Windsor Framework: As NI gets first experience of red and green customs lanes, DUP says 'fundamental problems' remain

​DUP chairman Lord Morrow said it is his party’s “over-riding objective” to see Northern Ireland’s position within the UK “fully restored”.

From Sunday (October 1) onwards, goods coming into Northern Ireland, which are onwards to the Republic of Ireland or elsewhere in the European Union, will be required to use the conceptual ‘red line’ which involves customs declarations and some checks.

Goods remaining within Northern Ireland use the ‘green lane’ – greatly reducing the need for paperwork and with no checks – as distributors will be registered with the ‘trusted trader’ scheme.

Writing in the News Letter on Saturday, Chris Heaton-Harris said the vast majority of Northern Ireland’s economic life remains “umbilically connected to the rest of the UK”, with most of the economy untouched by anything in the Windsor Framework”.

Mr Heaton-Harris said that frequently expressed concerns over the supply of human medicines have now been addressed.

However, the grave concerns of Lord Morrow and his DUP colleagues remain.

“Our overriding objective is seeking to re-establish the Northern Ireland Assembly on a fair and sustainable basis by finishing the job of fully restoring Northern Ireland’s position in the United Kingdom,” the DUP peer said.

“We have campaigned to ensure that the [NI] Protocol is replaced by arrangements that restore our place within the United Kingdom and those arrangements must be capable of commanding the support of unionists as well as nationalists.

"We want to see a return to the delicate political balance within Northern Ireland where the views of unionists are valued and respected and cross-community consensus is the way that we deliver stability and prosperity for all our people.”

Lord Morrow said that while he accepted the Windsor Framework – designed to deal with difficulties created by the NI Protocol – represents “significant progress across a number of areas,” it “does not deal with some of the fundamental problems at the heart of our current difficulties”.

In a statement to the News Letter, he added: “The real purpose of the Windsor Framework (Enforcement etc) Regulations 2023 is to make provision for the enforcement of GB standards rather than EU ones in Northern Ireland with respect to public health, marketing and organic products. That sounds like a step forward in efforts to repatriate powers from the EU to the UK, however, quite the opposite is the case.

“Anyone who has believed government claims to have ‘got Brexit done’ and ‘taken back control’ will be rudely awoken from that particular fantasy by the experience of reading Regulation (EU) 2023/1231.

“Unlike those EU regulations that apply to Northern Ireland because they apply to the EU as a whole, and thus to Northern Ireland, this regulation, which was passed in June, is curious because it applies narrowly and specifically to the Government of the United Kingdom and not to any other part of the EU – even though the legislation was supposedly made some years after Brexit for the UK by the EU legislature, now without any UK representation.”

Lord Morrow said the effects of the new arrangements will also affect the other UK regions, and not just Northern Ireland.

"Although it is often said that the protocol/Windsor Framework has made Northern Ireland a vassal state of the European Union, this legislation demonstrates that, in touching what people can do in the rest of the UK, there is a clear sense in which the vassal status to which we have been submitted impacts not only Northern Ireland but the whole United Kingdom,” he said.

“EU regulation 2023/1231 makes provision for some goods to be subject to less exacting SPS (sanitary and phytosanitary) border requirements than would otherwise obtain if traders submit to certain restrictions, which is the purpose of the Windsor Framework (Enforcement etc.) Regulations 2023 to enable compliant traders to access,” Lord Morrow added.