Brexit friction: Woman ‘unable to even move home from GB to Co Antrim’

The comments were made by Ian Paisley, as he and party colleagues unleashed salvos of criticism at senior Tory Brexiteer Michael Gove over the way the Northern Ireland Protocol is operating.

Boris Johnson had said earlier in the debate: “At the moment, goods are flowing effectively and in normal volumes between GB and NI. “So far no lorries have been turned back.”

Sammy Wilson was the first to make reference to the problem of moving home.

He said: “I think that people living in Northern Ireland, living with the consequences of this protocol, will be amazed at the complacency which has been shown by the government as to the economic damage that has been done by the wrecking ball of the protocol.

“This week the chancellor indicated he had seen no problems. The PM has said there’s no problems. The Secretary of State says there’s no border in the Irish Sea.

“Yet my constituents on a daily basis are bringing me hundreds of examples of goods which they are denied by suppliers, of add costs, we see empty supermarket shelves, lorries are being delayed for long periods of time.

“People can’t even move their furniture from a house in England to NI.”

And Mr Paisley provided further details about the thwarting of attempts to move house.

“It’s an insult to our intelligence to say it’s a teething problem,” he said.

“Tell that to my constituents. Tell that to my constituent on Sunday who tried to move home from Essex to Broughshane and was turned back at Cairnryan because she had products in her white van that were her own personal products.”

Mr Gove said: “I’m sorry to hear about the distress faced by the lady.”

He pledged to investigate the case.

The protocol is basically the key document, and began being developed in autumn 2019.

UUP veteran Lord Empey has repeatedly criticised the DUP for having allowed it to come into being in the first place (Arlene Foster initially said the idea of the protocol looked like “a sensible, stable way forward” though the party ultimately went on to strongly reject it).

That protocol gave a “guarantee of avoiding a hard border” on land in Ireland, ruling out “any physical infrastructure” on the north-south border and giving a “firm commitment to no customs and regulatory checks”.

But when it came to certain aspects of protecting the UK internal market, the language was much more watery.

Instead of a “firm commitment” or “guarantee”, the protocol said only that was the signatories’ “aim” to avoid “controls at the ports and airports of Northern Ireland, to the extent possible in accordance with applicable legislation”.

But the DUP has recently pinned hopes to a supposed get-out clause within the protocol – Article 16.

It reads: “If the application of this Protocol leads to serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist, or to diversion of trade, the Union or the United Kingdom may unilaterally take appropriate safeguard measures.

“Such safeguard measures shall be restricted with regard to their scope and duration to what is strictly necessary in order to remedy the situation.

“Priority shall be given to such measures as will least disturb the functioning of this Protocol.

“If a safeguard measure taken by the Union or the United Kingdom, as the case may be, in accordance with paragraph 1 creates an imbalance between the rights and obligations under this Protocol, the Union or the United Kingdom, as the case may be, may take such proportionate rebalancing measures as are strictly necessary to remedy the imbalance.

“Priority shall be given to such measures as will least disturb the functioning of this Protocol.”

In other words, the protocol does give the UK latitude to basically rejig the trading relationship between NI and GB if there are “economic” or “societal” headaches that arise from it.

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