The Northern Ireland Protocol has upset the delicate balance of the Good Friday Agreement and caused the power-sharing institutions to collapse. Rebecca Harris MP has therefore welcomed the news that the Government is acting today to rebalance the Protocol, restore the consent of all communities, and chart a new way forward for Northern Ireland.
The Windsor Agreement achieves this by:
- Delivering free-flowing trade by removing the border in the Irish Sea
- A new Green Lane for goods travelling to NI with no more customs bureaucracy or routine checks
- Removing the ban on supermarket food like sausages – so what is available in GB will be in NI
- Scrapping customs for post and parcels so it’s easier to send gifts and shop online
- Abolishing export declarations for goods going from NI to GB
- Solving the issue of steel movements into NI and also implementing a tariff reimbursement scheme
- A new Green Lane for goods travelling to NI with no more customs bureaucracy or routine checks
- Safeguarding Northern Ireland’s place in our Union
- Ensuring UK tax policy applies to the whole of the UK – meaning cheaper beer and VAT in NI
- Tackling the ‘reach back’ of EU state aid law so businesses can trade and invest freely in NI
- The same medicines will be available across the UK – with the same packaging and the same label
- Removing the ban on English oaks and Scottish seed potatoes being available in NI garden centres
- People can travel freely with their pets in and out of NI
- Ensuring UK tax policy applies to the whole of the UK – meaning cheaper beer and VAT in NI
- Delivering free-flowing trade by removing the border in the Irish Sea
- A brand-new STORMONT BRAKE, allowing NI to block new EU laws via a new UK veto
- Placing the Windsor Agreement in international law by subjecting it to the Vienna Convention
- A brand-new STORMONT BRAKE, allowing NI to block new EU laws via a new UK veto
This has all been achieved by doing what nobody thought was possible: scrapping 1,700 pages of EU law and making radical, permanent, legally binding changes, including to the Protocol Treaty text to end the presumption of dynamic alignment and end the ratchet of EU law.
As a result of today’s Windsor Agreement, we do not need the Protocol Bill, have no legal basis for it, and will not proceed with it. Above all, today’s deal delivers certainty for the people of Northern Ireland. Now is the time to move forward as one country – and one United Kingdom.
For more information on the Windsor Framework, including comments from the Prime Minister, please visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/windsor-framework-unveiled-to-fix-problems-of-the-northern-ireland-protocol?deliveryName=DM19106.
