The UK government on Wednesday published its plan to convince Northern Ireland’s biggest unionist party to return to the Stormont power-sharing executive following a bitter two-year stand-off over the trade border in the Irish Sea created by Brexit.
The package will be enacted via legislation due to be voted on at Westminster on Thursday.
It is designed to build on the Windsor framework agreed by the UK and EU last year. This eased many post-Brexit problems but many unionists demanded further changes, arguing that it treated Northern Ireland differently to the rest of the UK by leaving unacceptable trade barriers between the region and Great Britain.
Nearly 12 months later, Democratic Unionist Party leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson now says his party will return to the executive that it has been boycotting since 2022, having secured supplementary assurances set out in Wednesday’s 76-page Command Paper entitled “Safeguarding the Union”. The main points are below.
Guaranteeing N Ireland’s place in the Union
Brexit created a trade border in the Irish Sea to avoid the return of a north-south border on the island of Ireland, which would have destabilised the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the peace deal that ended three decades of conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles.
As a result, Northern Ireland remains part of the United Kingdom internal market but must also follow EU rules for goods trade when any article is at risk of going over the border to Ireland and on into the EU single market.
The DUP argued that this hybrid arrangement diminished Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom by creating red tape for companies in Great Britain that send goods to Northern Ireland, deterring them from trading with the region.
The new proposals, which include reducing checks on the Irish Sea border, passing new laws and creating new bodies to boost ties between the region and the rest of the UK would collectively “affirm Northern Ireland’s place in the Union”.
The command paper also promised new laws to prohibit future UK governments from signing international treaties that exclude Northern Ireland, as well as legislative commitments that would “copper-fasten” the region’s place in the Union.
Reaction to the proposals was mixed. One senior former UK official said the measures amounted to a “rhetorical repetition” of assurances already in place in the Windsor framework.
However Lisa Claire Whitten, a research fellow at Queen’s University in Belfast described the proposals as “quite a significant reframing” of the post-Brexit constitutional arrangement for Northern Ireland.
Reducing friction in the Irish Sea
Under the Windsor framework the paperwork required to send goods to Northern Ireland from Great Britain was simplified, with companies that joined a UK trusted trader scheme able to use a “green lane” that required minimal paperwork.
Goods destined for Ireland and the EU were required to use a “red lane” that required full EU customs paperwork and other regulatory documents.
Under the new proposals, the UK will now replace the narrow “green lane” with a broader internal market system that the government says will mean that 80 per cent of goods travelling from Great Britain to Northern Ireland will require minimal paperwork.
This means that companies wanting to send goods to Belfast will still need more paperwork than when sending them to, say, Birmingham, because they will still be required to join the UK trusted trade scheme.
But UK government officials say that since some 7,000 companies have already signed up to the scheme, the border will in practice now be negligible. “It’s true it’s not exactly the same as sending goods inside Britain, but the reality is the work has already been done,” a UK official added.
A new independent monitoring panel will be established to check whether the 80 per cent target is being achieved.
The Command Paper is also explicit that since the UK is now phasing in full border checks on imports from the EU, Irish businesses will face the full panoply of checks and paperwork when sending goods to the UK.
By contrast, Northern Ireland’s businesses will face no such checks and continue to have “unfettered access” to the rest of the UK, as set out in the original Windsor framework.
Ensuring equality in the internal market
The document contains a number of measures that are designed to cement Northern Ireland’s place in the UK internal market.
These include insisting that UK food producers label all products that are not destined for the EU single market as “Not for EU” — even if they are being sold in Great Britain.
The food industry has lobbied hard against this measure, with trade body the Food and Drink Federation warning the costs could run into “hundreds of millions of pounds”. However the government argues it is necessary to ensure that “no incentive arises” for British businesses to stop trading with Northern Ireland.
Other proposals include the establishment of a new body, the UK East-West Council to boost trade, transport, education and cultural links between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, with a specific body, Intertrade UK, to focus on trade ties.
The government will also require any public body introducing new regulations in the UK to assess whether they will have any negative impact on Northern Ireland’s place in the UK internal market.
Unfinished business
The Command Paper sets out measures that build on the foundations laid in the Windsor framework in order to cement Northern Ireland’s place in the UK, both economically and politically.
However officials said the deal does not completely resolve the challenges created by Northern Ireland existing in a dual regulatory environment.
Future bones of contention identified in the paper include resolving a disagreement over whether veterinary medicines used in Northern Ireland must be tested in the EU, and whether the EU’s new carbon border taxes will apply to the region.
