DUP's Sammy Wilson: Dual standards are being applied to Irish Sea border arrangements

Sammy Wilson also says the arrangements mean that the UK government has “abandoned” Northern Ireland when it comes to food safety.

He was reacting to the introduction of the NI-GB checks on certain plant and animal products. While Northern Ireland has “unfettered access” to the rest of the UK market, five categories of product relating to plants and animals will face checks.

The purpose is to stop food products being smuggled into Great Britain, using NI as a back door. The rules mean that those goods will have to use certain points of entry, depending on the category of goods.

The East Antrim MP says that the scope of goods covered by the new arrangements are “broader than many people thought [they] would be” – but said it could be argued that there good reasons for them. He highlighted that before the Protocol, similar SPS checks were put in place in NI on goods coming from GB to stop the spread of disease.

“Now, they’re being used in a context where the internal market is already under threat – and how long is it before that list of goods is expanded because of the danger of the Republic being a source of goods which we don’t want in the UK at all?”.

Sammy Wilson said if this system of checking is acceptable in this direction, “it should be acceptable in the other”.

He said: “It’s the dual standards here – that there have to be gold standard physical checks into NI which have prevented people from supplying into NI.

“Yet at the same time, GB are saying we can have rules similar mutual enforcement in the other direction”.

He said by applying the checks, the government was abandoning Northern Ireland.

“If there are suspect [goods] coming from the Irish Republic, they’re going to stop them going into GB but by not having the checks on the border they’re saying it’s OK for people in NI to be exposed to that risk”, Mr Wilson added.