Unionists unite behind Allister's sea border bill - as fresh questions emerge about alleged benefits of Windsor Framework
TUV leader Jim Allister has secured cross-party support in Westminster for a bill aimed at overturning the controversial trading arrangements agreed by the last government and the EU.
All Northern Ireland’s unionist MPs have co-sponsored the North Antrim MP’s private members bill, along with the former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, Labour’s Graham Stringer and Reform UK’s Nigel Farage and Richard Tice.
The TUV say the proposed legislation seeks to reverse the “detriment” caused to Northern Ireland by the current arrangements and “enables practical solutions to govern the movement of goods from NI to the EU’s territory of the Republic of Ireland”.
It comes amid fresh doubts over the promised benefits of trading arrangements under the Windsor Framework. Invest NI officials have admitted to a Stormont committee that there hasn’t been any foreign direct investment relating to Northern Ireland’s supposed ‘dual market access’ – despite the arrangements being lauded by global leaders when the deal was signed.
Officials revealed the information to the DUP’s Jonathan Buckley at the economy committee – with a senior official official also saying that trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland “remains evolving and uncertain”.
The TUV has described the support of other MPs as “a coalition agreed on the unworkability and unacceptability of the present arrangements and determined to offer a better way forward”.
Mr Allister secured the ability to bring a private members bill from a ballot of MPs in the new parliament.
It is unlikely to secure government backing – Labour has committed to implementing the Windsor Framework alongside Brussels “in good faith”.
However, it has provided a focal point for unionists opposed to the Protocol in Westminster to keep the issue alive and ensure it is discussed – particularly among the Tory backbenchers.
Other Northern Ireland parties in Westminster won’t support the TUV bill – having expressed their support for the current arrangements and rarely raising any issues of concern about it.
The Bill aims to “address the constitutional and practical detriment of the Windsor Framework/Protocol arrangements as they affect Northern Ireland”.
The party says the detriment “includes the diminution of NI’s position within the UK, by virtue of being subject in much of its economy to EU, not UK laws, and the resulting imposition of a partitioning goods border in the Irish Sea”.
It contains three clauses which will: require respect for the territorial integrity of the UK; temper the effect of EU law in NI – and address how goods should move from NI to ROI as was anticipated under the NI Protocol Bill in 2022, which had Commons support.