about the Windsor agreement and the return of Stormont, which has the support of the vast majority of unionists and nationalists in Northern Ireland, as evidenced only this week in Liverpool University’s Institute of Irish Studies poll.

The UK Government should be doing all they can to ensure that Northern Ireland can build on the dynamism unleashed since the Good Friday/Belfast agreement. Let us make Belfast and Derry/Londonderry the tech hubs of the UK, using all the human resource and higher education network the UK has to offer. For too long, the view of the UK Government has been that “Northern Ireland is different”. We need to properly invest the leverage that the UK has. In Scotland, we should work with the Scottish Government and local authorities to ensure that the economic leverage of the UK builds on its energy past to become the renewable superpower of the world while we maximise the continuing opportunities of the North Sea.

John Buchan would have approved of the strength of the UK being used to build and strengthen the success of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, making them ever more vibrant and successful parts of their country. These steps and this progress will then in turn make people even more risk averse to constitutional change, but in a positive, confident way—not the politics of financial transaction and “project fear”. For the union to build on its current structural stability, it needs to culturally change its attitude from fighting seeming inevitability to embracing diversity, returning to the roots of a successful and dynamic United Kingdom, where identity is not subsumed but celebrated—the chemistry complementing the physics.

Above all, Britain is unique in being bound particularly by common institutions: the monarchy, this sovereign Parliament, our common-law traditions—of course, Scotland has its own law but it is simultaneously a common law and a different tradition—which unite us in a way that few other countries can claim to be united. I did not even visit Scotland until my early 20s or Northern Ireland until my late 20s. When I did go over to Northern Ireland during the Troubles—in fact, studying the Troubles—I felt simultaneously that it was different and home. I felt I was at one with the people I met, even though I had an enormous amount to learn from them and about different traditions that prevailed there. That is why it is very different from the fact I have had a holiday home in France for nearly 40 years and have spent a month or two a year there. It is always a different country; whereas all parts of this union seem to me part of my home and the people bound to me. Much as I love France and the French, it will always be a different country.

We should celebrate our union and strengthen it but recognise too that it has an economic basis which we must not allow to be weakened by the arrangements that have been set up in the North Sea. I hope that they will be so diluted that they do not weaken it. Our job is to make this union something we all want to belong to, feel enthusiastic about and be warm towards each other—warm enough, of course, to be rude and make jokes about each other. That positive approach, that sunny optimism with which the noble Lord, Lord McInnes of Kilwinning, began the debate, is something we should all share and rejoice in.

I want to make one point about the connection between Scottish nationalism and Ireland. This week, the leader of the Scottish nationalists came to London to speak at the LSE. Once again, he returned to what used to be very fashionable in Scottish nationalism: the greatness of the Irish example and what an independent Scotland could do. Up to 2007, this was called the Atlantic arc. Then Ireland went bust in 2008 and suddenly, everybody forgot the Atlantic arc and how wonderful that was. Now Ireland is again doing wonderfully well, with remarkable growth rates, so it has become permissible again for Scottish nationalism to flirt with the idea that Ireland shows it will be okay. This is regardless of the fact that the sort of economists Scottish nationalists tend to like on other issues—the big-name economists such as Krugman, Stiglitz and Piketty—are all critics of the Irish model of development, which they all regard, in a certain sense, as dubious. It is worth noting that the EU Tax Observatory’s Global Tax Evasion Report 2024, published in January, has a tone that would make any Scottish nationalist who studied it carefully realise that, whatever happens with respect to Ireland’s still extremely interesting tax policies—extremely complex and, in some people’s eyes, extremely dubious—there is absolutely no possibility that Scotland, as a new member of the EU, would be allowed to play the same game.

There is one other thing that ought to be stressed. We are proud in England that the PISA rates for educational performance have risen in the last few years, against the expected trend. So it is too with the Irish Republic. After the crash, it was told by the big American firms, “You think your education system is great? It’s not so great—you have to do better”. There was a clear, serious response to that on the part of the Irish Republic. Education is one of the mysteries of devolution: we assumed it would work well, but the performance of the devolved regions, particularly Wales and Scotland, is strikingly unimpressive. Again, if Scotland is paying attention to Ireland, the reality is that Ireland did, in one way, pull itself up by its own bootstraps.

I turn to the resolution and the very welcome return, in my view, of the functioning Good Friday institutions in Northern Ireland. After the major negotiating setbacks embodied in the 2017 joint report with the EU and the first draft of Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement, there has been a slow and steady struggle to get to the point we have finally got to and to take the poison of Brexit out of Northern Irish politics. This involved, among a number of things, insisting that the Good Friday agreement was based not on something called an Ireland economy but on the co-operation of two economies—north and south—and insisting that a harmonious east-west relationship between Belfast and London was important. Another crucial part of the international agreement is that the UK Government, being the sovereign Government, cannot leave a political community in a state of alienation.

These were the key points that lay at the heart of what has been, in one shape or another, five long years of negotiation to get these institutions up and running. People talked about Britain’s—or London’s—neglect of Northern Ireland, but this was a huge labour of patience and hard work. Even those in Northern Ireland who criticise it and believe it does not go far enough acknowledge that it was a serious attempt to deal with the problem, in so far as it could be dealt with.

There is no doubt in my mind that if, after continuing on the basis of the DUP leader having enunciated seven tests, he had then said, “No, we didn’t quite mean that; we meant something else more extensive”, it would have been disastrous for the union. He did not do that, to his credit; he said, “These are my seven tests, and we now have enough progress on those”, and he did not introduce a new agenda. There is no doubt that it would have been disastrous for the union if many Northern Ireland Catholics had continued to believe, not without reason, that the unionists had not accepted the outcome of an election result, which was under their rules, essentially, and not accepted the first Sinn Féin First Minister. It is very good that those poisons have been removed from the union, and it is now clear that it is possible to develop the politics of Northern Ireland along more progressive lines.

Finally, I find myself slightly surprised to be supporting this Motion, because I am certain that I am the only Member of your Lordships’ House who was once a member of Sinn Féin, then the Workers’ Party, and then the Democratic Left, which played a very important role in the Bruton Government in the mid-1990s and opened up contact with Belfast, which no previous Irish Government had done. I am proud of that connection and, in the aftermath of the death of John Bruton, I pay tribute to the work that he did. Without him, there would not, in my view, have been a successful negotiation of the Good Friday agreement, because trust was built up. But that has now evaporated. The trust that used to exist between leaders in Dublin and in Belfast has evaporated and needs to be radically reconstructed.

The recent referendum in Dublin, which was a startling defeat for the whole political class—the opposition as well as the governing parties—reveals that they do know even their own people. What is certain is that, if we are going to have Irish unity at any stage, it has to be based on a level of understanding between north and south. We are nowhere near that at this point. That is one reason why I am very happy to support the Motion.

I believe in devolution and, as has been said, that there is a difference between party-political support, in terms of unionism and nationalism, and the general support of the populace—in Northern Ireland in particular—for the union. The noble Lord, Lord McInnes, has dealt with that point. There are issues for political unionism parties in Northern Ireland in addressing that and moving it forward, and gaining more and more support at the polls.

I have no doubt that there is still a very strong majority in Northern Ireland for the United Kingdom. Some of the propaganda and arguments that are put forward are not based on reality. I see that at the St Patrick’s celebrations in the United States this week, Sinn Féin has once again taken out advertisements, as it does in St Patrick’s week, calling for an immediate border poll. Even Leo Varadkar, the Taoiseach, has debunked this and said that there is no support for it, and I am glad he has done so. But this is not the way forward; we have just restored devolution and if Sinn Féin is serious about what it says, what is it doing stirring this up in the United States? It is a completely wrong approach.

However, I will say, in terms of the Irish Republic—and the noble Lord, Lord Bew, touched on this—that there has to be respect for the basis on which we have a political settlement in Northern Ireland, and for the three-stranded approach. The internal affairs of Northern Ireland—that there is a north-south dimension and an east-west dimension—are a matter for the people of Northern Ireland, the parties and the United Kingdom Government. The UK Government need to be quite robust in defending that, and there have been recent signs of this over legacy, including the pushback against Dublin’s legal claim on the legacy legislation. This week in Washington, Leo Varadkar talked about reform of the Northern Ireland Stormont institutions, and when that should happen. With the greatest respect, that is deeply destabilising to the politics of Northern Ireland and should be robustly rebuked by the UK Government.

This debate has been very positive. In a previous speech a week or two ago in your Lordships’ House, I referenced the positivity of the union and its important advantages for the people of Northern Ireland, and our many massive contributions—for example, to the Armed Forces, and that of the Harland & Wolff shipyard to industry—to the progress of the United Kingdom and to our history. But it is important to say that there is a concern among unionists today about the Windsor Framework—the Northern Ireland protocol. There has been a consensus in unionism that it has been damaging and wrong. I note what the noble Lord, Lord Bew, said about where we are at in all of this, but there are those who are concerned that a United Kingdom should not have internal customs and trade borders within it.

The recent Command Paper contains a lot of things which in and of themselves are positive, such as the east-west council and InterTrade UK, but the reason they are there is to mitigate a fundamental problem. The Select Committee on which I have the honour to serve took evidence yesterday from Steve Baker, the Cabinet Office and NIO Minister, in which he said, “Oh no, don’t worry about the border in the Irish Sea because, if you compare it with other international borders across the world, it is not as bad as any of them—it is nothing like them”. But that is not the point; we should be comparing it with borders between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—between parts of the United Kingdom.

There is no other country that I can see which has a situation where it is divided in such a fundamental way, in terms of customs and trade, and in relation to the imposition of foreign laws by a foreign political entity in its interests, without the elected representatives of the people of Northern Ireland—whether they be unionist, nationalist or other—having the opportunity to make, develop and amend those laws, or even to say yes or no if there is a change in them. That has to be addressed in the long term; it is an unsustainable position. It would be remiss of us if, while talking about all the other issues in this debate, we did not highlight that point and say it is an issue that must be resolved in a satisfactory way which restores democracy and UK sovereignty to part of the United Kingdom.

I now see devolution as a distribution of powers across the union, not a cascade of powers down from one part of the union. Westminster is, of course, still a sovereign Parliament and the devolved parliaments have defined competences, but there can be no silos. I consider we need an attitude framed by constitutional partnership rather than constitutional stand-off. With that change of culture, we shall strengthen and safeguard the union. Even political regimes driven by separatism understand a positive partnership and that culture can deliver mutual benefit for their devolved territories.

Do we have the necessary engagement frameworks across the United Kingdom to facilitate a partnership attitude? The early frameworks were fairly rudimentary and they were not required to be stress-tested. At Westminster there was a Labour Government, in Cardiff a Labour Government, and in Edinburgh a Labour/Liberal Democrat Executive. The Labour boys—because mostly it was the boys—simply picked up the phone and spoke to each other, so it all worked fine. For understandable reasons, Northern Ireland was different.

Let me focus on Scotland. In 2007 it elected a devolved SNP Government with a fundamentally different political objective from the Westminster Government’s. I was leader of the Scottish Conservatives at the time, and I had to work with the minority Government to get policies I supported delivered. Alex Salmond had to work with me. I believe there was a mutual respect, a relationship born out of pragmatism. The SNP entrenched its position in 2011 with an overall majority, which led to an unsuccessful referendum. That devolved SNP incumbency starting in 2007 threw up something unexpected about political and personal relationships, which I shall shortly come to.

The frameworks that structure the intergovernmental engagement have been modernised and are very different to what we started with. Importantly, the new version includes a dispute resolution mechanism. Further than that I shall leave to the Constitution Committee and to the deliberations of this House.

What constitutes a threat to the union? Obviously, it is political parties that want separation. They are visible and their arguments audible. We can manage that political and if necessary electoral pressure—we have done it in Scotland. That is not the threat that I fear. There is a more insidious and less visible threat: failing to understand that our constitutional structures do not exist in aspic. They evolve and breathe life into devolution. They need usage and, like any machine, lubrication. Unless they are approached with sensitivity, respect and, as I argued earlier, an attitude of constitutional partnership, we may by default preside over a systemic weakening of our constitutional structures, corroding the very union that I and others so strongly support.

Knowing the threat, how do we counter it? A partial answer is the engagement frameworks and structures. The remainder of the answer, without which the frame-works and structures are meaningless, is relationships. They are the lubricant, and they are pivotal.

In the other place, the Scottish Affairs Select Committee is conducting an inquiry into 25 years of devolution. Alex Salmond gave fascinating evidence to the committee, which I shall paraphrase. As First Minister in 2007, for the short time that he overlapped with Tony Blair, he was unable to have a single conversation with him. When Gordon Brown became Prime Minister, he spoke to him on his first day in office, and the joint ministerial plenary was re-established, as were other meetings. Alex Salmond went on to say that the situation improved again under David Cameron—all of which confirms that having different political parties with deeply diverging objectives in government, whether at Westminster or in a devolved Government, is not per se a bar to relationships.

My final question—perhaps the most important—is how we construct and nurture these relationships. They need to be cross-government in the inter- governmental sense, but they can also be cross- Parliament. As an MSP, I would have welcomed more UK Government Ministers appearing before Scottish Parliament committees. They could share experience and enhance knowledge. In my opinion, Westminster committees should not be shy about reciprocating that facility. In an intergovernmental sense, from Westminster they can involve the Prime Minister, territorial Secretaries of State and Government Ministers across Whitehall, but none of this will work without personal investment in taking the time to get to know devolved counterparts and regularly engaging with them. That is how you sense and pre-empt trouble.

In the MoD, I was the Minister responsible for engagement with the devolved Governments in relation to defence issues. I had a very constructive call with Wales’s First Minister, Mark Drakeford, and very useful engagement with Minister Hannah Blythyn. For Scotland I engaged constructively with Ministers Graeme Dey and Keith Brown. We had different political objectives, but with the importance of the MoD to Wales and Scotland in terms of economic contribution, jobs and skills, we had compelling common interests to discuss, and they delivered mutual benefit. I was not interested in what rank of Minister I spoke to; all that mattered was who had the knowledge to inform our conversation. Now, for all I know, maybe Mark, Hannah, Graeme and Keith thought I was an imperious old bat—but it did not come over that way.

I had a very constructive visit to Northern Ireland last year, meeting senior civil servants and business leaders and visiting Harland & Wolff to better understand how we in the MoD could make a positive contribution to Northern Ireland in the post-Troubles era.

We are living in a new age of devolution. Partnership is not inimical to the political objectives of parties with deeply divergent views. Indeed, they are much more likely to gain respect from the electorate for demonstrating that maturity and pragmatism.

Of course, it takes two to tango. I want to see our new partnership attitude deliver devolution’s own “Strictly Come Dancing”, a ballroom swirling with facts, opinions and views, exchanging observations. If we do not work to create these relationships, we will never get asked to dance: a bunch of political wallflowers perpetuating constitutional standoff. The union deserves better; I support the Motion.

My father was one of the lucky ones. He lived for another 32 years, dying at the age of 81, and is now buried at Aghadrumsee parish graveyard. My sister and her family live in our homestead. Many did not survive the sustained attack on the union, and I pay tribute to their service and dedication.

Despite its intent, the IRA did not succeed, and now the title of the little townland of Aghadrumsee—taken to honour my late father and to bring a little bit of south-east Fermanagh to Parliament—is seen on the annunciator and in the Hansard of the House of Lords. It is as much a part of the union as it ever was.

The IRA did not succeed in its terrorist campaign to take us out of the union but, despite this, republicans in Northern Ireland, and indeed in Scotland, now tell us that a united Ireland or an independent Scotland are inevitable, so we should get with the project. They even have a few useful fools, who should know better, helping them to make that claim. There is nothing inevitable about a united Ireland or an independent Scotland. Nationalists continually push this narrative, just as they claim that all the ills of society will be solved by independence. That is a comfortable belief for the followers of republicanism across the United Kingdom that allows each generation to think that with one last heave, or one last push, independence will happen. We in Northern Ireland have retained the United Kingdom against fierce opposition for more than 100 years, so the historicism or inevitability argument has not worked.

In fact, both the assertions—that all problems will be solved and that it is coming around the next corner—are nonsense, but they are allowed to gain traction. The narrative from media is that we should engage with the conversation because change is coming.

We should always push back against that narrative, and instead move to a narrative of why the United Kingdom is good for all its citizens. The opinion polls in Northern Ireland, which have been referenced, show strong support for the union, so do not be fooled by the pro-nationalist press trying to push their agenda of a united Ireland, or indeed of an independent Scotland.

Unionism for its part should not pretend to be simple but rather be multi-faceted and address many questions. Unionism, as the noble Lord, Lord McInnes, referenced rightly, is not narrow or reductionist but broad and diverse, and that is its strength. It is true that the challenges unionism faces will evolve with each generation. The benefits of the union likewise will show themselves in different ways over the years. During the pandemic, for example, we saw the strength of the union in a very practical way through the financial schemes and the rollout of the vaccinations. I was able to get my vaccination in Enniskillen at the same time as people in Devon and Cornwall. In Northern Ireland we also had the expertise and advice available to the devolved Administrations from the centre, which was vital in moving ahead.

The union and the United Kingdom is a rational political ideal, and as such the majority of people in Northern Ireland will, I believe, continue to support it—yes, for different reasons, but that is okay. Some are cultural and constitutional unionists, like myself; others are economic unionists; others, as the noble Lord, Lord McInnes, said, are just content with the status quo. As unionists, we need to understand that not everyone will vote for the union for the same reasons—the important thing is to get them to vote for the union.

For my part, I am hugely proud to be British. Our Britishness is about much more than the passport we hold. It cannot and should not be reduced to a name or a badge. It is about shared history going back generations and pride in having ended the slave trade, being the home of the Industrial Revolution, and founding the welfare state. It is about the institutions that, as the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, has said, we cherish and are the envy of others. Our allegiance to our shared institutions—whether cultural, through the historic ties that bind us, or in wider society—also gives us that sense of togetherness that is important for our emotional connection to the United Kingdom.

When I stepped down from politics in Northern Ireland, I set up the Together UK Foundation to set out the positive value of the four parts staying together and thriving together. That foundation continues to advocate for the holistic view of the United Kingdom. We have pride in our role for good in the world, something which is tangible—not just two world wars and the struggle against communism in the past but the battle for freedom and democracy today, particularly in Ukraine.

Our place in the world is important to us in the UK, but it is also, from a defence, security and intelligence point of view, important for countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand—our allies in the Five Eyes intelligence community. If the United Kingdom was broken up by separatists, what would happen to our safety and security and that of the wider western alliance?

Recently, Policy Exchange published an excellent paper called Closing the Back Door; I commend it to your Lordships’ House. It shines a light on the strategic importance of Northern Ireland and its assets, particularly its ports, to the defence of the UK and indeed wider Europe. With Ireland as a neutral state, it is important that Northern Ireland is kept as a base for when threats occur, and that is the case made by the paper.

The union has allowed people from all parts to make a contribution in political, social and cultural life. I know that some people like to present Northern Ireland’s relationship to the rest of the UK as one of more “take” than “give”. Certainly, in an economic sense the UK has allowed the sharing of wealth and prosperity not just between people but across the country, and Northern Ireland has been a huge beneficiary of that. This pooling of resources across the UK is one of the great attractions, but it is not just about financial support, even though that is particularly important.

My belief in and support for the union does not depend on economic arguments, although it is overwhelmingly the case that we are better together. Northern Ireland’s businesses and people pay into the Exchequer like their counterparts in every part of the kingdom, but our contribution is not just about pounds and pence. It is much broader than that.

I fully support this Motion. I thank the noble Lord, Lord McInnes, for bringing it to the Floor today. Our safety, stability, security and success depend on the union. We must continue our work to safeguard it for future generations.

The second part of my thesis—that we are a parliamentary union—means that the deep devolution settlement that we entered into at the beginning of the 21st century was much more radical in its constitutional effects than it was presented as being at the time. It was not simply an administrative arrangement or the creation of a new tier of local government, which would be consistent with a parliamentary union; it was a breaking up of that parliamentary authority, which we have not fully incorporated into our thinking even today. We say that we regard it as a stable and enduring settlement, but it is not a stable and enduring settlement in the eyes of nationalists; in their eyes it is merely a stepping stone to something else. We must always be aware of that and stay ahead of it.

What is not the answer to our current constitutional confusion, however, is the adoption of federalism. This has been proposed by Gordon Brown as a means, he would say, of saving the union. It would not save the union; it would destroy the union as it exists and replace it with something wholly new, untested and ill thought out.

Despite all that, we remain a voluntary union that is essentially based on affection: we are attracted to each other. The fact that we choose to stay together is because of the affection that exists—not the coercion but the affection. That is our strength and what we need to build on—but none of this means that we should be insouciant about the continuance of the union.

Here I turn to the sensitive subject of language. It is a sensitive subject, but we should not be too sensitive about discussing it. There is no doubt—and Sinn Féin fully appreciates this—that the use of language is a tool for promoting nationalist sentiment. When I look at Wales and see the almost linguistic fascism that now exists in parts of it, I am deeply concerned that we will find ourselves, on some occasion in the future, in a situation rather like we were with Scotland in 2014, when, half way through the referendum campaign, we realised that unionism might lose the referendum, so out of touch we were. I do not want to see something like that happen in Wales.

Finally, I turn to Northern Ireland. There is very little for me to add to what was said by the speakers who come from Northern Ireland, but I will second what was said about the Northern Ireland protocol and the Windsor Framework. I speak about them from the point of view not of Northern Ireland but of the United Kingdom. It is not the trade aspects that concern me directly—they have an effect on the lives of people in Northern Ireland, which has already been addressed by the noble Lord, Lord Dodds of Duncairn —but the constitutional implications of the fact that part of the United Kingdom is subject to laws made in the European Union by a foreign Parliament with no democratic say by the people who have to live under those laws. This is a classic definition of colonialism. It is a humiliation to this country that we tolerate it; I cannot think of any other democratic country that lives under such arrangements, and it is now explicitly acknowledged to be a constraint and impediment on the way in which we govern the rest of Great Britain. I believe that the Chancellor himself said only the other day that he was constrained from altering VAT rules by the fact that he was not allowed to do so in Northern Ireland, even though he had the power to do so in Great Britain, as that would create a disparity and he was prevented from making the change.

The Northern Ireland protocol was negotiated by a Government with no majority on their principal policy—the Brexit policy—and no majority in Parliament. Their principal negotiating tool, the right to walk away, had been taken away by Parliament. It is not—I second the noble Lord, Lord Dodds of Duncairn— a stable arrangement; it will have to be addressed at some point if the union is to survive and if the United Kingdom is to thrive as an independent country.

At this moment it bears repeating—as others have pointed out before—that “no selfish strategic interest” never meant “no strategic interest at all” for the United Kingdom Government. Indeed, Northern Ireland has always retained vital strategic importance to the United Kingdom. As we find ourselves in an ever more dangerous and sharpening international climate, we must question whether the present security arrangements on the island of Ireland, on both sides of the border, now pose a wider threat to British security.

I think that almost all of us in this House are rightly focused on supporting Ukraine’s gallant self-defence on the European continent as Russia seeks alternative means of weakening our collective security in NATO and wider Europe. In the pursuit of asymmetric advantages against Ukraine’s backers—ourselves included —the Kremlin is probing the critical undersea infra- structure that, by carrying our digital communications and energy flows, undergirds our security and prosperity. Russia makes no secret of its ambitions in that regard. It has a military doctrine, known as SODCIT, for degrading the West psychologically and materially by targeting our critical infrastructure and that of other friendly countries. Suspicious incidents in recent years, such as successive cable cuttings in the Baltics last year, suggest that those fears may not be unwarranted.

Defence of this infrastructure is necessarily a collective effort, and the UK and its partners have rapidly bolstered their joint capabilities. That was most recently witnessed in the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force’s maiden seabed warfare mission, conducted by nine NATO member states across the north Atlantic this past January.

However, it needs to be said that the Republic of Ireland is still not playing its part but rather chooses to continue to freeload on the security guarantees of others. Although some 75% of the undersea fibre optic cables linking Europe to the United States pass through Irish waters, the Irish Naval Service remains entirely ill equipped to police and protect them. It lacks the radar and the acoustic monitoring systems for satisfactory maritime situational awareness, it remains without a fleet of underwater surveillance vessels and it suffers from a chronic staffing shortage which renders just one-quarter of its fleet serviceable at any given moment.

Although the Republic is now slowly engaging with more EU multilateral defence initiatives, it still does not participate in the one tasked with critical seabed infrastructure protection, and it is hard for many of us to understand why. Perhaps it is because it has little else to offer. As damage to this critical transnational infrastructure harms our national security, we must ask what we need to do to mitigate the risk. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Foster of Aghadrumsee —I hope I am the victor ludorum for the correct pronunciation of her townland—for saying that we have to consider what remains to be done. I am grateful for her tribute to Policy Exchange’s work on our paper Closing the Back Door: Rediscovering Northern Ireland’s Role in British National Security.

One of the solutions is to restore the United Kingdom’s naval and air presence in Northern Ireland by rebuilding our capabilities for maritime patrol in the Atlantic, perhaps in Londonderry, which played such a definitive role in allied victory in the Battle of the Atlantic and in our operations in the Cold War—as has been attested to by the noble Lord, Lord West of Spithead, who was briefly here earlier and who I think served there early on in his naval career. The UK must use any such revived facilities to deter future Russian snooping around undersea cables and pipelines.

I note with pleasure that, whatever the various opinions within unionism over the recent Windsor Framework, this is one area which unites all shades of unionist opinion. The recent exchanges between the right honourable Sammy Wilson MP and the Secretary of State for Defence and the Minister of State for the Armed Forces in the House of Commons and between the right honourable Jeffrey Donaldson MP and the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s Questions indicate the tremendous potential for such a revived role for UK national security and defence structures in Northern Ireland.

There is a further dimension to our national security concerns on the island of Ireland: the growing Russian, Chinese and Iranian presence in the Republic. The soft border—a consequence of the common travel area, a core element of the British-Irish relationship—raises the prospect of a “back-door” threat to the rest of the United Kingdom. Russia has long viewed the Republic as a strategically positioned hub for its clandestine intelligence activity in Europe. In 2022, the Russian embassy in Dublin reportedly had 30 members of staff, second only in size to its embassy in Washington DC. While the Irish Government subsequently expelled four Russian agents masquerading as diplomats, there are concerns that Moscow has implanted illegal espionage networks which are far harder to trace.

Furthermore, in 2015 Russia successfully applied for planning permission to vastly expand its Dublin embassy, with a new underground operational “nerve centre”. It was only after the proposal came under media scrutiny that in 2020 the Government of the Republic intervened to revoke that permission on national security grounds at the behest of allies. Links between Irish organised crime and Iranian-backed terrorist organisations are also well established. Some of them are currently under investigation by the United States Administration for assisting in the illegal financing of Hezbollah and Iran.

Meanwhile, we know through the comprehensive report of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament last year that China is engaged in an expansive array of interference activities inside the United Kingdom. The markers are there that it is employing the same tactics in the Republic. Chinese investment is soaring, which has forced the Irish Government to introduce additional screening measures. At last count, there were 13 Confucius Institutes in Irish educational institutions, known to be controlled by the Hanban organisation which is affiliated to the Chinese Communist Party. A so-called Chinese police station in Dublin was shut down two years ago. The target of these is not any individual country, but the systems which service the transatlantic community, ourselves and the order which all that infrastructure upholds. Amid all this, fears are mounting that the Irish security agencies are overstretched, a concern raised by the independent Commission on the Irish Defence Forces set up by the Irish state in 2022.