Stormont's supposed EU law protections are ‘a sham’ - UUP's Aiken

​The Ulster Unionist Finance spokesperson says the government’s decision not to approve the Stormont Brake over new EU law, combined with the “political tool” of the Windsor Framework democratic scrutiny committee, have been a failure in preventing divergence between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

Dr Aiken said: “The news from the Secretary of State fundamentally undermines the safeguards that are supposed to be in place to protect the people of Northern Ireland.

“Democratic consent and effective scrutiny of proposed EU changes to legislation and directives was parroted by many as a method of ensuring that the increasing divergence from our own nation would not be implemented unless it could be shown not to have a detrimental impact on our people.

“Sadly, this year has shown that one of the so-called safeguards, the Windsor Framework Democratic Scrutiny Committee, is anything but; instead it has become a party political tool of SF and the Alliance Party to further their pro-EU agenda.

“The next safeguard was supposedly the Stormont Brake. As someone who has been involved with the whole panoply of Brexit since 2016, our party only sought to utilise the ‘brake’ as a last resort – the decision to support the calling for the brake to be applied was not taken lightly.

“A careful examination of the regulation, coupled with the cumulative impact of multiple changes now being imposed, shows that this is creating increasing and significant divergence from our largest market, our own country. That this is the case should be readily apparent to the Secretary of State, if he just bothered to look.

“If these two measures, supposedly designed to protect NI, are ignored, it shows that much of the so-called ‘protection’ from divergent EU rules is a sham. Northern Ireland is far from being in the ‘best of both worlds’ and Hilary Benn had an opportunity to actually examine the impact of this divergence, he has demonstrably failed at this first hurdle.”