Mark Cosgrove: In the transport world we are grappling with a very real Irish Sea border

There is in effect a customs and regulatory border in the Irish Sea for all business-to-business consignments.

Anyone who says otherwise has lost touch with reality.

Business to consumer parcels have been given a six-month derogation, as have supermarket suppliers, but goodness knows what the position will be after that.

However, all normal Great Britain/Northern Ireland freight will be subject to:

• The need to register as a trusted trader on the new TSS (Trader Support Service) system

• Get a European “XI” EORI (Economic Operators Registration and Identification) number in addition to your GB one

Each consignment will require;

• An ENS (safety and security declaration)

• l2 x Movement reference numbers.

The vehicle they are travelling on will require a GVMS (Goods Vehicle Movement Service) reference number before they are allowed on the ferry in Great Britain.

Following receipt of the GVMS manifest, Border Force will determine which vehicles have to report to the border control posts that have been built in Larne, Belfast and Warrenpoint.

Some politicians are spinning that we have still got ‘frictionless trade between GB and NI’.

As someone who manages a large freight business I can state categorically that the reality is massively different.

We are separated from the rest of the UK because we were deemed expendable by the DUPs erstwhile allies in the ERG (European Research Group) and their English nationalist Tory cousins.

We are being patronised that there are no controls on NI/GB movements as though we should be grateful we can trade within our own country without customs. It is constitutionally offensive.

I note that the secretary of state, Brandon Lewis MP, has stated that there is no ‘Irish Sea Border’.

I would like to ask him and his Conservative Party colleagues, do they not understand what they have signed up to?

It was clear that’s what happened when they introduced the Internal Market Bill last year.

I would love to see the ERG and Boris do the same for Yorkshire to Cornwall trade.

This is a massive breach of the Belfast Agreement which says that the constitutional position of Northern Ireland can only change with the people of Northern Ireland’s consent.

I voted for and campaigned to remain during the European referendum of 2016 as I had serious concerns about the only Union that really matters which is that of the United Kingdom.

Many people I know voted to leave, but there is no way the majority would have done so had they known that the price of Brexit was economic separation between Great Britain and Northern Ireland with border control posts established in Northern Ireland to administer EU single market and customs rules.

When you are on the western peninsula of Europe with an underdeveloped private sector, all markets are important, but by far our biggest trading route is between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

No amount of spin can ignore these facts that there is a regulatory border down the Irish Sea separating us from Great Britain.

Given that these barriers to trade were imposed on us by the Northern Ireland Protocol agreed between the UK government and the EU, it is incumbent on the UK government to activate the appropriate safeguarding measures under Article 16 of the protocol to protect businesses from the turbulence of obstacles being erected on our biggest trading route.

Article 16 says that if the application of the protocol leads to “serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist, or to diversion of trade, the Union or the United Kingdom may unilaterally take appropriate safeguard measures”.

• Alderman Mark Cosgrove is the Ulster Unionist Group leader on Antrim and Newtonabbey Borough Council and is the party’s business spokesperson. He is also the head of commercial UK/ IE road freight for a global logistics company

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