The Tory spokesman for Northern Ireland has said he intends to challenge Hilary Benn this week for not standing up for the Safeguarding the Union deal.

Alex Burghart MP was speaking to the News Letter at the Conservative Party conference last week ahead of this week’s return of Parliament at Westminster.

Mr Burghart, who was recently appointed the shadow counterpart to the Labour Party’s Northern Ireland secretary Mr Benn, told this newspaper: “I will certainly be challenging Hilary Benn on this when Parliament returns [this week].”

placeholder image — The Northern Ireland shadow spokesman Alex Burghart MP said that Safeguarding the Union - as far as he is concerned and as far as a lot of people in unionist parties in Northern Ireland are concerned - is a fundamental part of the recent agreements. Pic by Ben Lowry

The new government has repeatedly emphasised its commitment to the Windsor Framework, which was agreed between Rishi Sunak and Ursula von der Leyen of the EU early last year. It sought to alleviate much of the impact of the Irish Sea border for goods travelling between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

However, it led to ongoing problems for trade and continuing unhappiness among unionists, and so resulted in a new agreement called Safeguarding the Union between the DUP and the the former government. As a result of that deal, the DUP returned to devolution in February.

Critics such as Jim Allister say that it has done nothing to remove the internal UK trade frontier.

But various commitments within it, such as removing the legal obligations to promote all-island trade, are being discarded by the new government. Mr Benn and Sir Keir Starmer, the prime minister, do not refer to the deal, but instead refer to the Windsor Framework, which they have vowed to uphold in their re-set of relations with both Ireland and the EU.

Mr Burghart said: “Safeguarding the Union, as far as I am concerned and as far as a lot of people in unionist parties in Northern Ireland are concerned, is a fundamental part of the recent agreements.

“And I hope that the government appreciates that if it takes that bit of the agreement out, then other parts of the agreement may start to fall down as well. So I think it is a new government, I appreciate we have to give it a little bit of time to find its feet. But this is a very important issue and I don’t want to see it swept aside.”