Final Irish Sea border control post goes live in Belfast - MLA brands it a 'white elephant'
A Stormont politician has branded the government’s border control posts at Northern Ireland’s ports a “white elephant” – as the final piece of the Irish Sea border’s physical infrastructure became operational on Monday.
The final checkpoint for goods entering the province from GB is now live in Belfast, joining Larne and other smaller facilities set up as a consequence of the Windsor Framework.
They allow the EU to keep track of products entering from the rest of the UK, because Northern Ireland is now treated as part of the EU’s single market for goods.
Ulster Unionist Party deputy leader Robbie Butler MLA has called on Stormont’s agriculture minister Andrew Muir “to urgently reassess the scale, cost, and necessity of the Border Control Posts (BCPs) at Belfast, Larne, Foyle, and Warrenpoint” – saying that they are wasting taxpayer’s money.
He said every pound of public money must deliver genuine value. “If the case for these posts has weakened - as I believe it has - then we must act now to avoid waste and seek redirection of that funding into areas that deliver tangible benefits”, he said.
TUV leader Jim Allister also condemned the government for pressing ahead with the facilities which, while a requirement of the Windsor Framework, would be redundant if the UK completes an SPS deal with the EU, which it announced earlier this year.
“It is inconceivable that any self-respecting country would allow 27 other states to divide it in two, especially through Border Control Posts and when this has resulted in the humiliating disenfranchisement of 1.9 million of its citizens.
“That they would do so at exactly the same time as introducing legislation to prevent similar goods movements into GB from the Republic of Ireland, France, Germany, and the rest of the EU, being subject to the same BCP and other requirements until 2027, leaves me completely speechless.
“It suggests GB is more joined to the EU than the rest of the UK and provides eloquent testimony to how things have gone badly wrong. It is, however, exactly the kind of extraordinary action we have come to expect from the current government that plainly does not believe in our country”, the North Antrim MP told GB News.