European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

The Minister knows the respect in which I hold him and the job he is doing. I have no wish to have a border which differentiates Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom. But will he accept that the problem was not created by Michel Barnier? The promise to have complete alignment between Northern Ireland and southern Ireland was not made by Michel Barnier, it was made by the British Government. Michel Barnier is doing no more than holding the Government to the promise they made to Europe in the initial agreement, and it is not his responsibility that outside that the Government also promised the DUP—correctly, in my view—that there would be complete alignment between Britain and Northern Ireland. That is the essential problem, because if you have alignment between Britain and Northern Ireland, between Northern Ireland and southern Ireland, and between southern Ireland and Europe, you automatically have alignment between Britain and the European Union; in other words, staying inside the customs union.