Stormont Brake could be blueprint for a Westminster Brake on EU

Unionists and Brexiteers alike should not underestimate the significance of this tactical move, or the importance of it needing to succeed.

Unionism requires to listen intently to the wake-up call that it is no longer the majority ideology in the Stormont Chamber after the last Assembly poll.

If Unionism needed further proof of this predicament, it should note that the Assembly recently voted to continue with the application of the Windsor Framework.

That mechanism also keeps the Irish Sea Border in existence and is as hated among many sections of the pro-Union community as the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement. Just as the 1985 Dublin Diktat gave Southern Ireland a say in the running of Northern Ireland, the hated Windsor Framework gives Brussels the same political stranglehold on Ulster.

Under the terms of the Stormont Brake, 30 Assembly members from at least two parties in the Assembly can notify the Westminster Government of their wish that the emergency brake on EU law be pulled and that they wish to stop the application or replacement of EU law in Northern Ireland.

The importance of the need for Unionists to make the Stormont Brake work must be seen in the wider UK political landscape.

Given the current Labour Government’s massive Commons majority, there is a real suspicion Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s administration will use any existing talks with Brussels to sneak the UK back into the EU via some political backdoor.

Worse still, the Starmer regime may even go a step further and try to introduce a second referendum on EU membership in an open bid to overturn the democratic wish in the 2016 referendum when the UK voted Leave.

What is needed is a device in the Commons similar to the Stormont Brake. A Westminster Brake is urgently required to prevent the whole UK being railroaded back into the EU. The problem with Brexit has always been the inability of the Remain lobby to accept the 2016 democratic vote of the UK electorate.

In spite of the disastrous and financially brutal Labour Budget of 2024, you can expect the Europhiles within the Labour Party to use 2025 to pump out the propaganda that a return to the EU will provide the necessary European funding to combat the cost of living crisis and the economic woes in the NHS.

There is the danger that, like a political version of American Wild West fake snake oil, the British electorate will be duped into thinking that either very close relations with the EU or even rejoining the EU will solve all the UK’s cash problems.

In Northern Ireland, this political fake snake oil message has been amplified after the South’s recent Dail elections which returned the three main nationalist parties back to Leinster House - Fianna Fáil, Sinn Fein and Fine Gael.

All are pro-EU and have been boasting about the amount of cash they have available to pump into Northern Ireland. It is clear the Southern parties’ propaganda game will be to try and convince moderate Unionists or Unionist Remainers that they would be financially better off returning to the EU.

While speculation remains about a potential border poll on Irish Unity, the real danger for Unionism exists in the form of a new EU membership poll. If the Leave campaign lost that new referendum and the UK ended up back in the EU, could the price also be Irish Unity by the back door? That’s the brutal political reality of why the Stormont Brake has to work effectively.

Likewise, the Stormont Brake must be sold by Brexiteers as a political blueprint for a Westminster Brake to prevent Starmer from railroading the UK back into the EU.

Unionism should not underestimate the seriousness of the necessity of making the Stormont Brake work. Under Starmer’s Labour, the Chagos islands have already been sold out to Mauritius; there is a fear of a sell-out deal to give Argentina a greater say in the running of the Falkland Islands; so why not give the EU an even greater say in the running of Northern Ireland via the Windsor Framework? Yet another nightmare for Unionism.

Time may not be on Unionism’s side. Can the Stormont Brake be effectively implemented before the anti-EU political dream team of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK in the Commons and Donald Trump back in the White House gets their combined act in gear?

With opinion polls showing the Eurosceptic Reform UK party on course to replace the Tories in the Commons, can Unionists afford to wait until the next Westminster General Election to get the “Back Into The EU’ bandwagon derailed? In reality, Unionism cannot afford to take this chance.

Unionism must act now and use the Stormont Brake to wreck the Windsor Framework from the inside without collapsing the Assembly.

With a few years until the next elections in Northern Ireland, this is the political balancing act which Unionism must embark upon - creating a scenario where the Framework implodes without taking Stormont down with it.

Dr John Coulter has been a journalist since 1978.