TO mark St Patrick’s Day Ilkley’s MP John Grogan met with Irish in Britain, a membership organisation composed of 120 Irish charities, societies and groups in Britain.

Mr Grogan said: “One in 10 people living in the UK have at least one Irish grandparent and indeed I have three. From Leeds Bradford Airport there are at least seven flights a day to Dublin and Belfast. Ireland is the fifth biggest export market for the UK and many of Yorkshire’s railways and hospitals were built by Irish labourers including my own paternal grandfather.”

Mr Grogan, a member of the Northern Ireland Select Committee, added: “The Good Friday Agreement signed in 1997 is perhaps the greatest post war achievement in these islands and this is one of the reasons I will use my vote in the House of Commons in the next few weeks to avoid a Brexit without a deal. The Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland has warned the Select Committee that a hard border between the North and the South would become a target for terrorism. Never again should we ask young men and women from Ilkley and Keighley to go and keep the peace on the streets of Belfast as we were doing just a generation ago.”