Editorial: Irish Sea border vote at Stormont puts unionists in predicament

​The secretary of state has now triggered a process that will surely end with Stormont voting to extend the Irish Sea border arrangements.

The “democratic consent mechanism” was included in the NI Protocol to give the impression that it had political backing here.

Controversially, though, it set aside the requirement for cross-community consent that underpins power-sharing and applies to every controversial vote in the assembly.

Ironically, the extension of the sea border is perhaps the most contentious issue that Stormont has ever considered. Yet cross-community safeguards were dispensed with specifically so that the protocol and Windsor Framework could continue to be imposed on unionists against their will.

This vote places pro-Union MLAs in a predicament. They have spoken out against the suspension of cross-community consent, but they appear powerless to prevent the motion passing, because it will be supported by nationalists and Alliance.

The sea border has already caused problems, but some of its worst features have been delayed. Critics have suggested that the government may have deliberately put off those effects until after a vote is held.

If unionists boycott the consent motion entirely, they will fail to trigger an independent review of post-Brexit trade arrangements. The government conceded this analysis as a sop to unionists, if the vote did not gain cross-community support, but it may nevertheless expose some impacts of the protocol and framework.

That the democratic consent mechanism required only a simple majority vote in the assembly was always a reckless demand from the EU and an extraordinary concession by Boris Johnson’s administration. The story of the Irish Sea border is a sorry one, but that decision could be one of its most infamous moments.