I am enormously grateful to the Secretary of State for allowing me to intervene so early in his important speech.
I am most unhappy about the repetition by the Prime Minister, and by others in the Government, of the mantra “no deal is better than a bad deal”. I should like the Secretary of State to give a guarantee to the people
of Northern Ireland that the Government whom he represents here today will not be gambling with the constitutional status of Northern Ireland as an integral part of the United Kingdom. No deal would lead to a hard border, which would inevitably be exploited by Sinn Féin and by new IRA dissenters. I need that guarantee.