Letter: DUP leadership has been dishonest in a desperate effort to sell their deal

There is much of the introduction to the article devoted to explaining how “people deserve honesty”, and Mr Robinson making clear the DUP negotiators “have not achieved everything”.

This seems at variance with the definitive and unambiguous claims of both Mr Robinson, and Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, that Northern Ireland has been “fully restored to the UK”, that the “Irish Sea border has gone”, and that the “DUP’s seven key tests have been met”.

These are pretty fundamental claims to have made, and one wonders therefore that if such central and core objectives had indeed been achieved, then on what basis it is conceded the DUP have not achieved everything?

It is of note that on Sunday Politics the DUP joint first minister of the Irish Sea border implementing administration was careful not to repeat the outlandish and emphatic claims of Sir Jeffrey and Gavin Robinson, instead being more circumspect.

An acknowledgement, perhaps, that there has been a significant oversell and even prominent figures in the protocol-implementing wing of the party are not prepared to put their name to repeating some of the claims made by the DUP leadership.

In the opening segment of his article, Mr Robinson says: “The DUP set out to remove the internal trade border in the Irish Sea, and that is exactly what we have achieved.”

However, later, in the same article, this subtly transforms into “we have removed the substance of an internal trade border”.

So, is the assertion still that the Irish Sea border has been removed, or is it that the substance of the Irish Sea border has been removed (i.e., it is still there, but somehow devoid of any substance)?

Whichever of these two contradictory assertions is ultimately adopted, they are both wrong.

That is so because both the substance and the structure of the Irish Sea border remains firmly in place.

It has been suggested “all checks” and “all customs paperwork” has been removed by the deal arrived at by DUP negotiators. This is simply untrue; firstly, there is a mere commitment in the non-legally binding command paper to pursue the aspirational intention of reducing checks on the green lane (patriotically rebranded as the ‘UK Internal Market scheme’- remembering of course the official title of the green lane in the Windsor Framework was already the ‘UK Internal Market System’).

This doesn’t reduce to zero checks for goods staying in Northern Ireland most obviously because it is only an aspirational intention even in relation to the green lane, but more fundamentally because a great number of goods destined for NI (and remaining in NI) fall under the ‘at risk’ category (jointly determined by the UK-EU, thus giving the EU joint-control over the administration of the Irish Sea border), and thus travel via the full EU customs border known as the ‘red lane’.

In addition, the requirement for the provision of green lane paperwork “for customs purposes” is enshrined in Article 9 (2) of the joint-committee decision 01/2023. There has not been one word of this altered, therefore the claim there is “zero customs paperwork” is simply wrong.

The ‘green lane’, which obviously represents an Irish Sea border, remains firmly in place despite Mr Robinson’s somewhat bizarre claim that it has “gone”.

What is the green lane?

It is essentially a trusted trader scheme whereby if you satisfy an exacting criteria, you can apply to be allowed to trade a little more freely in your own country. Its core structure is found in Article 7-9 of the joint-committee decision 01/2023.

How can it be said you have unfettered trade in your country when you must seek ‘authorisation’ to trade with less restrictions GB-NI?

All this core architecture remains in place. Therefore, it bemuses me as to how it can even seriously be suggested the ‘green lane’ is gone. Re-named perhaps, but it is self-evidently still there with unabated force.

We again have reference to “economic rights under the Acts of Union”, which appears to deduce from Article 6 some subjective ‘right’ which differs from the clear wording and unmistakable intent of that core provision itself.

This appears to follow the UK government approach which devoted a quarter of the command paper to explaining why the Supreme Court didn’t actually mean what it said, and instead embarked on an absurd re-writing of the clear words and express intent of the Acts of Union, in order to mould it to suit the political deal some have been so desperate to arrive at.

The DUP leadership has been dishonest in a desperate effort to sell their deal. It is now time they owned up to that, rather than having the truth dragged out of them.

Jamie Bryson, NI director of policy, Centre for the Union