FAR from taking back control so we can once again hold our heads up high in the world, the Brexit terms to which our government has bowed embrace a greater measure of humiliation than anything associated with EU membership.

At least when we were members, the territorial integrity of the UK was upheld, and we played a role in making the EU law to which we were subject.

The Protocol/Windsor Framework, by contrast, involves the EU disrespecting the territorial integrity of the UK by imposing an international customs and plant and animal health border across the country, cutting us into two and then claiming the western part for itself, subject to much of its law. Under this arrangement goods moving from England, Wales or Scotland to Northern Ireland are treated as the goods of a foreign country when they arrive in Northern Ireland.

To really get the significance of all this, though, we have to understand that these EU laws are not being made for us as when we were an EU member state, suffering from the ‘democratic deficit’ – the problem resulting from the fact that, notwithstanding our representation in the Council of Ministers and European Parliament we could still be overruled by qualified majority and majority voting. We have instead exchanged the inconvenience of the democratic deficit for the complete humiliation of relinquishing part of our country to become what is effectively an EU colony, where laws are made for us by a foreign parliament.

How on earth did we get into this mess?

Briefly the EU managed to persuade the world that the Belfast Good Friday Agreement states that there can be no customs border across the island of Ireland. The truth, however, is that notwithstanding the fact that it would be highly desirable to avoid customs and SPS infrastructure along the international border, there is nothing in the Belfast Agreement prohibiting it.

There are, however, three requirements in the Agreement that the Protocol/Windsor Framework clearly violates, namely that: i) there cannot be ‘any change’ in the constitutional status of Northern Ireland without the consent of the majority of the people of NI, ii) there can be no majority decision making on matters of controversy at Stormont if either community objects and iii), after the Troubles, the right to ‘pursue democratically national and political aspirations’ must be upheld.

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As a ‘for example’, rather than being upheld the latter has been subject to dramatic degradation such that while the people of England, Wales and Scotland can stand for election to make all the laws to which they are subject, we in Northern Ireland can now only stand for election to make some of the laws to which we are subject.

The failure of statecraft attending this humiliation is particularly extraordinary when we appreciate that there is a way of protecting the integrity of the EU single market without a hard border across the island of Ireland, without disrespecting the territorial integrity of the UK and without making part of our country an EU colony.

The means of rising to this challenge is called Mutual Enforcement and is set out in my European Union (Withdrawal Arrangements) Bill which was debated on Friday. Mutual Enforcement removes the need for a hard border by virtue of countries using their own sovereignty to pass laws requiring companies in their territory producing goods for the other to do so to its standards (on pain of serious criminal sanctions) and making provision for the relevant duties to be transferred.

If the EU rejects this because it prefers the border in the Irish Sea, it will have to own the consequences for its brand – as will the UK government if it chooses to stand with Brussels rather than its own people – of needlessly being the instigator of one of the greatest acts of disenfranchisement of the modern era. This is not in their interests any more than it is in ours, which is why my Bill defines the best way forward for all.

Labour predictably talked the Bill out, but they have not talked out the underlying injustice or imperative for Mutual Enforcement. The campaign continues.