In her full address to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn at the weekend, Derry Chamber President JENNIFER McKEEVER [pictured above] warned that Northern businesses are running out of patience with the failure to deliver practical solutions to Brexit.
Mr Corbyn, when your party colleague Keir Starmer joined us at the beginning of the year, he remarked upon the beauty of our historic walled city and riverfront location. I wish you were here because Mr Starmer convinced you that Derry/Londonderry was your next “must-see” short break destination – but of course, you are here because we are the city right at heart of the Brexit conundrum.
We are a city region that sits on the border spanning two counties, two countries, two jurisdictions and we run businesses serving both. Every day, thousands of us cross the border for work, for education, for health and for trade. The EU is not a foreign far-away bureaucracy – it’s a couple of miles from where we sit. It’s where many of our staff live and where we find our customers, and trading partners.
Sir, in this room you will find businesses that cover just about every size and sector, from start-up to second generation and from digital platforms to dairy producers. This is a Chamber that has been actively engaged in Brexit since before the referendum in 2016 because we could see with absolute clarity the implications that Brexit would have for Northern Ireland and for our political institutions. During the past two years, businesses here have been hugely resilient and pragmatic. We have tried to be optimistic and to see where possibilities might lie in a post Brexit economy. We have tried to anticipate the challenges – and opportunities – that it has posed to our businesses and have tried to make contingency plans with little or no clarity on what we are planning for. But, to be honest, two years later our patience is wearing thin. As we speak this morning, the various Conservative Party visions of Brexit have conglomerated into a customs partnership model which the government themselves describe as “unprecedented” and “challenging to implement” or a maximum facilitation model (or 'max fac') which would have to mean some sort of border infrastructure or surveillance, and according to the HMRC will cost UK businesses £20 billion a year. These are not options that inspire confidence right now.
This is multiple choice test where we don’t have full view of the questions and we don’t fully understand the answers. Even Jeremy Clarkson couldn’t make this episode of “Who Wants to be out of Europe” any fun to watch.
In the meantime, Brexit has caused real damage to our community relations and the political will to work together here. I know it’s not normally our role in business to discuss community relations but the disquiet and distrust in politics is beginning to spill into the civic and business arena, and as an employer I can see how it could begin to affect our workplaces. And you can easily understand what Brexit has done to politics here: our two biggest parties have two very different visions of future relations: one that prioritises our relationship with the UK at the potential cost of our relationship with Ireland and the EU and the other that prioritizes our relationship with Ireland and the EU at the expense of our relationship with the UK. The truth is, we cannot afford to damage either of these relationships, but Brexit has split our politicians and their will to work together to create a society where all parts of our community aspire to equal prosperity.
A delicate balance
Maybe the EU isn’t everything we want it to be. But it is the largest Customs Union in the world, and membership of the Customs Union and Single Market has allowed freedom of goods, people, money and services across our border, and allows us access to a market of 500 million EU citizens and it’s under those conditions that we have built the business community that you are siting with this morning.
The EU has help to construct and support the conditions of the Good Friday Agreement allowing us to identify as Irish, British, Northern Irish or European and allowed us to be comfortable with any of those titles. That delicate and often difficult balance has resulted in twenty years of Peace and relative Prosperity in Northern Ireland. There couldn’t be a Free Trade Agreement in the world which would be worth sacrificing that for.
So, Mr. Corbyn, I’m afraid this is not just about no hard border. With all due respect sir, everybody excepts that it would be unacceptable to re-introduce a hard border in Ireland. What is infinitely more difficult is to understand is how we can pull out of the Customs Union and Single Market without one.
Any technological solution that has been suggested so far – such as the use of cameras, drones and mobile phones would commit people who live on the border to an unequal and unacceptable amount of surveillance in their daily lives. The onus would fall to business to bear the brunt of the administration and cost in ensuring "regulatory alignment" or customs declarations. What defines the size a small business is currently “part of the negotiations” but anything that makes us less competitive and less attractive to investors – whether foreign or indigenous – will damage our economy and limit growth.
Be careful
This week we saw a cross party statement from Sein Fein, SDLP, Alliance and the Green party, representing 49 of the 90 Assembly seats, to remain in the EU structures and within the Customs Union and the Single Market. In our own Chambers membership, 90% of companies surveyed said their preferred option was to stay in both Customs Union and the Single market.
The truth is we just cannot see how you can square this circle: to both leave the EU, and to ensure no border, to create the unique solution for Northern Ireland, and to do it without damaging our peace and prosperity. Perhaps over a period of years, there will be a solution created that helps achieve this, perhaps a deal can be struck and a settlement found. But there is more time, more political goodwill and more attention urgently required to address the Irish border question, before we could relinquish what we have now for what we might – or might not – have in the future.
Right now, this unenviable dilemma is the responsibility of Theresa may and the Conservative government but it’s not hard to imagine the circumstances under which they might be yours. Be careful what you ask for, sir.
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