Post Segments
Last week the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) published the ‘latest’ trade figures for Northern Ireland.
I say ‘latest’ but in truth the figures are already fourteen months out of date which is wholly unacceptable.
If we aspire to good governance, we cannot be making decisions in March 2026 on the basis of the world as it was between 1 January and 31 December 2024.
Good governance needs to be in real time.
The figures show that between 2020, the last year before the introduction of the Irish Sea Border, and 2024, Northern Ireland purchases of GB goods increased from £10,839 billion to £12,945 billion. That constitutes a 19.5% increase in purchases from GB. Meanwhile, during the same period Northern Ireland purchases from the Republic of Ireland increased from £2,189 billion to £3,166 billion. That represents a 45% increase in purchases from the Republic of Ireland.
The figures also show that between 2020 and 2024 sales from NI to GB increased from £6,922 billion to £10,889 billion. That constitutes a 57% increase in sales from NI to GB. Meanwhile, during the same period, Northern Ireland sales to the Republic of Ireland increased from £3,153 billion to £7,756 billion. That represents an increase of 146% in the sale of goods to the Republic.
In reflecting on these figures two points must be made:
First, when one allows for the fact that inflation over the four years 2020 to 2024 sits at around 22%, and the fact that the costs of good entering NI have been further hit by the unique costs of GB to NI border frictions, it is quite possible/likely that we are looking at a real terms cut in NI purchases from GB.
Second, even if we set the above point to one side, it is plain from these figures that rather than trade increasing at a greater rate where one would expect it, namely within the nation state, wherein it can move unfettered without encountering a trade border, we are confronted by something quite different. What we witness, both in terms purchases and sales, is that the rate of increase of Northern Ireland’s trade with the Republic of Ireland is significantly greater than that within our wider home UK economy.
What is Going On?
The figures make sense when one appreciates that the operation of aspects of the Windsor Framework is giving Northern Ireland unfettered access to the Republic of Ireland Internal Market for Goods (that which normally flows from being part of the same country) and fettered access to the rest of our own country, GB (that which normally arises from engagement with a foreign country).
To the extent that assuming the responsibilities of citizenship in terms of paying taxes, being ready to fight in wartime etc, has always come (certainly since the advent of universal suffrage) as part of a package that involves full integration in the internal market of the polity in question, and thus unfettered movement within it, this arrangement is not just controversial because it erodes the economic rights of the people of some UK citizens in our own country. It also involves taking an important step in deconstructing the UK polity, disturbing the UK civic bargain in a way that is highly subversive of our country and its territorial integrity, and constructive of an expansive Republic of Ireland territorial integrity for some purposes.
One can gain an even clearer sense of the difficulty by considering its economic element in civic terms. The fettering of the integration of Northern Ireland in our home economy arises from the EU requirement to protect the integrity of the new single market for goods into which Northern Ireland is being inserted, which is, in its first and most immediate application, an ‘all island of Ireland’ internal market. This internal market is created not by a border but by legislation in 300 areas of law, the integrity of which then needs to be protected through the application of a border that disinherits UK residents in Northern Ireland from full integration with, and thus unfettered access to, our wider home economy.
The means by which the legislation in the 300 areas is created is subversive of the UK, as well as its effect, because it disinherits the people of NI from full integration in the UK as a political community, validated by equal membership and therein equal citizenship. Unlike other UK citizens we can no longer stand for election to make all the laws to which we are subject because the laws creating our Internal Market are simply imposed on us by a foreign Parliament. They are laws we don’t make and can’t change.
All these arrangements place the economic and civic territorial integrity of the UK in jeopardy.
The Trade Figures and Article 16
In this the protections provided by Section 16 of the Windsor Framework are of great constitutional and economic importance. The text of Article states:
‘Article 16 (1)
‘Safeguards
- If the application of this Protocol leads to serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist, or to diversion of trade, the Union or the United Kingdom may unilaterally take appropriate safeguard measures.’
The point about Article 16 is not that if the operation of the Windsor Framework results in serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist, or in the diversion of trade, these must just be absorbed. It means that those who drafted the Protocol, which became the Framework, recognised that its operational impact was unknown and that there are potential risks associated with it. These risks are such that if any of the Article 16 red lines are crossed, the parties agreed it would not be reasonable to expect the consequences of this to be absorbed because doing so would necessitate the violation of the agreed safeguards.
Moreover, in assessing the nature of the Article 16 safeguards, we are confronted with the fact that they provide two levels of protection. It would have been easy for all the safeguards to be qualified as three are by the requirement that in order to be engaged, the difficulty must be ‘serious’ and ‘liable to persist’ but clearly a deliberate decision was made not to qualify one of the safeguards, ‘trade diversion’, in this way. Trade diversion is treated differently so that the safeguard is engaged in the event of any trade diversion. This is expressly highlighted by the deliberate decision not to qualify it in the same way the other safeguards are qualified.
On the basis of the safeguards, without which questions must exist as to whether Parliament would have been prepared to sanction the Windsor Framework, there is now a clear basis for triggering Article 16 because the operation of the Protocol/Windsor Framework is resulting in trade diversion.
Is Article 16 Still Relevant?
At this point some might recall lengthy discussions about Article 16 in 2021.
Were these not abandoned and if so, what is the point of returning to Article 16 now?
In the first 6 months of 2021, there was certainly a lot of talk about the need to trigger Article 16, and indeed it was triggered within the first month by the EU, the only party to have ever done so, although they quickly reversed their decision. In July 2021, as the difficulties associated with the border became more pronounced, the then Conservative Government issued a Command Paper: The Northern Ireland Protocol: The Way Forward. In this document the Government made clear its decision to continue with its unilateral grace periods, which meant that the Northern Ireland Protocol had not been, and never was, fully implemented. It also said that the operational impact of the Protocol was such that the Article 16 safeguards had been violated on a number of bases and that it was now entitled to trigger Article 16. (Paragraph 29 stated that it was: ‘clear that the circumstances exist to justify using Article 16.’) However, at paragraph 36 the Government explained that, notwithstanding the fact that it had grounds to trigger Article 16, it was instead proposing new talks with the EU in an effort to find a consensual way forward.
The EU responded by publishing a series of ‘Non-Papers’ on 13 October 2021. If one reads them, it is clear they form the basis for what became the Windsor Framework. In this context the Government had to wait until the changes proposed by the non-papers were given a chance to come into effect to see whether they provided a means of delivering the Irish Sea border within the Article 16 safeguards, without trade diversion. Although the Windsor Framework was announced in February 2023, it was not until the October that the first part of the Framework was introduced, and so assessment of its impact could not commence until the publication of the 2023 trade figures in December 2024. These figures demonstrated that during 2023 purchases from the Republic of Ireland, that were unfettered, increased at twice the rate of fettered purchases from GB, a state of affairs that was, as Dr Esmond Birnie pointed out in the Belfast Newsletter, ‘highly indicative of trade diversion.’
Challenging the Government on Trade Diversion
I then secured a debate in Parliament and pointed out that the implementation of the first adjustments made to try and maintain the operation of the Protocol (now renamed the Windsor Framework) within its own safeguards, had not fixed the trade diversion problem. In fact, the problem seemed to be getting worse. In this context I argued that the Government should trigger Article 16. The Secretary of State’s response was very disappointing and wholly irrelevant. He said: ‘I would just make the point that if one goes to the port, the lorries come off and most of them go on their way—the goods are moving’.
Clearly if lorries could not move across the border that would be a huge problem, but that is not the ‘problem threshold’ set by Article 16 which rather than being concerned with ‘trade cessation’ is instead concerned with ‘trade diversion.’ The problems associated with the Secretary of States’s attempts to raise the Article 16 threshold so dramatically are compounded on two bases:
First, quite apart from the fact that the wording of Article 16 plainly deals with trade diversion rather than trade cessation, it would in any event be absurd to suggest that Article 16 has a trade cessation threshold because Article 16 is supposed to provide some reassurance about the continued place of NI in the UK. In a context where, unless there is a war (and sometimes even when there is a war), trade continues to flow to some degree between completely different sovereign states, notwithstanding the need to negotiate a customs and international SPS border, the assurance Northern Ireland, and indeed the wider UK, sought in Article 16 is not that lorries will continue to move. Northern Ireland is not a foreign country in relation to which a commitment against trade cessation could be made relevant. Rather it is an assurance to a single country, the United Kingdom, that the provision of the Windsor Framework will not be permitted to result in a division between two parts of our United Kingdom, Great Britain and Northern Ireland, such that this gives rise to trade diversion.
Second, this presents a real consistency problem for the Secretary of State because he has recently made so much of his commitment to upholding thresholds. Although when selling the ‘Stormont Brake’ much was made of the fact that it would ‘fix the democratic deficit’, when announcing his decision not to allow the Assembly’s only attempt to pull it, the Secretary of State explained that the scope for its deployment is actually very limited because of its high threshold, the requirements of which had not been met on that occasion. His attentiveness to the definition of the Brake threshold is no doubt commendable but he cannot cherry pick his thresholds without his actions effectively becoming discriminatory if he dutifully follows them when the effect is to disadvantage unionists and then equally ignores them when the effect is again to disadvantage us.
The Secretary of State also resisted triggering Article 16 on grounds that implied this would give effect to an improper unilateralism and be contrary to the agreement. This is plainly absurd because it ignores the fact that Article 16 is a critical part of the Windsor Framework that acknowledges that it is possible that the implementation of the agreement might have some negative consequences. Moreover, it states that if it does so in the four areas specified, to the thresholds specified, derogation proceedings can be commenced. If the Secretary of State is fully committed to the agreement, then he must be fully committed to Article 16, its red lines and the fact that, having contradicted the trade diversion safeguard, we must recognise that even the amended Protocol, the Windsor Framework, is now broken, openly failing in its own terms.
Even more extraordinary was the response of the Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs, Daniel Zeichner, when I raised trade diversion during another debate on 23 June. He did not try to change the goal posts by pretending ‘trade diversion’ means ‘trade cessation’ but rather effectively confirmed that the Government was happy to allow the Windsor Framework to operate recklessly outside its own safeguards. The Minister said that the Government would trigger Article 16 ‘only in the event of a massive distortion to trade”.—[Official Report, Commons, First Delegated Legislation Committee, 23/6/25; col. 10.]
Challenging the Government on the 2024 Figures
In moving on from the 2023 to the 2024 trade figures we are now confronted with the fact that things are getting worse. They plainly demonstrate a process of trade diversion wherein the economic life of Northern Ireland – both in terms of purchases and sales – is being gathered up into that of the Republic of Ireland at a significantly greater rate than its integration is being confirmed by comparable measures in relation to the rest of the UK.
Thus, the Irish Sea Border is drawing Northern Ireland increasingly out of the UK Internal Market and into an all-Ireland economy, the necessary prerequisite for the break-up of the UK and formation of an all-Ireland polity by stealth.
The economic foundation of the nation is being changed beneath our feet.
In this context there is now an urgent imperative for the Government to ‘fully and faithfully’ operate the Windsor Framework within the parameters of it ‘safeguards’ which cannot be ignored without wilfully allowing the Windsor Framework to fail in its own terms. Indeed, this imperative is compounded by the wider requirements of international law.
The Declaration on Principles of International Law, Friendly Relations and Co-operation among states in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations states:
‘Every State shall refrain from any action aimed at the partial or total disruption of the national unity and territorial integrity of any other State or country.’
And
‘Where obligations arising under international agreements are in conflict with the obligations of Members of the United Nations under the Charter of the United Nations, the obligations under the Charter shall prevail.’
In this context the intervention of the EU27 to divide the UK in two through the imposition of a customs and international SPS border, is undermining our national unity, as it relates to our national economy, by means of trade diversion, and is, as such, contrary to international law because it disrupts UK unity and territorial integrity.
Moreover, lest anyone should try to argue they can get away with ignoring this because it is international law, and not binding in our domestic courts, two points should be made. First, the EU boasts about its commitment to international law. Second, Article 1 of the Windsor Framework, which although international law has been incorporated into UK law (along with Article 16), holds the whole Windsor Framework accountable to a series of ‘objectives’, including ‘This Protocol respects the essential State functions and territorial integrity of the United Kingdom.’ Article 1 (2).
Conclusion
In concluding, it is important to return to my introductory point that the ‘new data’ is already 14 months out of date and also pause to anticipate the likely government response to my argument.
In assessing the need to trigger Article 16 in the round we must ask what current trade diversion data would be likely to reveal. The truth is that the period between the end of 2024 and today has not been any old 14 month period, but 14 months that have involved the rapid construction of the Irish Sea border. During that time we have seen the arrival of the Parcels Border on 1 May 2025, the application of Plant Health Labels to farm machinery movements from June 2025, the termination of the Movement Assistance Scheme from 1 July, the coming into operation of the Border Control Posts from April through to September, the application of the Not for EU labels on a much wider basis from 1 July, the arrival of the Pet medicines border on 1 January 2026, the arrival of the Vehicle Type Approval Border from the end of 2025 etc. We must also factor into our assessment the key finding of the Federation of Small Businesses report ‘Windsor Framework Realities’ published in June 2025 that: ‘Of those who move goods or provide services between Northern Ireland and GB, 34% have halted trade with the other region entirely rather than contend with the Windsor Framework’s demanding requirements.’
Given all the above considerations, we have to assume that today’s (March 2026) trade diversion figures would be much more concerning than those of 2024, rendering the triggering of Article 16 an even more urgent imperative.
Turning to the likely response of the Government, one expects that on this occasion they may want to argue that their EU Reset, dynamic alignment, is the answer. Such an assertion would not stand up to scrutiny. In the first instance, their proposed dynamic alignment SPS-ETS agreement will do nothing to end the division of our country by an international customs border. In the second instance, the proposed SPS agreement does not respect the territorial integrity of the UK. While keeping the Irish Sea Border in place, the purpose of the proposed agreement is to hide it by means of making provision for GB to align exactly with NI EU-imposed laws. Finally, adopting dynamic alignment completely undermines Brexit, which was supposed to be concerned with ‘taking back control’, not ‘giving more control away’. The problem with EU membership was our limited voice in EU law making and the fact we could be overruled. In response to this the purpose of Brexit was to ‘take back control’. Under dynamic alignment, though, the whole UK would embrace absurdity because rather than taking back control, we would have to give much more of it away, agreeing to submit to EU laws in the making of which we have no voice whatsoever. This is an indignity to which Northern Ireland has been subject since 2021.
Moving forward the solution to these presenting difficulties is for the Government to trigger Article 16 and adopt Mutual Enforcement as set out by the EU Withdrawal Arrangements Bill. This provides the means of protecting the integrity of both the EU Internal Market for Goods and the UK Internal Market for Goods, without an Irish Sea Border, or the introduction of a hard border across the island of Ireland.
Jim Allister KC MP
Leader of the TUV
Member of Parliament for North Antrim
