Rishi Sunak exclusive: As the sovereign government we had a duty to protect the economic rights of the people of Northern Ireland guaranteed in the Act of Union and the 1998 Belfast Agreement

Just before Christmas I had the honour of visiting Harland & Wolff to announce that we were bringing shipbuilding back to Belfast.

The new contract to build Royal Navy ships will bring hundreds of new jobs. And it means historic shipbuilding skills will be passed on to a new generation.

As the son of another great shipbuilding city, Southampton, it also gave me chance to reflect on the deep ties that bind the Union together.

Our shared skills and experiences going back generations, through dark times – like the Luftwaffe bombing in the Second World War – and better times too. Our outward looking character as gateways to the world. Our creativity and ingenuity, always adapting and reinventing ourselves when the moment comes.

This is the story of the Union I recognise. It is the United Kingdom to which my parents arrived as migrants to this country. And every day as prime minister only confirms just how vital it is to protect and preserve it.

So I believe passionately in the Union. Frankly, that should be a given for any prime minister – no matter who is in office.

The collective strength of the four nations of the United Kingdom make us one of the largest economies on the globe. It is the foundation of our influence on the world stage. It protects people’s jobs and incomes – just as we did with the furlough scheme during the pandemic.

We all saw how it helped lift Northern Ireland’s economy after decades of violence targeting business and commercial activity here. It also protects UK citizens today from threats to democracy around the world.

Every day the men and women of the PSNI go out to keep people safe. The appalling attack on DCI John Caldwell reminds us just how perilous this work is still. It was an abominable attack that was roundly condemned by all parties.

There can be no return to the days of violence here. Leadership is essential to grip the cultural and political challenge which still allows space for those who would coerce our communities.

We cannot allow a political culture to emerge where people think it is harmless fun to glorify the violence of the past. And we must tackle head on the new fashion for running down a hard-won peace made a quarter of a century ago, on the backs of many brave men and women.

At many points in our history, we have had periods of national anxiety about the state of the Union. Each generation has had its share of people predicting its imminent or inevitable demise.

But we sometimes forget just how strong and resilient the Union is. How many trials and tribulations it has survived. Older than the United States and European Union put together, the United Kingdom is no fragile entity in the history of states.

I’m told the News Letter is the oldest continuously-running English language daily newspaper in the world. It has seen many so-called crises of the Union come and go in the past. Both are still firmly in place.

There is no doubt that the outcome of the Brexit referendum prompted questions about the future shape of the Union – perhaps most acutely here in Northern Ireland but also in Scotland and Wales.

But I believe the foundations are strong. The polling here suggests two things: first, that overall support for Northern Ireland remaining in the Union remains considerably higher than support for a united Ireland; and second, more importantly, that people from all communities want to see the institutions here work – to focus on practical things like public services. I know all the parties understand this too. I do not doubt their sincerity. So if we can get this moment right, we can lay the foundation for decades of stability ahead.

But this means fixing the problems caused by the Northern Ireland Protocol – not tweaking around the edges but through genuine change – as the editorial line of this newspaper and many others have made clear.

People and businesses in Northern Ireland have seen their everyday lives disrupted. Online retailers no longer selling to Northern Ireland. EU rules banning the import of some food items including chilled meats like sausages, along with garden centre plants and the historic trade in seed potatoes with Scotland.

Readers of this newspaper know these problems well. But they also understand that they are not just practical inconveniences. They have created a sense of unease that the people of Northern Ireland are no longer on an equal footing with those in the rest of the UK, caused in part by the appearance of a customs barrier in the Irish sea.

Crucially, and fundamentally, the protocol created a democratic deficit, with laws imposed on the people of Northern Ireland without them having a say. This, in turn, led to fears that future divergence would be created in a way that damaged Northern Ireland’s economic place in the Union.

As the sovereign government in Northern Ireland, we had a responsibility to fix this – to protect the economic rights of the people of Northern Ireland guaranteed in the Act of Union and the Belfast Agreement of 1998. We have prioritised the concerns we heard from people in Northern Ireland. And we have acted decisively and precisely – with the interests of this place first and foremost in our mind.

So the new framework we’ve announced with the European Union substantially changes the treaty, with radical, permanent, legally binding new arrangements.

First, our agreement allows trade to flow smoothly across the whole UK. We've scrapped the burdensome customs bureaucracy that applied to internal UK trade and our authorities will now only be focusing on crime, smuggling and Irish bound goods.

We’ve ended the situation where food made to UK rules could not be sent to and sold in Northern Ireland, including British sausages.

Meanwhile, we’ve scrapped all customs forms for consumer parcels, so that it is easy to send gifts to friends and family and shop online on a UK-wide basis.

The second big step we’re taking is to protect Northern Ireland’s equal footing in the United Kingdom. Thanks to yesterday’s agreement, critical VAT and excise changes will now apply in Northern Ireland just like they do everywhere else.

We’ve achieved a landmark deal on medicines so that the same drugs, in the same packages, can now be available in every pharmacy and hospital in the UK.

We’ve lifted the ban on quintessentially British products like Scottish seed potatoes.

And, if you want to travel with your pet to any part of the United Kingdom, you can do so without any health certification.

Third, our new framework safeguards sovereignty for the people of Northern Ireland – with a radical change that rewrites the core legal framework of the previous deal.

The fundamental problem with the protocol is that the EU could impose new laws on the people of Northern Ireland without them having a say. So we have scrapped whole swathes of EU law.

And we have gone further, introducing the new Stormont Brake – so that if the assembly expresses its concern about damaging changes to existing EU goods rules, that rule can be vetoed by the UK government.

And this democratic safeguard will operate on the same basis it normally would for any local issue in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

This means we have put the institutions of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement back in charge and introduced a cross-community safeguard on the area of greatest concern to unionists.

In doing so, we must take on some false narratives. One is the notion that there is a “united Ireland economy” being created – which is based on a completely distorted understanding of economic reality in Northern Ireland. The arterial route of the Northern Ireland economy is East-West and this deal will protect that route.

But we make no apology for the fact that we want to avoid a hard border and in doing so allow Northern Ireland businesses to retain EU single market access – as the only part of the UK with a land border with the European Union.

Only three per cent of EU laws will ever apply in Northern Ireland as the minimum requirement of access to the single market. And crucially the automatic ratchet of problematic new or different EU law is now subject to cross-community safeguards.

It is not for me to say whether the tests set by political parties here are met. But it has been for me to work towards these goals throughout negotiations.

And although we have addressed concerns about law making under the protocol, there remains a huge democratic deficit in Northern Ireland due to the lack of institutions here. We need locally accountable ministers to address the key issues, from funding the PSNI to NHS waiting lists.

Ultimately the Windsor Framework is a moment of opportunity for the people of Northern Ireland, for all parts of the community. While we have to make sure we seize it, I will respect the fact that the local parties need time and space to study the details.

Because the prize is massive if we can get this right – years of stability and successful local institutions which benefit citizens in their everyday lives.

Haulier: Protocol deal seems to repeat many of the trade barrier problems of the previous arrangements