As the experts began pouring over the Windsor Framework this week, it didn’t take long to realise that Rishi Sunak’s claims of a “historic” deal that solves all the problems of Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit trade regime were somewhat overstated.
It’s a good deal, no doubt. But for all its 100-pages of detail, it is missing essential details that will determine its true fate. Questions like: who will qualify for the expanded trusted trader scheme? Who will complete the one certificate needed to pass through the green lane? And what happens if goods pass though the red lane (suggesting they’ll move onto the EU), but actually end up staying in Northern Ireland?
It means the new arrangements will take time to implement and certain key elements won’t begin for another 18 months.
In the meantime, it should at least become easier to move food and drink from Great Britain into Northern Ireland. with simplification of the paperwork that has plagued businesses of all sizes over the past two years, sausages back on shelves, and seed potatoes ready to be planted again.
Supermarkets will likely revert to treating Northern Ireland as part of their UK operations again, meaning Irish suppliers they signed up could now be cast aside.
That’s not all bad news for those suppliers in Northern Ireland. The NI Protocol meant fewer trucks have been coming from GB to NI, and this made it tougher to find haulage for sending goods the opposite way. While the Irish businesses have gained a small boon by picking up extra business in supermarkets supplying two million people does not make up for the loss of access to 65 million people across the water.
And sausages and seed potatoes are back on the menu.
Perhaps the most important signal of the Windsor deal, though, is a return of trust to the relationship between Brussels and Downing Street. Trust is arguably the founding principle of this deal, with checks and bureaucracy eased thanks to a database of movements across the Irish Sea.
While Brussels were initially wary of this idea, an extended trial over recent months has given them confidence that goods said to be destined for Northern Ireland are genuinely staying in Northern Ireland.
It all spells a return to more convivial relations that could herald easier trade across the considerably shorter straight across the Channel. The UK-EU trade deal is up for review in two years’s time. So the defrosting of relations and positive direction of travel can only be a good thing.
No comments yet