Exiting the European Union (No. 2)

That this House calls upon the Government to withdraw the Official Controls (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2023 (S.I., 2023, No. 17) because they are injurious to the integrity of the UK Internal Market in circumstances where the Northern Ireland Protocol has not been replaced by new arrangements that respect and protect Northern Ireland’s place in the UK and that they thereby violate the New Decade New Approach Agreement; notes that the Regulations give effect to a customs border that divides the United Kingdom, treating Northern Ireland like a foreign country; further notes that it is their purpose to protect the integrity of a different legal regime in Northern Ireland created by laws in over 300 areas imposed by a polity of which it is not a part and in which it has no representation; notes that it is their purpose to protect the integrity of a legal regime that uniquely within the UK means the people of Northern Ireland can no longer elect fellow citizens to make all the laws to which they are subject; further notes that the Regulations are implicated in upholding the integrity of a legal regime which undermines the 1998 Belfast Agreement institutions, cross community consent and the right the Agreement affords the people of Northern Ireland to pursue democratically national and political aspirations; and is convinced that it would be harmful to proceed with such regulations on the eve of the twenty fifth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement when so many hopes hang upon them.