A former Fermanagh and South Tyrone MP has described landmark votes in the Commons to liberalise access to abortion and allow same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland as “arrogant and dictatorial”.
Lord Ken Maginnis said “the people of Northern Ireland are not stray animals to be tossed titbits, whether good or bad” following Westminster’s intervention last week.
“We simply must not undermine the rights which still attach to the failed Assembly—unless we go the whole hog and suspend the current but unworkable devolved arrangement and restore direct rule,” he said.
The amendments only go ahead if devolution at Stormont is not restored by October 21.
Lord Maginnis spoke of the “incompetence of the Northern Ireland Office” and said it is not the role of peers “to cover day-to-day affairs with some patchwork quilt of mere opportunism and convenience”.
“Even though we may have run out of patience with our costly and ineffective Assembly, there can be no room for careless indecision. Let us, if we need to, restore proper, legitimate direct rule. 
“We should not seek to accommodate, in this last-minute arrangement, an administration by civil servants who have failed us and who hide the facts from those of us who, back in 1998, bent over backwards to establish the Belfast agreement.
“I certainly will not vote in favour of this Bill; nor should anyone who values his or her integrity,” he said.
Lord Maurice Morrow claimed there was “distress” in Northern Ireland following the move by MPs in the Commons.
He said the fact MPs “took it upon themselves to try to change the law in these two areas is wholly, totally and utterly unacceptable”.
“Whatever one thinks of these matters, they are colossal issues in Northern Ireland. Do not underestimate them or the impact that this will have. If the Westminster Parliament wanted to change the law in these two areas, there should have been a three-month public consultation with the people of Northern Ireland on them, then time to analyse and reflect on responses. 
“No consultation: ram it right through; they are second-class citizens; it will do them all right. That is the attitude. Instead, we find ourselves in a situation in which, this time last week, the people of Northern Ireland had no clue that there would be an attempt to change the law on these two highly sensitive devolved matters, or even that there was an appropriate legislative vehicle,” he said.