FF's Smith addresses SDLP meeting

 

Cavan-Monaghan Fianna Fail TD Brendan Smith addressed a meeting of the Fermanagh/South Tyrone SDLP yesterday evening where he described a no deal Brexit and the return of any form of border as a threat to democracy.

Chair of the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party, Deputy Smith made the comments when addressing repeated claims by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson that the backstop is undemocratic.

Deputy Brendan Smith said only someone who knew “little or nothing” about the Good Friday Agreement or the conduct of the Brexit campaign in Northern Ireland could make such an “outlandish” claim.

“What the British Prime Minister fails to recognise is that there is neither democratic mandate nor cross community consensus for Brexit in Northern Ireland. What is undemocratic however, is overriding the democratic will of Northern Ireland voters to reject Brexit and dragging them out of an EU which has done so much to support peace and progress across Northern Ireland”, said Deputy Smith.

Reminding that the democratic wish of the people in Northern Ireland was reflected in the letter supporting the backstop sent by the majority of MLAs to Donald Tusk, Deputy Smith regarded as a “tragedy and scandal” that the Assembly in Northern Ireland is not up and running at this crucial time. “For all the people of Northern Ireland and to allow all voices – both for and against - to be democratically and calmly aired. The DUP is acting and behaving like a one-party-state at Westminster and is being indulged by Boris Johnson… for now.”

He added that if Boris Johnston is “serious” about addressing such democratic deficits, he would move “speedily and substantively” to get the Institutions of the Good Friday Agreement back up and running. “The intransigence and political game-playing by the two main parties in Northern Ireland coupled with an indifference from the British government that often goes unchecked by the Irish government, is allowing the political vacuum to go on.”

“It is the people from both communities, living on either side of where the border once was who will pay the price for the hard Brexit concocted in the private members dining clubs in London. It is going to hurt small and medium businesses, the agri-food sector and local communities and turn back the twenty-five years of progress made since the cease-fires”, concluded Deputy Smith.