Unionist unity on display as DUP, UUP and TUV reject new EU 'geographical indication' law in a first-of-its-kind vote... but that does not automatically kill the proposal

The DUP’s Jonathan Buckley began today’s debate by urging fellow MLAs to reject the fresh EU regulations, telling the Assembly that doing so would effectively add scores of pages of bureaucracy to Northern Ireland’s statute books.

The debate was part of a special session sparked by an “applicability motion” from the DUP.

An applicability motion is like a kind of defence mechanism which the government recently introduced, allowing the Assembly to voice its views on the adoption of new EU laws.

However, the Assembly does not have an outright veto, and instead it falls to the UK government to either wave the new law through or oppose it.

When the matter was put to a vote, every single unionist voted to reject the new law, and every single nationalist voted to accept it (as did every MLA classed as “other”).

Because acceptance of a new EU law has to be on a “cross-community” basis, that means the motion on introducing the law has failed.

Aftewards DUP MLA Brian Kingston said he was “very pleased there was unionist unity” in the chamber – though TUV leader Jim Allister said the vote merely amounted to “token” resistance to the EU on the part of the DUP.

At the centre of the whole debate was something called "Regulation (EU) 2023/2411".

This governs the EU’s "geographical indication" scheme.

Shoppers will be familiar with this from certain foods in the supermarket which are branded with logos that say PDO, PGI, or TSG.

These are all various levels of protection for foodstuffs; for example, the scheme means the word "champagne" can only be used for fizzy wine from very specific parts of France.

The new EU regulation being debated covers "craft and industrial" goods, not just food and drink, and the EU wants to apply it in Northern Ireland.

But the real nub of the debate was not what the law would or wouldn’t do: instead for unionists it was about the principle of having the EU increase its remit over a Province that was meant to have left it years ago.

Tuesday’s Stormont debate was “the first time the NI Assembly will vote on whether a new EU law will apply in NI,” said Mr Buckely.

"That in itself is a significant moment.”

He said that adopting the new EU regulation in question “would add 56 pages of EU law to the Province”, adding: "For our part, we will be voting decisively against the motion and against the imposition in Northern Ireland of this new EU regulation.

"It is clear to the Democratic Unionist Party and indeed all of those who will join with us in the ‘no’ lobby that this new EU law would create a new regulatory border within the United Kingdom.”

Mr Buckley added that “the very fact this Assembly is able to debate and express its view on the matter is an issue which many in the chamber said should never happen and could never be achieved" – a nod to the DUP leadership’s belief that the Windsor Framework only exists because the DUP held its nerve in refusing to re-enter Stormont.

Sinn Fein’s Philip McGuigan said the debate was nothing but a “sham fight” which was “politically-motivated” and would “achieve nothing”.

​Similarly, the Alliance’s Patrick Brown said the debate had been “blown out of proportion as the first public test of the Donaldson deal”.

When the time came to vote, 81 out of the Assembly’s 90 MLAs did so.

Some 49 (or 61%) voted in favour of a motion to adopt the law.

But whilst all 33 nationalists plus 16 “others” were in favour, all 32 unionists in the chamber were opposed – and since any such motion has to have “cross-community” consensus, that means that it failed.

The right of the Assembly to hold such votes was agreed by the UK government last year, as an addendum to the Windsor Framework.

But the Assembly’s word is not final; and the London government can still agree to adopt the law for Northern Ireland if it deems there are “exceptional circumstances... or [if] the new EU act would not create a new regulatory border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland”.

Asked what it will do, a government spokeswoman said merely that “we note the vote” and “will follow the legal framework”.