Kate Hoey: New postal plans - which effectively treat NI as EU territory - do not provide the basis for any self-respecting unionist to start talking about a return to Stormont

The Postal Packets (Miscellaneous Amendments) regulations 2023 will impose new conditions on Great Britain (GB) to Northern Ireland parcels. Up until now the grace periods introduced by the government to ameliorate the worst aspects of the protocol have meant there has been no change to postal rules. The Windsor Framework abolishes the “grace periods” and replaced them with special EU legislation. The EU has now set up its own regime for sending parcels to Northern Ireland. This regulation means that parcels move from no border (status quo) to the EU’s border under their law. The EU has the power then to change, as they see fit, the concessions on consumer to consumer or business to business.

As Sammy Wilson MP said in the House of Commons the shenanigans at the committee (the five MPs and other supportive MPs attended and tried to speak) was akin to a North Korean-style of government. It does, however, illuminate a fundamental truth: the government has absolutely no answers to the probing questions challenging their bold claims on the Windsor Framework.

It has, for example, repeatedly said that the framework “removed any sense of a border in the Irish Sea” and that those moving goods between GB-NI and staying there “would not be subject to any customs requirements and checks”.

This is so false as to be laughable. The movement of goods (including postal packets) from GB-NI under the new arrangements is ultimately governed not by UK law, but rather via EU law, in this case EU Delegated Regulation 2023/1128. This expressly makes clear that even for those accessing the “green lane” (which reduces but certainly does not eliminate frictions on trade internally within the UK between GB-NI), to do so they must first obtain “authorisation” which requires that a customs declaration must be filed.

This is required to access the “green lane”: therefore in order for less restrictive trade in our own country, a customs declaration must be submitted and authorisation granted. This is an extraordinary humiliation for any sovereign country, and it is a vivid example of the extent of constitutional damage inflicted upon Northern Ireland firstly by the protocol, and secondly by the Windsor Framework - which far from remedying the subjugation of the Union in fact further embeds and in some places, in fact, compounds it. A National Federation of SubPostmasters NI representative has said that the extra cost of the authorization and customs paperwork will have to be paid by someone and they fear rising costs will mean many firms in GB will simply choose not to send packages to businesses or consumers in Northern Ireland.

That, however, is not even the worst of it. The UK Postal Packing Regulations goes further and treats movement of goods from GB-NI as the equivalent of exports to a foreign country, alongside effectively treating NI as EU territory.

Therefore, when you move goods from GB to NI, they are treated as exports to a foreign country, and when they arrive in NI, they are treated as imports from a foreign country.

It is obvious to point out that aside from the sheer constitutional vandalism occasioned by this arrangement and the absence of ANY consultation, it fundamentally erodes the core economic rights enshrined within Article 6 of the Acts of Union 1800.

That being so, in my view there is no prospect of these arrangements providing the basis to even begin a conversation about returning to power-sharing. What self-respecting unionist would ever, or could ever, collaborate in the implementation of arrangements which downgrade NI’s place in the Union, and treats us as a foreign country in relation to the rest of the United Kingdom? The Postal Packets directive will only be the first of many more regulations, each one putting another wedge in the link with the rest of the United Kingdom and pulling us further under European Union laws and courts.

On Wednesday night in the Lords we will have another opportunity to point out the injustice of this directive. It is time the government accepted that their spin, their deception, and their overselling has failed. Those who cherish the Union and value equal citizenship are not stupid, and will not accept a whitewash on this issue or some grubby compromise which doesn’t restore the Acts of Union and remedy the core constitutional damage.

• Baroness Hoey of Lylehill and Rathlin is a former Labour MP.