Northern Irish businessmen spell out damage done to trade with GB via the NI Protocol – and voice skepticism that the government's deal will return things fully to pre-Brexit days

One was Robin Mercer, boss of Hillmount Garden Centre, which has operations in both south-east Belfast and Cheshire.

He is optimistic that the deal will ease things, but not that it will expunge all trace of the Irish Sea border.

"We reckon it's going to make things a lot easier for us,” he said.

"As far as giftware and hardware, it'll be very easy to get all of that end in because the green lane is going now – no paperwork needed.

"Garden furniture, barbecues, that end there should be no problem at all.

"But we're still a wee bit anxious about the plants. Plus, a lot of our growers we had that we worked with in England [before Brexit] have actually moved on and gone elsewhere. We've lost all those contacts.

"It was people that supplied us with roses, people that supplied us with climbing plants and general shrubs.

"Before Brexit we worked with them and they were sending us stuff every month.

"But then they just said: boys, we're not interested, there's too much paperwork. So we've lost that contact."

Asked if he feels the government's deal will remove all vestiges of Protocol-related red tape, he said: "I doubt it – I really doubt it."

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Brian Dean, the retail business development manager at food distribution firm the North Down Group, says the level of red tape created by the Protocol has been "farcical" and "scandalous".

Asked if it would even be able to roll the rules back to pre-Protocol days, he said: "You'd like think so. We had totally free trade prior to Brexit.

"I was able to buy anything in the UK and bring it to Belfast and it was never queried by anybody.

"Now every single item has to be documented."

He added: "The amount of paperwork we have to do on a daily basis is astronomical.

"Never had to do paperwork like it before.

"Believe it or not, I currently have about one-and-a-half salaries just dedicated to doing the paperwork required to bring, say, a pallet of cauliflowers for example from Kent to Belfast…

"All the legislation that I have to follow is all driven by the EU. It's all EU regulations we're having to abide by."

Some of the paperwork even requires them to use the Latin-based botanical names of the products, he said.

"My hopes would be we'd be able to go back to the way things were pre-Brexit," Mr Dean said.

But he is concerned that the EU may ultimately decide not to keep a reduced regime of checks in place.

"Reading between the lines, the UK government has sold Jeffrey and the DUP a deal which they seem to be happy with.

"But is the EU going to accept the fact there's going to be no checks?"