Whether you voted to remain in or leave the EU, no-one can deny that the situation with the Northern Ireland protocol has needed resolving. The Protocol was negotiated in good faith to recognise that, while the Republic of Ireland would remain in the EU and Northern Ireland would not, it was important for the peace process to avoid there being a new border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.
But it has failed to do what it was designed to do and has been putting the Belfast Good Friday Agreement and the UK’s territorial integrity under strain by disrupting trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
There can be no clearer example of this disruption than the fact that the number of regulatory checks currently required on goods arriving into Northern Ireland from Great Britain equates to 20% of the total undertaken by the entire EU, despite accounting for 0.2% of goods imports.
There have been bizarre situations where, for example, a container load of goods for Sainsbury’s requires the same level of checks going to Northern Ireland as goods going to the Irish Republic, despite the fact there are no Sainsbury’s supermarkets in the Irish Republic.
The Northern Ireland Executive has not been fully functioning since early February because the Protocol does not have the support necessary from the people of Northern Ireland – all of Northern Ireland’s political parties have agreed on the need for changes to the Protocol.
That is why what the Prime Minister and the Government have negotiated in the so-called Windsor Framework is so important. It will deliver free flowing trade by removing the barrier that has been operating between Great Britain and Norther Ireland by creating a new Green Lane that will remove the bureaucracy and checks that have meant, for example, supermarket food like sausages have been banned from going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
It will safeguard Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom by ensuring things that have not been possible with the current arrangements, such as allowing Northern Ireland to benefit from cuts to VAT that the rest of the UK benefit from, allowing the same medicines to be available everywhere with the same packaging and labels and ensuring pets can travel freely with their owners to.
Perhaps most significantly, it creates a new mechanism, the Stormont Break, to allow NI to block new EU laws via a UK veto.
Rishi Sunak has been clear that he is a Conservative, a Brexiteer and a Unionist and that he sought an agreement that would satisfy all 3. He has achieved what many said was simply not possible and I am pleased to support what is a very significant agreement.
