Sammy Wilson is the Democratic Unionist MP for East Antrim.
Despite claims from successive governments and prime ministers, Brexit is not done – and the damage inflicted on political stability and the economy in Northern Ireland by the Withdrawal Agreement which terminated our membership of the EU has not been repaired.
Theresa May’s proposal for keeping Ulster in the Single Market and the Customs Union legally, and the UK as a whole through political assurances, was quite rightly thrown out by Parliament. Boris Johnson’s Protocol proved unworkable, and even those who supported it publicly then called for it to be changed.
Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak’s promises about his Windsor Framework have already started to unravel before it even becomes operational.
EU laws will still hold sway in Northern Ireland, with no democratic control. The Stormont Brake, which was supposed to give Northern Irish politicians a veto over EU laws, has already been shown to have all the strength of wet tissue paper.
The green lane, which the Prime Minister claimed would permit free access to goods coming from the mainland into the Province, requires huge EU manned border control posts to be built in Ulster.
Goods not even deemed at risk of entering the EU will be subject to 100 per cent paper checks, ten per cent physical checks, must have separate and expensive labelling, will have to be brought in by trusted traders, and will be subject to audits as to who eventually buys them. Hardly a recipe for frictionless internal UK trade.
Those firms who bring goods and parts in to manufacture into finished products whose final destination is not known but might be exclusively sold in GB or outside the EU will be subject to full EU regulatory controls, taxes and restrictions.
It is little wonder that all unionist representatives, and a majority of unionist voters (as shown in the recent local elections), have not bought into the latest attempt to satisfy the EU’s unreasonable demands to safeguard their market at the expense of breaking up the British internal market.
Until our reasonable requirements – the replacement of arrangements which will do what the IRA failed to do and remove Northern Ireland from the UK – are met, the Northern Ireland Assembly cannot be restored.
Why? Because, as spelled out in the Belfast Agreement, for it to be workable it requires unionist consent.
However, there is a solution which can open the door to the restoration of Stormont. It has been put forward by the Centre for Brexit Policy and is endorsed by my party.
It is not a new idea; in fact, the Government advanced it in early negotiations, and included it in the NI Protocol Bill. It has been presented under a number of titles, but we call it Mutual Enforcement.
It would work very simply but totally effectively. Basically, the very small number of firms in Northern Ireland which trade with the Republic of Ireland (about five per cent of businesses) would have their trade monitored by the authorities in Ulster. They would enforce EU regulation, ensuring that Northern Irish businesses complied with EU standards and regulations, and paid any tariffs due.
Failure to do so would result in severe sanctions imposed by those regulatory bodies, so firms could not hide from punishment by being in a different jurisdiction to the one in which they broke the law. The EU would take the same responsibility for Irish businesses exporting into Northern Ireland.
It’s an arrangement which works elsewhere. It would not require any border checks either on the border between Ulster and the Republic, or that between the Province and the mainland. It would meet the EU’s demand to stop imports which would damage their internal market while at the same time avoid the imposition of EU laws on every business in Northern Ireland – avoiding the political problems of our being subject to foreign laws and their imposition by the ECJ.
It would mean that our own government could go ahead with replacing EU law with laws, made in the British Parliament, best suited to our needs, without worrying about how this would cause legal divergence between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Finally, it would enable the Government to achieve its objective of getting the Assembly up and running again.
The Windsor Framework is not workable. Its flaws and unworkability are already apparent and will quickly become more so. Here is a simple, workable, tried and tested solution, one which would end to the divisive approach to this issue which has soured UK/EU relations and political relations in Northern Ireland and will if not resolved, continue to do so. The Government should embrace it.
Sammy Wilson is the Democratic Unionist MP for East Antrim.
Despite claims from successive governments and prime ministers, Brexit is not done – and the damage inflicted on political stability and the economy in Northern Ireland by the Withdrawal Agreement which terminated our membership of the EU has not been repaired.
Theresa May’s proposal for keeping Ulster in the Single Market and the Customs Union legally, and the UK as a whole through political assurances, was quite rightly thrown out by Parliament. Boris Johnson’s Protocol proved unworkable, and even those who supported it publicly then called for it to be changed.
Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak’s promises about his Windsor Framework have already started to unravel before it even becomes operational.
EU laws will still hold sway in Northern Ireland, with no democratic control. The Stormont Brake, which was supposed to give Northern Irish politicians a veto over EU laws, has already been shown to have all the strength of wet tissue paper.
The green lane, which the Prime Minister claimed would permit free access to goods coming from the mainland into the Province, requires huge EU manned border control posts to be built in Ulster.
Goods not even deemed at risk of entering the EU will be subject to 100 per cent paper checks, ten per cent physical checks, must have separate and expensive labelling, will have to be brought in by trusted traders, and will be subject to audits as to who eventually buys them. Hardly a recipe for frictionless internal UK trade.
Those firms who bring goods and parts in to manufacture into finished products whose final destination is not known but might be exclusively sold in GB or outside the EU will be subject to full EU regulatory controls, taxes and restrictions.
It is little wonder that all unionist representatives, and a majority of unionist voters (as shown in the recent local elections), have not bought into the latest attempt to satisfy the EU’s unreasonable demands to safeguard their market at the expense of breaking up the British internal market.
Until our reasonable requirements – the replacement of arrangements which will do what the IRA failed to do and remove Northern Ireland from the UK – are met, the Northern Ireland Assembly cannot be restored.
Why? Because, as spelled out in the Belfast Agreement, for it to be workable it requires unionist consent.
However, there is a solution which can open the door to the restoration of Stormont. It has been put forward by the Centre for Brexit Policy and is endorsed by my party.
It is not a new idea; in fact, the Government advanced it in early negotiations, and included it in the NI Protocol Bill. It has been presented under a number of titles, but we call it Mutual Enforcement.
It would work very simply but totally effectively. Basically, the very small number of firms in Northern Ireland which trade with the Republic of Ireland (about five per cent of businesses) would have their trade monitored by the authorities in Ulster. They would enforce EU regulation, ensuring that Northern Irish businesses complied with EU standards and regulations, and paid any tariffs due.
Failure to do so would result in severe sanctions imposed by those regulatory bodies, so firms could not hide from punishment by being in a different jurisdiction to the one in which they broke the law. The EU would take the same responsibility for Irish businesses exporting into Northern Ireland.
It’s an arrangement which works elsewhere. It would not require any border checks either on the border between Ulster and the Republic, or that between the Province and the mainland. It would meet the EU’s demand to stop imports which would damage their internal market while at the same time avoid the imposition of EU laws on every business in Northern Ireland – avoiding the political problems of our being subject to foreign laws and their imposition by the ECJ.
It would mean that our own government could go ahead with replacing EU law with laws, made in the British Parliament, best suited to our needs, without worrying about how this would cause legal divergence between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Finally, it would enable the Government to achieve its objective of getting the Assembly up and running again.
The Windsor Framework is not workable. Its flaws and unworkability are already apparent and will quickly become more so. Here is a simple, workable, tried and tested solution, one which would end to the divisive approach to this issue which has soured UK/EU relations and political relations in Northern Ireland and will if not resolved, continue to do so. The Government should embrace it.