Article 16 a ‘very real option’ but Frost urged to find EU agreement

The Brexit minister spent two days in Belfast meeting political leaders and representatives from the business community.

All the parties urged him to reach an agreement with the EU, while DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said he expects decisive action, such as the triggering of Article 16 of the protocol if progress is not made “within a reasonable time”.

The parties are sharply split over the protocol, with unionists denouncing the post-Brexit arrangements as a border down the Irish Sea, while nationalists have called for its full implementation.

The protocol has seen additional checks on goods arriving into Northern Ireland from Great Britain as the Province effectively remains within the single market to avoid a hard border on the island.

Yesterday Lord Frost said triggering Article 16, a safeguard mechanism in the protocol which can effectively suspend elements of the arrangements, remains a “very real option”, but he would prefer to reach agreement with the EU.

Later in the House of Commons Prime Minister Boris Johnson reiterated his comments earlier in the week that the use of Article 16 would be “legitimate” and “perfectly legal”.

DUP MP Ian Paisley said the “onus is on the European Union to now find agreement which can work for both sides”.

“If they continue with their stubborn refusal then the United Kingdom will not only be justified in taking the necessary unilateral action to restore Northern Ireland’s place within the UK internal market, but it will have no other option than to do so,” he said.

Sir Jeffrey told the Cambridge Union yesterday that not a single elected unionist representative in Northern Ireland supports or endorses the protocol.

“The damage it is causing is being felt in every corner of, and by every community in, Northern Ireland,” he said.

“In the absence of an agreement which fully restores Northern Ireland’s place within the internal market of the UK, then the government will be left with no other option but to take decisive unilateral action to protect Northern Ireland and its people.”

However, Sinn Fein MLA Declan Kearney urged the UK government to “step back from the brink”.

“It is essential at this point in time that the rhetoric around threats of triggering Article 16 are discontinued, and we said that very clearly to David Frost this morning,” he said.

He said businesses in the Province need certainty and the smooth implementation of the Northern Ireland Protocol.

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood said triggering Article 16 “would be extremely short-sighted” and cause Northern Ireland “serious economic harm”.

Alliance leader Naomi Long said she stressed to Lord Frost “the importance of taking the negotiations seriously, of trying to find a landing zone that we can all agree on so we can remove the instability that is currently hanging over the institutions and businesses and start to move forward”.