 Good afternoon all. My name is Dahio Kelly and I'm chair of the UK group in the Institute. It's a great pleasure to welcome you here at this webinar with the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, Dr Steve Aitken. Steve will talk to us for about 20 minutes and that will be followed then by question and answer session. If you have a question, please use the question and answer function button on the Zoom. May I remind you that today's session, both the preliminary chat and the question and answer session is on the record. Please feel free during the discussion to use Twitter using the handle at IIEA. I first came to know Steve Aitken when he was the chief executive officer of the British Irish Chamber of Commerce and he was the first such person. He ran it for a period of over three years and by the time he left it, it was an organization which was working exceedingly well and was good for both Britain and for Ireland. He's had a very distinguished career. He spent approximately 30 years in the British naval forces and commanded a number of nuclear submarines. So he knows what it's like to have his finger on the button. He worked for the UK Ministry of Defence's Global Strategic Trends Programme and he has a PhD and an M. Phil from the University of Cambridge as well as an MA from King's College London. It's a great pleasure for me to welcome Steve here this afternoon and to make his acquaintance again because I greatly enjoyed meeting with him when he was in Dublin. Steve, over to you. Thank you very much indeed and thanks to the IIEA for inviting me along. And I should never start a sort of a briefing with an apology, but since this is about my sixth or seventh Zoom call on today, I just wanted to make sure that I don't sound as if I'm coming across as being too zoomed out. And I might have to look down to occasionally look at my notes as I go through. What I thought I would do is I give you some introductory remarks and then open up to any questions and obviously to be fully sort of invigilated and run by Dahi and the rest of it. But my overall point and I go back to a time when I thought British Irish relations were very much on the up. That was when I had the opportunity when I was chair or as I was the chief executive of the British Irish Chamber of Commerce. We were in Windsor Castle, and I was being presented to the President Higgins and also to Her Majesty. And at that event in Windsor Castle, there was everybody from across these islands. And what I thought was here we are. This is the way ahead. This is the future for these islands. This is the future for this relationship from these islands. So I walked out of Windsor Castle that evening feeling quite merry and indeed having enjoyed the hospitality of both the British and Irish governments to considerable degree. I just said to myself what could possibly go wrong. And that will probably be part of the subject of the talks of the conversation that I go through at the moment. But sort of I'll just I'll just crack on into this and I apologize if I'm looking down just at a few bits of pieces, because this is the way we're doing it. But 2021 is already shaping up to be a momentous year. And it hasn't even arrived yet. To set the context, we will be for better or worse over the transition period. And the United Kingdom, which lest we all forget Northern Ireland is part of, will have left the European Union. COVID will not only be still with us. We could be dealing with another gathering wave of the disease, but the fear of the virus coupled with the significant and continuing global economic downturn will further add to the depression that many economic systems are suffering from and unfortunately will continue to suffer from. We will have no matter what an increasingly protectionist administration in the United States, no matter who gets to presidency. Climate change will be contributing to continue security challenges on energy on migration on food supply, and indeed the physical disruption caused by extreme weather events. Couple to this, the continued diffusion of hegemonic power between the West to the East, and the rising instability in the middle and Near East, due to its stability and certainty will be in very short supply. On this island, we're off trampled into seeing things at the purely local, and they can be virtually street by street or townland. But that does us all British, Irish, European, planter or gale at a service. Because these islands and note the position of the apostrophe do belong firmly in the globalized world, and all of our horizons are and should continue to be on a much, much broader level. Also on a plus point, Northern Ireland, despite a near century of attempts to say it's demise enters our second century. And although speaking as a Unionist, we would have preferred that the Republic of Ireland had remained part of the United Kingdom, where more than happy to commemorate our past and to celebrate our next 100 years. Indeed, that, coupled with the very uncertainty and instability mentioned in the paragraphs just before that, brings the dynamic to relationships across these islands that we must consider. And that is why I say we need to urgently consider a reset. And it's in the context that these remarks are made. To say the least, to paraphrase another leader who may or may not have been Borough Shelton, if asked to expand on the current state of relations on these islands in one word would be, I'm afraid, the word bad. In two words, appallingly bad. I'd like to go back to the Halcyon days of Winter Castle of to 2011 and 2014 when Anglia Anglo Irish relations had reached what we had hoped was the start of a new and respectful relationship. We had now, in more than one way, seen much of this precious good will is actually begin has dissolved to far face the next, another ex diplomat who admire Bobby McDonough, when he wrote in the rich, the recent issue of the reestablished fortnight magazine in Belfast that there has been irritation and at some stat that's sometimes spilled into anger about Ireland view of what's been happening in Britain. And I say this as a friend, and from a very friendly British and Unionist perspective, that irritation and anger towards Irish politicians and officials has grown from our side. And indeed, we have invented a new word for it. We call it union splitting that very annoying and patronizing habit of talking about Unionists about how they should be thinking about their union without actually talking to any Unionists. And this is only, believe it or not, the course of platforms where Unionists are actually present. But again, we're never ever asked. And it's a phenomenon that unfortunately is close to really to Brit splitting, which fits into two has become rather a debt that. But here is the reality that the United Kingdom as a whole, because that is what democracy is about, voted as a whole to leave the EU. And this is an example of the democratic choice of the British people that it was a bad choice. And as a remainder, I believed it was a terrible choice can be many people's opinion. And it's fair to say that many listening today will agree with me in this. However, it clearly has been ratified by general election results and vote in our parliament and is now the direction and course of travel we are following. In the words of a famous American general, excrement happens time to get over it and move on. That this will have a ribbical implications, especially around trade and future relationships is an immutable fact. But an insistence on a form of an Irish version of short and Florida does no one any good. I'll let you into a fact about the British system, based of course on being British and having been a key part of that establishment for well over three decades is that much have Britain has moved on Brexit is done. And both of the main political parties have not only accepted that. They now see that there's no appetite to revisit the debate. And the part of that price of putting barriers in the way of an Irish land bridge, stopping EU fishing vessels from taking the same level of caps that they have before undercutting the European banking and finance industry, aiding UK research strip research and development to both or even accepting WT trade rules. That is what unfortunately is going to happen. All these issues will have consequences, but the United Kingdom will having probably tried everything else will make it work. It might look like muddling through. But the end of it, the UK will still be the sixth or seventh largest economy, still be in the top five with the global soft cars. It's the number of the P5 and whereas the whereas the opinion pages of the Irish Times still decry little England. It still possesses a significant amount of amounts of hard and soft power, or Joseph and I would say smart power, power that Europe and the US will still need for its wider security considerations in a very, very uncertain world. In this context, you can't change geography. On these islands, there's a combined population of over 70 million. We are and continue to be interconnected, interdependent and integrated. And as much as you may wish you were an island without profiteus I'll be in 20 miles away next door, or that one million old citizens of this island remain proudly British, and are going to remain so we have to learn with the reality and to make it work. And after all, regrettably, we're now in the era of self interest rather than global friendships. And COVID is also a defining moment. Years ago when I worked for the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defense, the global strategy strategic strategic returns, I said that again, global strategic trends program. One of the biggest risks was a global pandemic, the effects of which we magnified by globalization and the interconnectivity of the global economy. But in 2009, it wasn't a question of if it was a question of when that the economic world of just enough, just in time, relying on the robust conduit of global trade sinews, powered by large volumes of workers could be so quickly disrupted was again a factor. Well known, but this had been modeled and largely understood has been translated into a fearful and sometimes disjointed global response to the pandemic. We can also see the contours of a rising epidemiological nationalism. Previously restrictions and movements of people was largely based on the control of economic migration. Now, increasingly, it's going to be about biosecurity. We're also seeing the rise of protectionist barriers to retain national capabilities security of key medical devices. And as the introduction of COVID and climate change securing and defending food supplies. And the subsides which will the international system will be much more wary, more protective, and less willing to share for the international and common good that this is occurring during a period of hedgeromic transition should be a worry for us all. So given this, and I haven't yet mentioned the withdrawal agreement, the Northern Ireland protocol, or that much hated border down the middle of the RIC. That is why the need for reset that is much greater consequence than just an issue of North side relations for Ireland. We need you to do well. We want the Republic to be a successful and vibrant country. That is a beacon of Atlanticism and an increasingly Eurocentric EU. We want to see investment in Irish universities in research and development. And we want you to be able to provide a sheltered spot for US investment in a place which is basically in Europe is rapidly becoming anti American and anti American economic as well. We want you to sort out issues around homelessness, create an equivalent to the National Health Service. Do something about the Dublin centric central crew will pull up the M 50. And for me, I'm delighted that the T shocker and I start there would be close on 500 millions in software to issues to do on a shared on a shared island would be delighted if you could have 200 million of that to help build the a five road and also do something about the narrow water bridge. But to my many, many friends in Ireland. I want to see you succeed. And that with you paying Scandinavian rates of taxation, you at least get Danish levels of UV service. In short, as leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, and as a personal friend, I hope you find a way to do it. And for those who also believe in the Union, we want to be your friends. We just don't want to be part of you. We also as the Ulster Unionist Party, the party that quite frankly self emulated itself on the creation of the Belfast agreement. We do not accept the current rhetoric and any side that has helped the stability of Northern Ireland, one eye. Telling those that the Belfast agreement is under threat from a North side border while ignoring the very serious severe implications of checks on the RSC is a best disingenuous. The worst from our community's perspective inflammatory. So, how do we get from bad to have not good acceptable. I have a few proposals. The first is to accept that Brexit has happened, and having happened, stop demonizing the British people for the decisions they made. Whether you like it or not, and accept many don't, we all have to collectively get on with it. And please remember that whereas in my hometown of Balli Clare, there are many people who take a regular offense that remarks made by certain Irish government ministers. Quite frankly, in London, Swindon and beyond, they don't care. They're not interested. Given that, please have a serious internal debate about what relationship you want with the UK. The bit of the UK that's just to the north of you, and the Great Big Island to the east of you. Do you want to create an enmity with your neighbor? That to be fairly honest treats this island today with a largely benign feeling. Or do you want to rile it so it decides in its own interest to treat you for instance, like some form of far or other Eastern country. I was going to use the word Russia here, but they'll probably have the link if we do it at that stage. What is the future relationship you actually want? I surmise that getting back to the days of 2011 and 2014 is probably beyond the current political lands leadership on either side of the RSC. But at least, and I hope it is something that we want to, it's something we need to aim for. Looking at the post COVID landscape, sharing lessons identified, creating common supply chains, setting up a post pandemic research groups amongst our universities, joint purchasing of vaccines, utilising the strong links created between our health minister, the rest of the UK and the Republic can help rebuild trust in both our experts, which we need to do on our political class. And let's use the Belfast Agreement. It's there and use it in all its parts, but use the sections of the North, South and East West relationships. Don't go around creating new structures and expect at least the political unionist community to buy into another additional layer, especially when there's been no recognition of any genuine concern concerns shown to my community by the abuse of the agreement as a bargaining chip in the febrile destructive EU and UK negotiations. And as a point of goodwill, actually commit to the latest touch of regulation in the Northern Ireland, paying more in Asda's and Tesco's for goods than that we should be paying for. And paying more for them not we're paying for now that we would be in Scotland, Wales or England. That is not going to go down well with the people of Northern Ireland. We want to have a level UK playing field. And the one that indeed that lightest touch will assuage the people of Northern Ireland about the benign intent of both the EU and the Irish government than any rhetoric coming from Brussels or indeed from Ivy House. And if there are any new structures we need, let's have a Council of the Isles, not working towards a shared island, but a shared islands approach. And again, come and join us in our celebrations commemorations of our next 100 years. Hopefully we'll be in Dublin any house celebrating Northern Ireland representing this island in the euros. And I expect that I'll be really looking forward to be doing that as well. Come on Northern Ireland. But in the spirit that we help mark the 1916 cent centenary in Dublin, please respect our commemorations and our celebrations that also use as an opportunity to start a dialogue about recognising the current settlement that is the status quo. But maybe indeed as the status quo, it might be the best way for us all to go forward. And as such, how can we enhance it for the good of everybody. Thank you very much indeed. I've whittled on there by my clock for just under 19 minutes, so I'll give you a moment of time. But thank you very much indeed for listening to you and please open to any questions.