An Irish Dilemma: Businesses keen to move on from Brexit

WASHINGTON: The UK government has comfortably won a parliament vote on its new Northern Ireland-EU deal. The Windsor Framework now looks set to be implemented.

Most business leaders in Northern Ireland are happy about that. In Northern Ireland, things are rarely black and white. Rather they’re green, orange and any number of shades in between.

The region has been the central issue in EU-UK negotiations since the 2016 Brexit vote. The main question: Where should the border separating the EU single market from the UK market be?

The EU and the UK have repeatedly agreed that border should not be on the island of Ireland, due to the toxic legacy of ‘The Troubles’ — the 1969-1998 conflict which claimed more than 3,500 lives and was ended with the Good Friday Agreement.

Most people in Northern Ireland agree, polls say. The compromise is the so-called ‘Irish Sea border’, where goods are checked before moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.

The Northern Ireland Protocol includes this law but its implementation in 2021 infuriated some members of Northern Ireland’s pro-British unionist community, who saw it as diluting their link to the UK.

They and others also bemoaned other aspects of its practical application, saying it imposed vast levels of needless bureaucracy on businesses and thwarted trade, introducing curbs on everything from sausages to pets.

The row became very bitter. It threatened several times to spiral into a trade war when Boris Johnson was UK prime minister. But under Rishi Sunak, the EU and the UK have worked hard on finding a solution.

Last month, Sunak and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen unveiled a new plan in what was by far the warmest EU-UK summit since Brexit.

The Windsor Framework removes the vast majority of checks on goods entering Northern Ireland from Britain, amid other changes. Sunak said it made Northern Ireland the “world’s most exciting economic zone” because of its dual access to the EU and UK markets.

Politicians from all sides across the UK and Ireland welcomed it as a major breakthrough. But many unionists still aren’t happy.

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the largest unionist party and second biggest party in Northern Ireland behind the Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein, says it is still not enough.

On March 22, Sunak’s government held a vote in the House of Commons on an aspect of the framework, the ‘Stormont Brake’ mechanism, in which the Northern Irish parliament and the UK government can prevent new EU laws from being introduced in Northern Ireland.

The vote passed by a massive 515 votes to 29, with even the opposition supporting it. The DUP, which sits in both Stormont and the House of Commons, voted against it along with 22 rebels from the Eurosceptic wing of Sunak’s Conservative Party. Former Prime Ministers Johnson and Liz Truss, both keen to undermine Sunak, were among them.

However, Sunak does not need DUP support and it is expected that the Windsor Framework will proceed to implementation regardless. He says there will be no new negotiations.

Businesses in the region are largely supportive and are keen to move on after almost a decade of uncertainty.

Stephen Kelly, chief executive of Manufacturing NI, says the deal confirms a long-established reality — that the border on the island of Ireland cannot return because of Brexit.

“The reality is that the tectonic plates aren’t going to shift on the island of Ireland,” he told DW. “And it isn’t going to be moved to the middle of the Caribbean. This is always going to be the place where the EU single market and the UK’s internal market meet.”