Northern Ireland Protocol: Minister Conor Burns vows to ‘fix’ Protocol after fact finding visits to NI businesses

In the wake of Brexit the Protocol was formulated to prevent EU customs checks on the Irish border, which nationalists feared would mean the return of a hard border. It did this by retaining NI within the EU customs union, while GB exited from it.

However unionist political parties en-bloc agree that the Protocol is breaching the Good Friday Agreement because it creates an EU customs border within the UK, contrary to the requirement for consent from both communities for controversial matters. While nationalists and businesses primarily trading within the EU customs union have applauded a surge in north south trade, unionists have argued that this is partly due to stifled trade with GB and is constitutionally and economically undermining the union.

On Tuesday Minister of State Conor Burns MP tweeted about fact finding visits to two businesses as a government bill to amend the Protocol makes its way through Parliament.

“Thank you to Kenneth and the team at R Barkley & Sons in Ballymoney for hosting me today,” he Tweeted. ”To argue for change to the Protocol it is vital to take time to understand how it is impacting real businesses and the free movement of goods within our UK internal market between GB and NI.”

Hauliers have told the News Letter that the Protocol has disproportionately hit their trade and clients because logistics from GB to NI specialises in single containers carrying a wide mix of goods, which is alien to EU bureaucracy.

In response to Mr Burns’ Tweet, one user asked if he had spoken to the businesses who have no issues with the protocol? However Mr Burns rejected the suggestion that a solution had to benefit only one side of the argument.

“I make no apology for seeking to find a way to ensure that the UK’s internal market is respected in the same way the EU’s single market it and that our trading position works for all businesses in NI,” he said. “I don’t accept that one group need to benefit at the expense of another.”

Mr Burns also Tweeted about a visit to Hillmount Garden Centre in Belfast. “I heard first hand the impact of the Protocol in costs and supply issues between NI and GB,” he said. “From roses, seeds and seed potato the Protocol’s interpretation and implementation is separating NI from GB. We will fix this.”

Former Brexit party MEP Ben Habib responded on Twitter that the only way to fix the problem is “to ditch the Protocol”. He added: “The EU is threatening infringement proceedings for a failure to check goods from NI to GB. Yes, that’s right. Goods moving west to east. The ones the PM said would never happen.”

A lobby group called Border Communities Against Brexit said yesterday that the Government bill currently going through Parliament to amend the protocol contrary to EU wishes “will wreck business & introduce border checks”.

The group was formed in late 2016 to border residents from business, farming, fishing, hospitality & community backgrounds who fear a hard EU customs border. It is coordinated by Damian McGenity.

The group said recent data from the Irish Central Statistics Office has shown “how successfully trade is flowing between these Islands” with imports from NI to the South up by €357m since 2021 and trade from south to north  up by €586 million in the same period. The statement did not offer any comment or figures about the impact of the Protocol on east-west trade within the UK.

However businesses which depend heavily on importing goods from GB have gone on the record with the News Letter to detail the difficulties they are experiencing. These have included manufacturers, nurseries, food importers, wholesalers, florists and hauliers.

In April 2019 NI’s Chief Vet told the Assembly Agriculture Committee how his staff are required to do 2.6 times more checks every day than are done in the EU’s main port of Rotterdam - more than France, Germany or Spain.

In July Dermot Johnson, Managing Director of Johnson Brothers wholesalers in Lisburn, said that while he is currently “coping” with the additional paperwork caused by the NI Protocol, he is seriously concerned about “a huge amount more work” that could be imposed after the UK Government’s admin support service for traders is wound up, the Trader Support Service.

The Consumer Council has said it is aware of at least 130 companies that have stopped supplying to NI since Brexit, while Secretary of State Brandon Lewis has said he is aware of 200. 

UFU president David Brown has said that while the Protocol is working well for several commodities “it is causing havoc for others”. 

Stuart Anderson, Head of Public Affairs at the NI Chamber of Commerce & Industry, has said that the “big problem” with commentary on the protocol is that its trade advantages and disadvantages are being “used as competing narratives when they don’t need to be”. He affirmed that buying goods in from GB is posing real problems. “Let me be absolutely clear, GB-NI issues are real,” he tweeted.

Presbyterian Church spokesman Rev Trevor Gribben said recently the Protocol “is not working” and that it has “unbalanced the delicate settlement that is the Good Friday Agreement”.