Speech by Jordan Armstrong.
Mr Chairman,
I am delighted to be here today, to be among men and women who have been emancipated from the Establishment, which is the EU, we’ve defeated the elites and regained our sovereignty!
It is with great delight I have been offered the chance to speak on the opportunities that derive from Brexit, for the United Kingdom.
I am focusing on the economic priorities, both national and closer to home, that I believe we can become world leaders in.
Let me deal with one issue that keeps popping up – The Single Market.
Mr Chairman, there is a difference between membership of the Single Market and having access to it. Membership of the single market would mean the UK having to accept free movement of people, and the regulatory framework, thus still under control from the EU.
Yet only 6% of UK companies trade with the EU, while 100% of companies have to negotiate the bureaucratic red tape of EU regulations on their businesses.
The people of the UK gave their verdict on membership of the Single Market in the referendum.
We voted to leave, and leave we must!
That is not to say we cannot have access to the Single Market. British companies exporting to the EU, will inevitably comply with EU standards, just as they would comply to national standards when exporting to non-EU countries.
Trade is essential for the UK, we are the 5th largest economy in the world, we have traded for centuries with the rest of the world and have extensive links with the Commonwealth. Yet, in the EU we cannot negotiate trade deals by ourselves.
That has to end and cannot end while inside the Single Market!
Freed from the shackles of the EU we can open up negotiations with countries across the world. Why restrict our ambitions to the EU?
While it may have made sense in the 1970s to join the EEC as their market was growing the EU has not grown in economic terms in recent times. On the contrary, it has stagnated.
Mr Chairman, I would now like to focus on the Northern Ireland economy, and what benefits we here could derive from Brexit.
I know many here today at our Conference, like myself, who have worked in or come from an agricultural background. The Common Agriculture Policy has been one of the most frustrating exercises in paper shuffling and red tape the world has ever seen.
While an agricultural subsidy policy is required it should be much less cumbersome and designed to meet the specific needs of UK farmers, not continental Europe..
The false portrayal of Northern Ireland agriculture a being wholly dependent on Brussels fails to recognise some cold, hard facts –
Every penny we get from the EU is some of our own money back and it is but a mere fraction of the £20 billion the UK pays in every year,
The EU attacked local agriculture with crippling fines of 80m Euros and when the industry is in crisis, Brussels sits on its hands, as with its refusal to bring in intervention to deal with the fall in milk prices;
EU rules prohibit HMG and Stormont help for farmers because of regulations relating to state aid;
The EU impedes agricultural practices and imposes restraints like the Nitrates Directive and slurry spreading rules and importantly,
EU agri spending is on a downward trajectory and there is an increasing bias towards Eastern and Southern Europe.
The government now has the opportunity to listen to those in agriculture and come up with a subsidy policy which is bespoke to the needs of our nation and reacts with compassion in times of need.
Mr Chairman, it is also the right time that the UK reclaim our waters for our fishermen. One of the hardest hit industries across the UK, as well as here in Northern Ireland, is the fishing industry.
The UK has had its waters pilfered and fishing quotas have been introduced that led to catches having to be thrown overboard.
There is a momentous opportunity to take back what is ours, to give back to the fishermen what they had stolen from them by the EU.
If Brexit means anything it means that reclaim our territorial waters.
What role can the Assembly play? Well I am sorry to have to tell Alliance, Sinn Fein, SDLP, et al but not a lot! Brexit is a matter for the UK government. Not your Toy Town Parliament. And that is something I am mighty glad about.
No amount of winging will change the reality that we were asked in the referendum if the UK should leave the EU. Not if Northern Ireland should leave.
But if the Executive is to have a positive impact on the national negotiations on Brexit — and I stress that they are national negotiations — it is a prerequisite that the Executive are all pulling in the one direction on the issue.
That this voice at the table cannot serve Northern Ireland if one part of it is saying out of one side of the mouth, “We agree with Brexit”, and the other part is saying, “We do not accept Brexit”. Yet that is exactly where we are.
With Brexit, as it is with so much else, the Executive has proved it is unfit for purpose.
But let’s end on a positive note.
Brexit far from destroying the UK in the eyes of the world has shown that ordinary people have the power to rise up against the establishment. They can take back control. Brussels and those who despise national sovereignty, who think of patriotism as a dirty word, are worried.
Good!
It’s time for the Remoners to accept democracy and get with the programme. We are leaving the EU. And we have much to be positive about.