DUP call on Alliance to fight for better deal on the Windsor Framework

Naomi Long should apologise for calling for ‘rigorous implementation’ of the NI Protocol according to the DUP – who say Alliance have been an impediment to getting a better deal on the Irish Sea border.
By David Thompson
Published 6th Dec 2023, 18:02 BST
The DUP have attacked Alliance's record on helping Northern Ireland get a better post-Brexit trade deal. Photo: Colm Lenaghan /PacemakerThe DUP have attacked Alliance's record on helping Northern Ireland get a better post-Brexit trade deal. Photo: Colm Lenaghan /Pacemaker
The DUP have attacked Alliance's record on helping Northern Ireland get a better post-Brexit trade deal. Photo: Colm Lenaghan /Pacemaker

DUP East Antrim MLA Gordon Lyons told the News Letter: “Stephen Farry heralds progress in the Windsor Framework yet his Party had called for the unimplementable NI Protocol to be ‘rigorously implemented’. Rather than campaigning to exclude unionists from the NI Assembly, the Alliance Party and Naomi Long should apologise for being an impediment to getting a better deal from Brussels”.

The Alliance Party this week supported proposals from Westminster’s Northern Ireland Affairs Committee which contained proposals which would by-pass the current cross-community consent required to elect a speaker at the Assembly. The document proposed a ‘supermajority’ whereby a speaker would be elected with the support of two-thirds of MLAs. That would allow the Stormont assembly to meet despite the DUP boycott over the current post-Brexit trade arrangement between NI and Great Britain. Alliance also want parties who don’t designate as unionist or nationalist to have the same rights at Stormont as the two main traditions.

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“All the while the DUP was trying to get a better deal whilst working within the Assembly immediately after the NI Protocol was signed, the Alliance Party sided with the EU and Sinn Fein and campaigned for the Protocol to be ‘rigorously implemented’ rather than work with us to get a better deal.

“This was a mistake and they should now accept that the DUP has been right to campaign for a better deal. Our job would have been a lot easier if the other Executive Parties had joined our campaign.”

In 2020 Sinn Fein, the SDLP, Alliance and the Green Party wrote a joint letter to both the European Union and the United Kingdom government calling for the “rigorous implementation” of the original Northern Ireland Protocol. They were reacting to proposals from the British government to override parts of the deal with Brussels.

The letter said “It is entirely unacceptable to the Northern Ireland parties that the UK Government would seek to abandon these safeguards and mitigations, which we believe would amount to a serious betrayal of an existing international treaty."

The Alliance Party has since rowed back from that position and support the current arrangements under the Windsor Framework.

Alliance have been approached for comment.

Related topics:DUPGordon LyonsNaomi LongNI ProtocolIrish SeaStephen FarrySinn Fein

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