SDLP Foyle MLA and Economy spokesperson Sinead McLaughlin
Speaking in the Assembly this week, the Foyle MLA said: “Some Northern Ireland politicians advocated Brexit, who believed – against all the evidence – that Brexit would be positive.
“Surely, no one still believes that. But then again, perhaps some do. If so, they clearly are deluded.
“For four years, businesses across Northern Ireland have been deprived of investment that would have come if investors had known what shape trade would take after Brexit.
“Just over two weeks before the end of the transition arrangements those investors still do not know the shape of the outcome. You could not make it up.
“We do now know that Northern Ireland will have an open border North and South but trade barriers in the East.
“I wonder what Ian Paisley Snr would have said about that.
“Consumers will pay a price for that, including higher food costs, not exactly what the Brexit campaigners claimed would happen.
“Nor was it mentioned that British nationals with property in France or Portugal would only be able to visit their homes for three months out of every six.
“There is one thing to be grateful for: Northern Ireland has a protocol. Without it, all the problems on the other side of the Irish Sea border — there are plenty of them — would be happening on the island of Ireland, only much worse. Let us at least be thankful for the protocol.
“The problem is not the protocol; the problem is Brexit and its architects, who did not have a clear idea of the shape of the Brexit they wanted or how to achieve their objectives through the negotiations.
“That is why the negotiations thus fair have failed.
“If the First Minister could turn back time, would she regret and reconsider her phone call to Theresa May, blocking a deal that would have been much better for every single citizen in Northern Ireland? Had it not been for that phone call,
“Northern Ireland would have retained a closer relationship with Britain and had clarity from that point about how Brexit would work in practice on this island; instead, those who made the political decisions went into denial and pretended that, when it came to the economic outcomes, Brexit did not really mean Brexit.
“As it is, it is a disaster for all of us.
“Brexit was always a great delusion, and the result is that the North has lost investment and jobs and the wealth that would have come here with them.
“We have little more than two weeks left. Let us forget about the delusion. The reality is that our economy needs strong relationships both east-west and north-south.
“Let us get a deal done that supports every citizen in Northern Ireland,” added Ms McLaughlin.
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