Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Hard border7 will be soft target for dissidents
Lady Hermon in warning on dangers of a ‘no deal’ Brexit
POLICE and Customs officers will become targets for dissident republicans if a “no deal” Brexit leaves a hard border, Lady Sylvia Hermon warned yesterday.
In an impassioned speech in the Commons, the Independent unionist said the Tories would be “reckless” and “dangerous” to press ahead with a “hard” exit from the European Union.
The North Down MP spoke out as she tried to insert an amendment to write the principles of the Good Friday Agreement into the EU Withdrawal Bill.
She said: “We have normality in Northern Ireland, we have peace and undoubtedly have people alive today that would not be alive today but for the Agreement.”
Railing against Theresa May’s Government and the possibility of a hard border, she warned: “Dissident republicans are active, they’re dangerous and they are ruthless.
“Dissident republicans will regard PSNI officers, HMRC officers and UK Border Force officers as legitimate targets.”
She added the Government had a “moral” responsibility to take care of all officials working on any border.
Her amendment attracted Conservative support during the debate but was later withdrawn.
Proceedings on day five of the Bill’s committee stage opened with Lady Hermon issuing a direct warning to Tory MPS about the consequences of a hard border.
She told the Commons: “May I just say ever so loudly and strongly to senior members of the Conservative Party – I do not want to hear them or see them on television talking about pushing ahead with no deal. Let’s just move on from no deal.”
But her comments drew a sharp response from Democratic Unionist MP Nigel Dodds, who accused her of “being on the side of the Dublin government”.
Lady Hermon rejected his assessment, telling the Commons she was “not in the pocket” of anyone and had not spoken to them.
Conservative former cabinet minister Ken Clarke challenged the DUP to reveal further details about why they objected to a proposal for postbrexit border arrangements.
He said: “The DUP could always actually rescue their reputation if they confirm their only objection was not having regulatory and customs convergence across the whole of the UK, and they were quite prepared to agree – as she [Lady Hermon] and I would – that regulatory and customs convergence across the whole of the island of Ireland is certainly in the interests of inhabitants of both sides of the border.”
Mr Dodds intervened to ask: “Could she answer the question posed by [Mr Clarke] when he said do you accept, as he does, that it’s a good idea to have regulatory convergence and common rules between Northern Ireland and the Republic.
“Could she give a straight answer to that because many in Northern Ireland now view her as being on the side of the Dublin government on these issues.”
A shout of “shameful” could be heard from one MP, with others groaning at Mr Dodds’ final remark.
Meanwhile, Brexit Secretary David Davis was accused of lying to Parliament, or simply being too hapless to do his job after he admitted assessments into the impact on various parts of the UK economy
HOUSE OF COMMONS YESTERDAY
of leaving the EU had not been done.
“The dithering last night led to claims his department “has turned incompetence into an art form”.
Mr Davis, now 3/1 second favourite with bookies to leave the Cabinet, also warned exiting the EU will provoke an economic “paradigm change” similar to the 2008 financial crash.
Parliament had voted last month to publish dozens of impact assessments on a range of sectors.
In 2016, Mr Davis told the Commons Brexit Committee the Government was “carrying out about 57 sets of analyses, each of which has implications for individual parts of 85% of the economy”.
But yesterday he said they did not exist and told MPS Whitehall had not studied the possible effects.
He said: “You don’t need to do a formal impact assessment to understand that, if there is a regulatory hurdle between your producers and a market, there will be an impact.”
But outraged MPS called for him to quit. Shadow Trade Minister Bill Esterson asked: “Did he know that the impact assessments didn’t exist when he said they did?
“It was either incredibly incompetent or incredibly dishonest.”
Sinn Fein staged a street protest in Belfast last night over the prospect of a hard border across Ireland.