Windsor Framework and Northern Ireland Protocol: UUP urges Chris Heaton-Harris to return to principles of Good Friday Agreement

UUP leader Doug Beattie was speaking after Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris suggested the Government could consider changes to Northern Ireland’s governance if some in the unionist community do not accept Rishi Sunak’s deal with the EU to resolve issues with the NI Protocol.

Throughout the fraught dispute over the EU customs border in the Irish Sea, unionists across the spectrum have argued that resulting constitutional changes to the union have been a major breach of the Good Friday Agreement, in that they were carried out without unionist consent. And some have argued that the proposed EU-UK deal on the Protocol - the Windsor Framework - do nothing to resolve this issue.

However the Northern Ireland Secretary has now said he is focused on clarifying details in the Windsor Framework for the DUP, and others, before looking at other steps forward.

“There are other routes forward, and we need to do things on governance if that is the case," he said.

But Mr Beattie, who now leads the party David Trimble led into the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, issued a stark warning to Mr Heaton-Harris.

“I think it is important to reflect on the fact that tinkering with the Belfast Agreement since 1998 has caused challenges," the UUP leader told the News Letter. "Even in the last year the situation of Ministers from the previous mandate remaining in post after the election because a First Minister could not be elected was a measure introduced by NDNA supposedly to improve sustainability.

“Any reforms cannot be merely rolling the dice in the hope some new big idea might save the day. In many ways we believe progress will be found in returning to the original principles of the Belfast Agreement for power-sharing.”

TUV leader Jim Allister said that constitutionally there is only one alternative to power sharing.

"Constitutionally, Northern Ireland can get governance from one of two places: Stormont or Westminster," he said. "If Stormont doesn’t return, then, constitutionally, Westminster is the default with the UK Government having the obligation to govern."