Stormont debates post-Brexit trading arrangements

Stormont assembly members have begun debating whether to continue with Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit trading arrangements.

The process, known as the democratic consent motion, was first agreed between the UK and EU in the 2020 Withdrawal Agreement to give local politicians a say in the new post-Brexit trading rules.

The arrangement, the Windsor Framework, was agreed between the UK and EU in 2023 and effectively keeps Northern Ireland inside the EU’s single market for goods.

The vote will decide if the arrangements will continue to operate for another four years.

Several parties at Stormont tabled a motion to the assembly as part of the process that guarantees MLAs a say on whether to maintain some of the arrangements.

Sinn Féin assembly member Philip McGuigan said the Northern Ireland Protocol and subsequent agreements protected businesses from “Brexit’s worst excesses”.

“These are the hard-fought and hard-won protections that absolutely need to continue and that we are voting for today,” he said.

McGuigan, chair of the Stormont assembly’s Windsor Framework democratic scrutiny committee, said the post-Brexit arrangements offered “certainty and stability”.

“Are there issues? Of course there are – this isn’t perfect. However, the protocol at least mitigates against the worst excesses of Brexit,” he added.

Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) assembly member Jonathan Buckley said the vote was “an illusion of democracy”.

“A rigged vote, which the European Union already know the outcome of,” he told the assembly.

Buckley said the NI Protocol had “destabilised Northern Ireland’s political landscape, fuelled division and shattered trust” and the “rigged nature of today’s vote is evidence of that”.

“Never has there been a more clear example of a zombie assembly than today,” he added.

“Members will vote on giving the authority for the EU parliament to take control of over 300 areas of law, allow them to decide the regulations by which our businesses and consumers will operate by.”

Assembly member Kellie Armstrong of the Alliance Party, which does not designate as either nationalist or unionist in the assembly, welcomed the vote, which will be decided by a simple majority.

“I’m delighted that for once my vote will count the same as nationalists and unionists in this place, because at long last we have a system that is inclusive,” she said.

The motion was tabled jointly by Sinn Féin, Alliance and the SDLP.

But controversially, unlike other votes at Stormont, there is no requirement for cross-community support for the motion. A simple majority will suffice.

The DUP and other unionist parties have argued the vote creates a democratic deficit as the concerns of unionists, who are in the minority at Stormont, can be ignored.

If the vote is carried without cross-community support, the government has committed to ordering an independent review of the post-Brexit arrangements and their implications.

The Leader of the Opposition, the SDLP’s Matthew O’Toole, has already said that the Assembly should use the debate “as an opportunity to discuss the potential that exists within our future relationship with Europe”.

“Northern Ireland has a unique relationship with the EU, not just because of the protocol but because our people have EU citizenship by birth right and the right to re-enter the EU automatically after a referendum.”

O’Toole said if an independent review is called after the vote, the party will make the case to maximise opportunities with the EU, including a voice in the European Parliament.

On Monday, loyalist activist Jamie Bryson’s legal action against the Stormont vote was dismissed by the High Court.

Mr Bryson claimed Secretary of State Hilary Benn had acted unlawfully by initiating the democratic consent process to maintain the Windsor Framework for another four years.

But a judge refused to grant leave to seek a judicial review after declaring the challenge “untenable”.

Mr Justice McAlinden said: “There is no arguable case with a reasonable prospect of success.”

In 2023 the Northern Ireland Protocol became the Windsor Framework.

It means that the goods trade across the border with the Republic of Ireland, an EU country, has remained undisturbed by Brexit.

The flipside is that goods arriving from elsewhere in the UK are subject to controls and checks—what is known as the Irish Sea border.

For the EU, the new framework left the basic architecture of 2019’s protocol intact, creating a trade border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland to prevent a hard land border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.