One of the most intensive and important tasks I’ve been engaged on in my first six months as foreign secretary has been to address the problems we’ve faced with the Northern Ireland protocol.
The political stability and prosperity of Northern Ireland is crucial for the United Kingdom as a whole. It’s also central to the success of the UK-Irish relationship. As we have learned through hard experience, the protocol undermined the delicate balance inherent in the Belfast [Good Friday] Agreement – the equal respect for the aspirations and identity of all communities.
After weeks of negotiations, this week we have made a decisive breakthrough. The Windsor Framework delivers free flowing trade within the whole United Kingdom, protects Northern Ireland’s place in our union and safeguards sovereignty for the people of Northern Ireland.
[ Windsor Framework: How the new deal on the Northern Ireland protocol will workOpens in new window ]
On trade, the deal tackles the problems confronting business in GB and NI. Goods destined for Northern Ireland will travel through a new green lane, with a separate red lane for goods at risk of moving on to the EU. In the green lane, burdensome customs bureaucracy will be scrapped. It means food retailers like supermarkets, restaurants and wholesalers will no longer need hundreds of certificates for every lorry and we will end the situation where food made to UK rules could not be sent to and sold in Northern Ireland.
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So, if food is available on the supermarket shelves in Great Britain then it will be available on supermarket shelves in Northern Ireland. And unlike the protocol, today’s agreement means people sending parcels to friends and family or doing their shopping online, will have to complete no customs paperwork. This means we have removed any sense of a border in the Irish Sea, as well as ensuring no hard border on the island of Ireland.
Second, we have protected Northern Ireland’s place in the union. We’ve amended the legal text of the protocol to ensure we can make critical VAT and excise changes for the whole of the UK. Onerous requirements on pet travel have been removed. And the agreement also delivers a landmark settlement on medicines. From now on, drugs approved for use by the UK’s medicines regulator will be automatically available in every pharmacy and hospital in Northern Ireland.
Third, this week’s agreement safeguards sovereignty for the people of Northern Ireland, in line with the principles of the Good Friday agreement. The only EU law that applies in Northern Ireland under the framework is the minimum necessary to avoid a hard border with Ireland and allow northern Irish businesses to continue accessing the EU market.
But I know that many people in Northern Ireland are also worried about being subject to changes to EU goods laws. To address that, today’s agreement introduces a new Stormont Brake. Many had called for Stormont to have a say over these laws. But the Stormont Brake goes further and means that Stormont can in fact stop them from applying in Northern Ireland.
This will establish a clear process through which the democratically elected Assembly can pull an emergency brake for changes to EU goods rules that would have significant, and lasting effects on everyday lives. If the brake is pulled, the UK government will have a veto.
This gives the institutions of the Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland a powerful new safeguard, based on cross-community consent.
As the prime minister said in the House of Commons on Monday, we now want everyone involved to reflect carefully on the agreement we have reached, which took hundreds of hours of painstaking negotiations. We are confident it can mark a turning point for the people of Northern Ireland, after several years of uncertainty and unhappiness with the way the protocol was working. We also hope that it provides a firm basis for a return to powersharing, recognising that the parties will need time and space to digest the detail set out in the comprehensive Windsor Framework.
The Windsor Framework is a good deal for the UK and the EU. It is the fruit of intense engagement, with plenty of difficult discussions, but done in a spirit of partnership, resolve and creativity. I pay tribute to President von der Leyen, Vice-President Sefcovic and their team for their co-operation and to the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and the Irish Government for its constructive role.
The deal we have reached fully respects the need to protect the EU Single Market and avoids any return to a hard border. But it reflects the economic reality of Northern Ireland – its dependence on east-west trade – in a way that 2019 deal did not. So the Windsor Framework enables us to move forward on a basis of detailed agreement and shared understandings, avoiding the risk of further unilateral action on either side.
The deal strengthens Northern Ireland’s place in the UK, which was a key goal for me from the outset. The prime minister and I believe, as the Taoiseach also said on Monday night, that it can usher in a new era of partnership for the UK and EU, and for Britain and Ireland too.
But above all it’s a good deal for people in all communities in Northern Ireland, who deserve the new opportunities this week’s deal provides.
James Cleverly is foreign secretary of the United Kingdom