Book sales from iconic Tower of London museum stopped over Irish Sea border product safety rules

​The public body – which holds the UK’s national collections of arms and armour and has been based in the Tower of London for centuries – said it is “currently unable” to sell to Northern Ireland.

John Ruston, from the North Coast, is instead getting a relative to pick the book up in London and bring it with her when she is travelling to visit him later this year.

TUV MP Jim Allister says Northern Ireland is “being subject to a process of disinheritance from our own nation” because of the Windsor Framework.

Under the UK-EU deal, Northern Ireland must follow EU legislation which governs the trading bloc’s single market. A new sweeping regulation on product safety standards – the General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) – was introduced last year.

It means that anyone selling into Northern Ireland must have a representative here or in the EU, a bureaucratic burden that has proven prohibitive for many small businesses, and disrupted sales while sellers attempt to meet the requirements.

Mr Ruston told the News Letter about his shock at not being able to purchase from the country’s national arms museum.

“It is, by statute, a national collection for the UK. I’ve been buying stuff from them over a couple of years, I’m enrolled as a supporter, then suddenly they tell me – a week after I bought a small badge – that I can’t buy a book", he said.

An email sent by Royal Armouries to Mr Ruston thanked him for his previous purchases and for supporting the museum but said that “due to the new General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) put in place by the European Union, we are currently unable to ship to any countries within the EU, including Northern Ireland”.

The email continued: “We are working hard to find a solution to this issue and hope to continue trading with the EU and NI in due course”.

​Mr Ruston said: “I can see that the EU needs to protect itself against certain shoddy and dangerous goods, but for goodness sake, books?”, he said.

“It’s the Royal Armoury, which is the Tower of London. You can’t get anything really more connected to British sovereignty than the Tower of London because it’s been there probably since Roman times in some form or other.

“The Royal Armouries in it were in existence probably from about 1320”, he said.

“Somebody in this is throwing away their own territory”.

​TUV leader Jim Allister told the News Letter: “This is beyond appalling. The Royal Armouries is, by an Act of Parliament, a UK national institution, holding the national armouries collection and yet here we see another example of how the Windsor Framework Irish Sea Border is making the rest of the UK what the EU calls ‘third country’ - in a plain English ‘a foreign country’ - in relation to us.

“We are being subject to a process of disinheritance from our own nation. This distressing incident demonstrates with the greatest eloquence why we cannot compromise over the EU imposition of a border dividing the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland into two.

“The border has to go. In this context it is deeply disturbing, especially as we are about to celebrate the eightieth anniversary of VE Day, and the huge contribution that Northern Ireland has made to UK defence, that our Prime Minister should be contemplating a defence pact with the same EU which not only fails to respect the territorial integrity of the UK but is actively seeking its dismemberment.

“This is especially the case in the context of the recent Policy Exchange report that highlights the increasing strategic importance of Northern Ireland to UK defence today”.

The Royal Armouries now has a museum in Leeds, as well as its historical home at the Tower of London and at Fort Nelson near Portsmouth.

A spokesperson for the Royal Armouries said: “Similarly to other national museums, we have temporarily paused online sales to Northern Ireland and the EU while we complete a review of our suppliers to ensure they are compliant with GPSR.

“We are aware of the rules that require an authorised person in the EU/NI and our team are working verify this is in place with our suppliers currently. We fully expect it will be viable for us to have the necessary arrangements in place and we hope to reinstate sales to these markets as soon as we can”.