It's time for Boris Johnson to deliver the unfettered access to GB he promised

Arlene Foster

Michael Gove

February 05 2021 08:08 AM

This Prime Minister promised unfettered access and now must deliver. The societal and economic interruption caused directly by the protocol cannot be ignored.

We welcome the recognition from Michael Gove in Parliament that these are not "teething problems" and that more action is needed. We also note the Prime Minister's commitment in the House of Commons on Wednesday to use all means at his disposal, including Article 16, but we now need action to back that up, particularly given the harm the protocol is doing to our access to the internal market of the UK.

The Northern Ireland Protocol has ruptured the United Kingdom internal market in order to give armour-plated protection to the single market of the European Union. But it doesn't make sense.

There is no risk to the EU single market from:

Goods coming to Northern Ireland for circulation and sale wholly within Northern Ireland from trusted and reliable traders;
Medical devices ordered for particular patients or surgeries in NI from GB suppliers;
GB soil on a rose or second-hand digger coming into another part of the United Kingdom, as it has done for decades and;
Rabies from pets travelling to NI, within our United Kingdom, as it has not existed in either jurisdiction for many, many years.

This all amounts to bureaucracy, not logic, and disruption to supply lines with no actual risk.

The answer though does not lie in continuing grace periods. That is not sufficient.

We need permanent solutions that include significant exemptions for goods for sale within Northern Ireland.

The Prime Minister needs to address the growing crisis in Northern Ireland and recognise that the opposition to the protocol is widespread - from families struggling to get their Amazon parcels, to manufacturers struggling to get their supplies.

The pharma sector has no clarity on what will happen with medicines at the end of the grace period, and our farmers are buried in paperwork when trying to move their own tractor from one part of the UK to another.

The protocol was foolishly foisted on Northern Ireland, despite the fact that not a single unionist party supported it.

As unionists, we must stand together and free Northern Ireland from the protocol.

As part of our campaign to free us from the protocol, I applied for and was granted an e-petition from Parliament.

This secured 65,000 signatures within a few hours of launching. Indeed, people from all 650 constituencies in the UK have now signed the petition and registered their desire for Article 16 to be triggered and have unfettered GB-NI trade.

It's time for Boris Johnson to deliver the unfettered access to GB he promised

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