Statement by TUV deputy leader Councillor Ron McDowell:
“The opinion piece from the DUP’s former director of policy and research Dan Boucher in today’s News Letter spells out in detail the reality behind the spin. No one can be in any doubt that the deal which saw the restoration of Stormont was anything other than a con when they have read the analysis of a man who was at the heart of the DUP until recently.
“Among the many telling points made by Mr Boucher are:
* Renaming the green lane was the UK internal market system not a new idea but something contained in the Windsor Framework published in February 2023. As Mr Boucher observes; “how can anyone claim there has been a big breakthrough by suggesting that the green lane has been replaced by something when that something is itself? This had all the hallmarks of a very lame Sunak conjuring trick”;
* “Removing the green lane would require removing the existing green lane legislation and yet the legislation published alongside Safeguarding the Union, to give effect to the deal, did not amend one word of that legislation, let alone repeal it”;
* There is no suggestion that EU is going to amend or repeal the two EU regulations that define the green lane: EU Regulation 1128 and EU Regulation 1231;
* The Windsor Framework (Implementation) Regulations 2024 “do not amend one word of the green lane legislation let alone repeal it”;
* “The Irish Sea border remains fully in place for all goods moving from GB to NI”;
* “If you move goods beyond the red lane, then call it what you like, the green lane, the UK Internal Market System or ‘the lane formerly known as green’, one is still required to take the same 11 steps in order to negotiate the border – 11 steps that were not required before January 1, 2021; 11 steps than businesses do not have to take when moving goods between England and Wales or Scotland and England, or indeed within any other internal market in the world; 11 steps that create serious border friction and cost, alienating Northern Ireland from the rest of our own country and internal market” and
* “Safeguarding the Union changes nothing and instead cements in the Windsor Framework”.
“Dan Boucher, who remains a member of the DUP, closes his article with an appeal to his party to change course. That is something I would echo. Events of the past week have shown that there remain within the DUP those who remain deeply uneasy with their party’s decision to shred their pre-election promises and return to being Protocol implementations. But there is an onus on them, like Dan Boucher, to do something about those concerns.”