Allister questions 'unfettered access' promise as new rules sanction checks on Northern Ireland to Great Britain trade

The issue was raised in Parliament this week by TUV MP Jim Allister, who questioned the government on new rules managing goods entering Great Britain – including those coming from the province.

The government’s plans aim to reduce checks on animal products and give officials the ability to carry out checks inland – away from border control posts.

The North Antrim MP said that the new rules “underscores the fact that we have partitioned our United Kingdom with a foreign regulatory border”.

He added that when the Windsor Framework “was first sold to the people of Northern Ireland, it was presented as affecting the flow of goods only from GB to Northern Ireland.

“Now we see that, in effect, it will equally apply to the flow of goods from Northern Ireland to GB”.

After arguing the Windsor Framework did not go far enough, the DUP entered into negotiations with the Conservative government in an attempt to gain further concessions – a key part of this was securing access for Northern Ireland businesses into the Great Britain market, which by that stage was under a different regulatory system.

Those talks resulted in the ‘Safeguarding the Union’ command paper, which the DUP leadership said removed the Irish Sea border and provided a basis for the restoration of the Stormont institutions. The deal pledged to “guarantee unfettered access for Northern Ireland goods to the rest of the UK, on a permanent basis”.

The sweeping promise in the Tory-DUP document was that legislation would be brought forward “to maximise the flow of goods across the UK which will guarantee unfettered access for Northern Ireland goods to the rest of the UK on an ongoing basis in all scenarios, regardless of any future regulatory divergence between Northern Ireland and Great Britain”.

In a Westminster scrutiny committee on Wednesday, at which Mr Allister was the only NI MP in attendance, he asked: “How can there be unfettered access from Northern Ireland to Great Britain, as is assured in the words of the Windsor Framework, if, at the same time, regulation 14 provides for checks on goods coming into Great Britain, which must include goods coming from Northern Ireland? How can there be unfettered access if goods are subject to checks?”

The minister for food security and rural affairs, Daniel Zeichner, said the new rules provided a “risk-based imports approach to protect the United Kingdom from emerging pests and diseases while supporting businesses with processes that are as simple and effective as possible”.

The regulations are part of the government’s ongoing attempts to implement a “border operating model” for managing the trade frontier with the EU – including Northern Ireland – post-Brexit.

Concerns have been raised before that the ‘Safeguarding the Union’ deal would not deliver the promised unfettered access.

In May, DUP MP Sammy Wilson warned that the government could backtrack on the pledge, after a minister declined to rule out checks and raised concerns about the province becoming a ‘back door’ into the British market.

The previous government then claimed that there is “a hard-edged protection in law” that there will be no checks for Northern Irish goods moving to Great Britain – but Mr Wilson accused it of trying to create a “degree of ambivalence” that gives ministers “an escape hole” later on.

Referencing the last government’s plans for its border operating model, Mr Wilson had asked a question in Parliament to the previous Defra minister Sir Mark Spencer if he could guarantee that, if “dodgy products” from the Republic or beyond were entering Great Britain through Northern Ireland, there would not be checks on NI to GB trade.

The minister’s response was explicit that the government does have concerns about Northern Ireland becoming a ‘back door’ into the rest of the UK, and far from ruling out checks he committed to trying to “limit any impact”.