Allister: Irish Sea Border 'noose' tightens further on business as new parcels rules come into effect

Business parcels sent from the mainland to local firms will now require customs declarations – a requirement of the Windsor Framework.

The post-Brexit deal struck between the British government and the EU has partitioned the UK into two regulatory zones for the trade in goods, with Northern Ireland remaining largely under the control of Brussels.

The TUV leader has hit out at mitigations in the deal, which are supposed to ease the flow of goods into Northern Ireland, such as the UK Internal Market system.

Ahead of the new parcels rules coming into effect, the North Antrim MP told the House of Commons there is now a border “partitioning the supposed United Kingdom and its supposed internal market”.

“The essence of an internal market is that goods move unfettered and unchecked between and within all parts of it. We now have something else, courtesy of the absurd protocol—or, as we now call it, the Windsor Framework.

“In view of the fact that that decree that we in Northern Ireland are subject to the EU’s customs code, which in turn decrees that Great Britain is a third or foreign country, we now have the absurdity of various dimensions of border for the passage of goods from GB to Northern Ireland.

“For 200 years, the Northern Ireland economy has been intensely integrated with the GB economy, particularly in manufacturing. It was always the northern part of Ireland that had the big manufacturing sectors. Therefore, the integration, in particular with regard to the supply of raw materials, has been pivotal and GB has been the primary source of all that.

“Now, parcels will be subject to rigorous EU requirements”, Mr Allister said.

DUP MP Jim Shannon said “it is totally unrealistic for the Government to expect small businesses and individuals… to understand the obligations and abide by them due to ridiculous EU interference”. He said that an easier way of sorting the issue out would be for the government to “take steps to legally remove the obligation from their citizens in Northern Ireland”.