Ben Habib: It’s taken peers months to highlight problems with the Windsor Framework problems that I did within days

​I really am not a fan of the ‘I told you so’ brigade but as far as the Windsor Framework is concerned, I really did tell you so.
By Ben Habib
Published 27th Jul 2023, 07:35 BST
Updated 27th Jul 2023, 14:30 BST
The time taken by peers has rendered their conclusions irrelevant. The framework is happening. PA Photo: Jamie Wiseman/Daily Mail/NPA rotaThe time taken by peers has rendered their conclusions irrelevant. The framework is happening. PA Photo: Jamie Wiseman/Daily Mail/NPA rota
The time taken by peers has rendered their conclusions irrelevant. The framework is happening. PA Photo: Jamie Wiseman/Daily Mail/NPA rota

​The terms of the framework were revealed on 27 February. Within a day I had assessed it did not undo any of the constitutional damage done by the protocol. Within a week I had determined it was not a solution to the protocol; just another version of it.

On March 16, I published an article in the News Letter briefly assessing its essential aspects (see link below).I hoped parliamentarians might read that article before voting on the framework’s Stormont Brake a few days later. If they did, it made no impact on their voting intentions. The Stormont brake was passed on March 21 with 515 votes in favour with only 29 against.

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I am not especially proud of having taken the trouble of reading the terms of the framework. The wording, especially that in documents released by His Majesty’s government, is on occasion a little nebulous but the overall effect of the framework would have been clear to anyone with a smattering of comprehension. The task was not demanding.

The former Brexit Party Ben Habib outside the High Court in Belfast in 2021 for a legal challenge to the Irish Sea border. A businessman, he writes: "W​ith a rate of corporation tax double that of the Republic, Northern Ireland has been bleeding competitiveness"The former Brexit Party Ben Habib outside the High Court in Belfast in 2021 for a legal challenge to the Irish Sea border. A businessman, he writes: "W​ith a rate of corporation tax double that of the Republic, Northern Ireland has been bleeding competitiveness"
The former Brexit Party Ben Habib outside the High Court in Belfast in 2021 for a legal challenge to the Irish Sea border. A businessman, he writes: "W​ith a rate of corporation tax double that of the Republic, Northern Ireland has been bleeding competitiveness"

Certainly, by no assessment could Rishi Sunak have genuinely have claimed the Windsor Framework to have restored the Acts of Union and Northern Ireland to its rightful place in the United Kingdom. I believe that our prime minister misled his colleagues, his opposition and the electorate over the most important of constitutional matters.

The framework confirmed the Irish Sea border, left Northern Ireland in the EU’s single market for goods and subject to dynamic alignment with EU laws adjudicated by the EU’s court. The right for Stormont to ditch the protocol in its entirety, which was at least a technically attractive feature of the protocol was replaced by the Stormont brake.

And the brake, for reasons set out in my earlier article, simply does not work. It is useless. Again this would have been clear to any layman on the Clapham omnibus.

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So I was a little dismayed when the DUP put together a panel of eight of its great and good to review the framework. Why they needed a panel was beyond me. Perhaps there was a political motive? There certainly could not have been an analytical one. When it was set up, we expected the panel to report back within a month. As far as I am aware it has yet to do so. I suspect it now never will. Whatever its original purpose, the moment has passed.

Wind the clock forward four months and eventually our tardy lazy and negligent MPs are beginning to appreciate the damage done by the framework. Members on the government benches, who so enthusiastically voted in favour of the Stormont brake now know they hammered away the constitutional bond which created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. They should be ashamed. The contempt they have shown for their fiduciary obligation to the United Kingdom will be more than matched by the contempt in which future generations will hold them.

So well known by now should the effects of the framework be that I was gobsmacked to read the report published on Tuesday by the Lords Committee established to consider these. My amazement was primarily in response to their taking so long to deliberate. The time taken has rendered their conclusions irrelevant. The framework is happening whatever the Lords may think of it.

They have concluded in months what I had done in days. But any pleasure that I derive from that is more than outweighed by the resentment I have for the framework and those who put it in place

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Lord Dodds, who has been and remains a stalwart for the Union, has concluded that the framework is incompatible with all of the DUP’s seven tests required to be passed before Stormont could be restored.

But the path ahead for unionism is not rosy. It won the debate on the protocol. It is now winning the debate on the framework but it has lost the battle.

The framework is firmly set to stay.

• Ben Habib is a businessman and former Brexit Party MEP. He was one of the people who challenged the NI Protocol in the Supreme Court

• Ben Habib in March: Ultimately, the effects of Windsor Framework on NI will be same as the effects of the protocol

Related topics:Ben HabibDUPUnited KingdomRishi SunakNorthern Ireland